1. Zombie land Analysis
1 At a dark gas station, with only the view of the protagonist Who
approaches a bathroom door, the music becomes tense and the
camera switches to the unsure facial expression of the protagonist to
the door, here portrays something dangerous behind the door,
which a zombie runs out, the first jumps care of the movie. This ends
with a humorous chase ending with him crashing a car and ‘double-
tapping’ the zombie.
2 The protagonist meets the next character in the next scene,
Tallahassee who stays with the protagonist throughout the film.
3These two characters set off looking for a ‘Twinkie’ and finally reach
a large store, fight two zombies and meet two female characters
Wichita and Little Rock. These betray the trust of the male characters
at an instance, and after the 2nd
collision of the 4 character’s, they
settle their feud and move on with the rest of the story.
4 This continues towards the house of Bill Murry where the
characters meet Bill Murry himself, ending in an unserious accidental
murder by the protagonist. After a night of bonding of all the
characters, the female characters decide to ditch the male characters
and skip to pacific play land. 5 This leads to the finale as the female
characters become in danger and the male characters must save the
characters, resulting in a happy ending the protagonist winning over
the girl.
Summary of Narrative: 5 act structure mostly linear with some
flashbacks between 4 characters (with minor inputs of secondary
characters)
2. Zombie land adheres to the horror genre as it contains the genre
conventions of jump scares as well as the zombie subgenre
containing zombies, gore and weapons. It also has the generic
conventions of survival. Zombie land also adheres to comedy horror
as intensity is distracted by humiliation of the protagonist.
Misc en Scene – the setting of the film consists of abandoned
vehicles or destroyed infrastructure within the cities and highways of
America. The lighting is mainly day, with some night shots, which
contributes to the humour, as intense horror cannot usually be
performed in the day, removing the fear. Outfits are normal clothing,
suiting the theme of urban survival. Props consist of weaponry
engaging the theme of survival.
Cinematography – shots within conversations stay face to face and
shots transitioning to specific locations have wide shots to view the
setting, such as a house or highway.
Sound & Editing – there is major feature of narration which the
protagonist explains the characters and the rules to surviving zombie
land. This also involves the editing of text which is displayed with the
rules, some of the text is knocked over or given physics even though
it isn’t there within the reality.
Performance – Performance is the key feature which deduces the
horror to comedy horror, the protagonists ‘geeky’ character
performance in comparison to the hard-core characters bring the
humour of humiliation.
Todorov’s theory:
Propp’s theory:
3. Messages and Values – the main messages and values is about
‘sticking together’ and linking to the last rule from the protagonist
(Be a hero) shows that some rules are made to be broken.
Audience – the audience is targeted at teenagers, young adults and
zombie film lovers as the film features teenage love, guns, gore and
zombie survival.
The films purpose is to create a hard-core Zombie film whilst
replacing the intensity with comedy, the combination works well as
the protagonist ‘geek’ contrasts from the other characters and in
humiliation, can bring humour to the film successfully. The film
structure fits with this, being the hero saving the girl, and winning
her over, a basic reliable and successful structure to give the film an
ending.
