Dawn of the Dead (2004): Image analysis 1

This title screen from Dawn of the Dead (2004) shows perfectly how Zack Snyder is using the historical context and zeitgeist to scare the modern day horror fan. With the film being realised in 2004 it shows how Snyder is using the tension in the Middle East to show the world crumbling. The film is set just 3 years after 9/11, where the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York shocked the whole world. So the audience’s greatest fear at the time would be threat of an attack from an Islamic terrorist group. So they use the iconography of the Muslim religion showed the audiences that these are where the threat is coming from. Using the historical context worked very well for Snyder has this is what now scares people the most. Also blending that with a ‘virus’, which has become a fear since the rise of swine flu, bird flu etc. Also the biblical fear of ‘Armageddon’ generates the scares for the modern audiences. This is a perfect example of Janet staiger theory of Audience Studies (from her book Interpreting Films). This is when the movie uses the context to shock the audiences. Another example of this is Hitchcock uses of Ed Gein’s characteristics in his character Norman Bates in Psycho. Ed Gein was the first really serial killer case to be shown on tv. America was all in shocked over the same event at one single time. Everybody knew about it, everybody talked about it. Ed Gein was arrested in 1957, 3 years before Psycho. So when Bates had all the characteristics of Gein audiences were much more scared of him. They whole of America had one shared fear, Hitchcock brought that alive on screen. Just like Snyder did the more it relates to real issues of the time, the more of a scare it will deliver.