2. Forms and Conventions

The typical forms and conventions of a zombie horror film are:

Zombies are usually depicted as mindless decaying corpses usually with a hunger for human flesh or brains, however in recent films such as dawn of the dead and 28 days later, the films that inspired our zombie horror, zombies have increased agility.

 Zombies are typically pale and dirty reflecting there death like state and decaying bodies. They're usually covered in blood, around the mouth from were they have eaten human flesh or from injuries from unsuspected victims. 

We have used images from the dawn of the dead to create our zombie in our film, by using fake blood and make up. When editing we will darken some scenes to create suspense and make it more frightening. In the picture above you can see the blood stains around the zombie mouths, and the pale skin, we also added black and red on the teeth to make the zombies teeth more dirty 

The research we have acquired is important because it has enabled us to apply the stereotypically characteristics of a zombie horror into our film. Such as the design of our zombie. Making it more effective as a zombie horror.

Our film production will develop typical forms and conventions as we make a typical zombie horror film. We reinforce the typical convention of a zombie horror film as we have added a slow mindless zombie and, the victim in the horror film if a yound female that is all alone in the dark while a zombie waits for her outside.


In our film we used a variety of different shots, using research to us to develop an array of different scenes to portray a typical zombie film.

In our film we applied a similar scene/shot to create dramatic irony. In this shot we can see a zombie in the background without the character in the foreground knowing. Adding a shot like this in our film will hopefully leave the audience feeling uneasy, as they know that the character is in danger but the character themselves don't. This will leave the audience gripped to their seats anticipating what will happen next. The use of a long/mid-shot will enable to the audience  to see the characters facial expressions and body language so that when something happens to the character the audience will have more of a reaction to what happens. This will reinforce forms and conventions of a horror film, as you would expect the threat to be hidden. Silent but deadly.

Alice our main character reinforces typical forms and conventions of a horror film, stereotypically depicted as a young, vulnerable girl all alone in a house that is supposed to be "safe".

Our zombie character, challenges typical forms and conventions. Our zombie is a small young teenage girl that otherwise would have appeared to be quite harmless. We thought this would be effective as you wouldn't expect a young girl to be that dangerous shocking the audience when the story unfolds.

The average joe house, reinforces forms and conventions, being a stereotypical house that at the end of the day is supposed to keep you safe. When something happens and the character is no longer safe, it will hopefully leave the audience on the corner of there seats and out of there comfort zone.

This images shows inside the house.

Overall i feel that the performance of the acting was very good. Our main character reinforced typical forms and conventions as she portrayed a vulnerable teenage effectively, giving a believable performance that made the audience feel that she was generally terrified by the threat. She illustrated who emotion through facial expressions effectively reacting to the different scenes horror.

The music we used in our film also reinforces the typical forms and convention of a horror film. We built the music up using, strings and then abruptly muted the sound at the point where something scary was going to happen. Increasing the ambient sounds such as breathing and footsteps, and then finally increasing the sound where there would be a bang or a scream, increasing suspense and therefore scarring the audience even more.