Zombie horror films.

Zombie Horrors.

Most zombie horror films start with absolutely no explanation for how it became a zombie apocalypse and what may of happened to make there be ravenous dead people running around eating other people. Instead of giving an explanation for why these mindless zombies are running around killing people films like Zombieland and Dawn of the dead have absolutely no explanation for the zombies at all and instead the films go straight into very gory violence that normally introduces our main character. 

It is very typical for our protagonist to seem very nerdy and be a very unlikely survivor within the world of zombies, in the case of Zombieland we are introduced to Columbus who is a skinny nerdy looking character who does not look as though he would be able to hold his own in a fight because he doesn't have any muscle, In Dawn of the dead we are introduced to Ana who is a young Blonde skinny woman, which stereo typically would need saving by a stronger male because they are seen as being weaker than men. In 28 days later the main character wakes up after being in hospital and walks around the deserted streets of London wondering where everyone has gone (which again  gives no explanation for why there are zombies).

Obviously these characters would probably not survive on there own throughout a whole film length and they would need to find a badass muscly character who at first hates our protagonist but realizes overtime that you know what they aren't that bad, this badass character will be shown to have a soft side as well that you didn't expect. In the case in Zombieland Tallahssee is seen as being a very strong miserable badass who hates everyone but gets immense pleasure out of killing zombies however he is seen to have a sad past when he talks about how the zombies killed his dog.In 28 days later Jim finds Naomie who his not what you'd expect a typical badass to look like but for a while she odes help Jim out, until Jim has the strength later on in the film to save Naomie.

In most zombie films its not just the zombies that our protagonist and badass sidekick will have to look out for because in the majority of zombie films they find an evil human who plans on either killing our protagonist or being an overall inconvenience in some way or another. In The case of Zombieland Columbus and Tallahassee find Wichita and Little rock who steal their car and guns twice, however in this case they end up becoming friends and killing Bill Murray by accident together. In 28 Days later Jim and Naomie find Major Henry who plans on getting his men to rape Noamie and Hannah who is only about 14 in the film.

In the majority of Zombie films there ends up being a very dodgy romance story that would never happen unless there was a zombie apocalypse in the case of Zombieland Columbus ends up getting with Wichita after he saves her at the end of the film from a massive amount of zombies that come to the amusement park that they were at. In 28 days later Jim ends up getting with Naomie after he saves her from Major Henry and the rapist soldiers.

Most Zombie films end with a big fight scene where they kill many many zombies and there is so much 'zombie slaying' that will probably make you feel sick from the amount of guts and blood that you see being thrown all over the screen. This is obviously a major audience pleasure for a fan of zombie films as they are going to want to see as many zombies killed and/or humans killed by zombies as possible. I've linked the final battles for Zombieland below.

Zombieland final fight - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz2_sA1RxJY
The walking dead farm fight scene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MMUnaV7j8

I think that most audiences who watch zombie horror films do not particularly  care for an over the top plot or an explanation for why there are zombies running around they mostly just want death and a lot of it. They want some violence, some gore, maybe some romance but not a lot of it.

Mise-en-scene

• The typical costumes that we would expect the characters or the zombies to be wearing would be like ripped old dirty clothes depending on how long it is supposedly been since the apocalypse began.

• The typical setting of a zombie film would be mostly city based as thats where the higher populations would be and thus have more zombies.

• Some typical props would be Guns, Knives and maybe creepy stuff like chains or teddy bears for child zombies.

• There tends to be very monotone colour dark yellows and light browns to create this feeling of death. 

Sound

• We hear a lot of diegetic sound such as gun shots,  zombies groaning or bullets penetrating the skin of a zombie being burst.
• Non Diegetic sound such as music would probably be quite intense music with a heavy drum beat to make it very suspenseful. 

Editing

• Most zombie films would start with not really much cuts it would start slow and introduce us to our main character.
• As the film goes on and there is our be all and end all fight the cuts become more frequent and it speeds up the action. 
• There could be a few shot-counter shots as our protagonist would maybe see his/hers first zombie.

Camera 

• There is a lot of establishing shots to show the masses of zombies that can be around or in an area.

Here are some critic reviews for Zombieland:
'Horiffically Hilarious! Fun, Funny, and Scary!

This is a great, original comedy. It made me laugh out-loud many times. But it was VERY scary with lots of zombie violence and gore, the type you'd see in 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead. If you've seen Shaun of the Dead you'll get an idea of what this is like: hilarious, but scary and graphically gory. PARENTS: kids will be freaked out by some jump scenes and a zombie clown (I'm not even afriad of clowns and it scared the crud out of me)! Very gory, almost gruesomely so, but very funny. If you can handle lots of graphic gore and a zombie clown (who doesn't show up for very long; only one scene, but it's freaky), then you should enjoy this awesome comedy. Thanks for reading - Movie Man'

In most zombie horrors Claude Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposition can be applied as it is mostly dead vs alive. With the zombies being dead and whatever group of surviving people against them.