Rise of the Zombie

   Rise Of The Zombie


  In this post I will be discussing the Bollywood film "Rise of the Zombie". I will be talking about the genre. I will be explaining how you can see, in the cinematography, what production context the film fits in.

     'Rise of the Zombie' has a hybrid genre of both horror and romance because although the film is about zombies, and it includes the typical dark lighting, gore, scenes that make you jump and woodland locations, it is also about a man trying to get to his girlfriend whom he is in love with. When 'Neil Parker' attacks a man in his zombie form, he pulls out the mans heart, this instantly shows that the film is a horror. The romance side of this film is shown at the beginning when Neil and Vinnie are together in love, and throughout the film as Neil is trying to get to Vinnie after they move apart. You see flashbacks that Neil has of the couple together when they were still with each other, and how Neil is always trying to contact Vinnie showing that he is constantly thinking about her. Vinnie also spends time trying to find Neil once she discovers how much she loves him. This genre of romance is mostly a sub-genre because Bollywood films will always have a storyline based on two characters that are in love.

  The production context for 'Rise of the Zombie' is quite obviously a Bollywood production, simply because of the music used, the location, and the large amount of sponsors it took to make this movie.

The music used at the start of this film is the typical music that you will find in all Bollywood productions; it is because of their culture in India to why it is so popular in their films. Hearing this music instantly lets the audience know that the film is a Bollywood production, not only because it is typically known to be played in the Indian culture, but because if you were to watch a Hollywood or British production, you would be a lot less likely to hear this music. Other than the music used in the film, you could tell it was a Bollywood production as the amount of sponsors listed at the beginning. Due to Bollywood not having large budgets to make their films, they get a lot of their money from other companies sponsoring them and by using product placement. Some of the products that were used in this film were a MacBook, Nikon camera and a Converse shirt. The more shots of these products the more money the production got. Also you could see that this was a Bollywood production because of the lack of special effects and major Hollywood stars. Again, because of the low budget, it is difficult to afford the best Hollywood actors/actresses and have the best special effects in their films.

    The main star in this film is Luke Kenny; he is a well-known actor in Bollywood productions and is also the director of this film. By being both a main star and the director, his film will get a lot more publicity, from people who are a fan of his acting, and the other people who are a fan of his directing. This is used in other production contexts as well as it is a good way to make more money from a film. 

    The narrative for 'Rise of the Zombie" is a man breaking up with his girlfriend and leaving, then slowly becoming a zombie. This is a very simple narrative, not only is it typical for a Bollywood film as there is always a narrative about two people being in love, but it is also easy to make happen with such a low budget. There wasn’t an apocalypse like in 'World War Z', so there wasn’t any need to pay for so many background artists and other actors to become zombies. By only showing Neil becoming a zombie it worked out a lot cheaper. Also they don’t have the money for the technology that would be usefully to make it look like there were a lot of zombies, and still make it look realistic.

    The dialog in 'Rise of the Zombie' is like the dialog used in 'World War Z' as they are both formal, and do not contain a lot of strong language. Because Bollywood make so many films, and they want to make this one successful, by using language that is acceptable to be witnessed by all age ranges, it means more people can watch it, therefore making it more money.

     Bollywood films don’t follow the 7 spheres of characters that Propp had his theory of. This is because the narrative is always about two people who love each other, so its always focused mainly on those two people. 'Vinnie' is considered the hero as towards the end of the film she does all she can to find 'Neil', and 'Neil is the prince as he has become missing and a zombie, so he needs to be found.

     Throughout 'Rise of the Zombie' you could see that digital effects were used, but because of the low budget the Bollywood production had, you could see that the CGI didn’t look realistic. For example, when 'Neil' pulled the heart out from a man it wasn’t scary or gory as it was just CGI without anything to back it up, and it wasn’t done very well. Although media make up was used to keep the budget down, it didn’t look as good as it did in 'World War Z' as they had some CGI over the top to make it seem more realistic.