Genre (Zombie Horror)

Genre (Zombie Horror)

The defining features of the text are the antagonists being dead but alive hence zombies, they have decaying bodies.  There are conventions of gore, isolation, group of people fighting for survival, usually the survivors prevail, people turning into zombies, side characters dying and a solution to the problem i.e. antidote or cure for virus outbreak.

There are some hybridity within this genre as within ‘Shaun of the Dead’; it has the genre of comedy amalgamated with a zombie horror genre. The zombie genre also is hybridised with the genre of thriller and also science fiction. 

Texts of the zombie horror genre are culturally influenced through their target audience and their distributors. Examples of this are 28 days later in which is set in Great Britain in London in which is well established throughout the world in which engages the audience to the film as they have a connection to the setting which intrigues and interests the audience. This is culturally influenced through zombie horror texts being made in and set in the modern era, also being set in first world countries such as USA, UK, Japan and Spain. Characters constructed within these texts are culturally influenced as they base characters on stereotypes that the audience sees in everyday life, the reasons for this are to engage the audience within the text, as they can reflect on their past experiences and connections of stereotypical people they have interacted with. Costumes of characters have been culturally influenced through them representing to the stereotypes of people within the country the film is set in. Technology has been culturally influenced within modern texts as some narrative are driven by technology whereas in the historical texts it was more with the culture of black magic of African culture whereas in the modern texts, technology is used within the text such as technology of cloning i.e. Resident Evil extinction. Also technology is used within texts to create cures for the zombie outbreak which is set in high tech science facilities.

The ideologies of the genre contains the typical characters that would be identified in the zombie horror genre in which is the protagonists ( the strong hero ) usually male, the final girl, children are sometimes identified within this small group of survivors , the vulnerable victims that have the following traits such as disabilities, physically weak, not intelligent or just clumsy. There is also the false hero in which betrays the protagonist(s) and the character in which is bitten by the zombie but stays with the group due to their attachment for the character/person but some characters are in disagreement through the infected victim staying with them (usually the false hero). These characters are ideologies of the types of people that will be identified within the zombie horror genre.  Another ideology within the zombie horror genre is the narrative will be similar in which a group of survivors will form together and fight for survival and try to resolve the situation by either finding the cure for the zombie outbreak or travelling somewhere safe that is unaffected by the zombie outbreak in which the survivors slowly get picked off one by one leaving a few survivors. These ideologies of the zombie horror genre are expected by the audience as these ideologies/conventions are constructed in the zombie horror texts in which the narrative and conventions are expected to be slightly differentiated in a new zombie horror text. 

CGI can be used to create more terrifying zombies/creatures which will scare the audience whereas films such as the night of the living dead, the zombies did not look terrifying compared to the zombies in the later films such as REC franchise in which creates more fear for the audience through the detail of the antagonists.

The use of colour cameras, which was not introduced for zombie films until after the release of the night of the living dead, which makes films for the audience look more aesthetically pleasing and makes the film more detailed in which the conventions of zombie horrors contains gore in which makes the gore more visible by using a colour camera, thus making the audience more frightened and experience a sustained unease feeling.

The use of sound effects in which can be used to create sounds for zombies in which will scare and frighten the audience through the zombies being expressed through the sounds them make through the sound effects being included within the visual text, an example being an aggressive zombie roar in which would be hard to create without the technology of sound effects which this effect will scare and unease the audience through them hearing the zombie making a disturbing sound.

For my theatrical trailer, I will include the main usual conventions of the zombie apocalyptic horror genre as the target audience like and expect to see these conventions within the film in which these conventions will be shown within the theatrical trailer to engage the audience within the text and they will want to watch the film when released. These conventions include: isolation, protagonists fighting for survival, antagonists being zombies and the survivors prevailing. 

I will also include fast pace editing supported by fast paced sinister music within my theatrical trailer to reinforce the visceral pleasure of adrenaline and exhilaration for the audience as the target audience are tribe wired and fun-atics which enjoy feeling exhilarated when watching texts of this genre.