Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later as the Cultural Products - Essay Example

The late ’70s and the early ’80s was the period where there were many innovations in the field of special effects make-up which is backed by new generation make-up artists (Schneider, 2004). This was clearly seen in the movie dawn of the dead. The movie depicted extreme graphic violence wherein the mutilations and physical wounds were picturized convincingly and to perfection than ever before. The picturization of zombies in the movie is depicted in a gore manner. The violence in the movie is also intense and the director plays around with the emotions of the audience. Director develops a bond between the lead actors and then situations are created wherein the lead actors are required to make choices to kill the other.

This multiplies the horror for the audience as they now identify themselves with the character.   On the other hand, 28 days later is low on visual violence. Even though the movie was made in an era with much more advanced technology, the director has not made an effort to use extreme graphics to highlight or depict horror. Instead, the director creates situations and instances where he uses emotion as a tool to translate horror into the minds of the audience. Director has done a great job in using emotion to intensify the horror when compared to Dawn of the dead.

The movie also has a positive feeling associated with it. The movie builds on human emotion and tries to convey a positive message to the audience. In doing so, the movie drops a little on the horror quotient when compared to the dawn of the dead. Even though both the movies belong to the same genre and are based on similar concepts, they both are made in different ways and use different tools to depict horror. To conclude on the horror quotient, Dawn of the dead is more horrifying than 28 days later.

The reason for this is that the former is more visually violent compared to them later. And also the former portrays negativity throughout the movie and the future of the lead characters wherein the latter tries to give hope and ends on a positive note. Both the movies depict violations of various social norms like gender and other social categories.