Generic Conventions used in 28 days later versus Shaun of the Dead

’28 days later’ and ‘Shaun of the Dead’ are both a zombie film, which is a sub-genre of horror. However their genres are extremely different because ‘Shaun of the Dead’ is also a comedy.

Both of these films use typical conventions of the zombie genre. For example, they both use the convention of desertion and loneliness. In ’28 days later’, Jim comes out of the hospital to a completely deserted city (London). This convention helps create unease in an audience, especially when these scenes are set in places that are usually crowded i.e. we expect cities to be full with people and therefore it is very disturbing when we see them completely abandoned. In ‘Shaun of the Dead’ there is dramatic irony as the audience realises there is something wrong a long time before the protagonists do. However this adds to the protagonists’ vulnerability because they will not be expecting anything and therefore will not be prepared.

The unease created by this convention is played on in ’28 days later’ by having several extreme long shots of the city which shows the audience that everywhere is deserted (not just the are where Jim is). The mise-en-scene is extremely important in this scene because props such as abandoned money and an abandoned car make is appear as if everyone has just dropped their possessions and run. This emphasises the feeling that something terrible has happened.

The zombies in each film resemble each other in the way that they are always covered in blood, and (although different in the two films) there is an emphasis on their eyes. In ’28 days later’, their eyes are blood red and this is shown right from the beginning sequence and used throughout the whole film.

Another generic convention that both of the films use is the ide...

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... rushing to save some others, Phillip is saying things like “Do you realise this is a 20mile zone?” Another example is the garden scene where Shaun and Ed are taking time to decide which records to throw at the zombies even though it is a race against time sequence as the zombies are approaching them.

However, in the pub scene, ‘Shaun of the dead’ starts to show a lot more typical conventions of the zombie genre.

In both ‘Shaun of the dead’ and ’28 days later’ there is a typical convention of this genre used, which is that there are only a few protagonists compared to hundreds of zombies. For example when the main characters are left in the pub in ‘Shaun of the dead’, there are silhouettes of hundreds of zombies trying to get in through the doors and windows. The convention of being ‘cornered’ is often used general horror films not just in the sub-genre of zombie.