My Favorite Film Image Analysis

My favorite choice of scene from my horror research is from THE CRAZIES. In this scene both the stereotypical good-looking strong male protagonists are using a phallic weapon (a gun) to protect their female friends this connotes male power and their ability to protect. The women are wearing light blue this symbolizes their innocence and purity. The historical context of this film with there being some sort of virus that is causing the people to go crazy is embedded into people’s fear of diseases such as swine/ bird flu which cause mass suffering and death.  I like how in this scene the audience is presented with the final girl being blond and this turns character stereotypes around as she should be the female victim, the brunet that she is protecting is actually the female victim who is an intelligent student (Propp).  

Dawn of the Dead (2004) Image Analysis

In this scene the audience is presented with a close up shot of the death of the female victim, the female victim dies in a way that is not expected within this film, because it is a zombie film we as an audience expect her to die through being eaten, however she is killed by accident by the gay man in the narrative when there truck crashes. I like this because it is much more horrific than just being eaten. In this scene her blood it extremely red fake, unlike in the first dawn of the dead where the gore was drawn out, the gore in this dawn of the dead is faster but more horrific, because it happens faster it adds to the panic without making it difficult to watch. Her death is something that is generic of the horror genre (Thomas Shatz) and this would please fans of the genre as it would have been something they were waiting for through the film. 

Dawn of the Dead (2004) Image Analysis

In this scene the audience is presented with the cast within the elevator, this scene is a really good example of the collision cutting within the films because it goes from having fast cuts with match on action shots and dramatic music with the characters running away from zombies to suddenly having them all standing with one long cut with calm background music, it comes across as ironic and also builds suspense within the scene. I also like how within this scene we have the character stereotypes all together with their characters personality so strong (Propp).  The non-typical final girl who has blond hair is in the center of the shot, dominating the shot with a powerful pose with her hands on her hips. The typical female victim is showing of her neck and flicking her hair, she is also heavily made up. The male heroes are on the far right and far left of the shot they both look to be deep in thought but not center of attention; they are both good looking typically strong men. 

Image Analysis Dawn of the Dead (2004)

In this scene that is presented to the audience within the opening credits we can see a news reporter reporting on the infection or virus. This pulls on the historical context of bird flu and the phobia that society had at the time of a super bug (bird flu foot and mouth etc.). It is also however through historical context tapping into the fear of the Middle East because of the backdrop he is reporting from, this also suggests that the ‘illness’ came from here, at the time England and America were still recovering from 9/11. Because of the use of the male good looking anchor that at the end of the scene gets attacked by the zombies it suggests that even powerful people of authority and celebrity were not as powerful as they thought, they were involved and vulnerable.   Because this scene is presented in the form of a news report it suggests that it is real and is something to be fearful of. 

Practice Shot List

Health and Safety for Trailer

Props List for trailer