2004’s ‘Shaun of the Dead’ defied specific codes and conventions regarding structuralist attitudes to the horror genre. The comedic take, mixed in with the post-modern attitudes of the film, made it stand out from the crowd and twist the audience’s structuralist views on horror. Taking into consideration Barthes ‘Ball of Threads’ theory, one of the many interpretations of this film could be that it is attacking the mundane daily routine of Londoners; wake up, eat, go to work, come home, watch TV, eat, go to bed and repeat all over again the next day.
The location of the film is shown through a medium shot of a street sign. Clearly being shown that the location of the movie is in the suburbs of London
The group of characters who face the threat together in the film, are of a structuralist view, due to the variety of character types within the group, but simultaneously of a post-modern view because of the character types. Conventionally, in a horror film, you would have a variety of characters such as the jock, the promiscuous girl, the geek etc, whereas in Shaun of the Dead, the character types are different. When faced with another group of allies on their journey to safety, comedic aspects come in to play, as the other group have the exact same character types. This could be interpreted as attacking the conventional characters displayed in horror films and therefore, making it post-modern.
Carol Clover’s ‘Final Girl’ theory is played on a lot throughout the film. As the audience, we consider Liz to be the final girl. Judging this with post-modern attitudes, we can see this is unconventional of the horror genre, as she is blonde, and final girls aren’t normally blonde, as the blonde girls are stereotypically represented as the promiscuous girls and killed early on in the film. Besides this, there is also the way that she is not represented as a feeble, yet lucky female for being the final girl as conventionally, final girls would be; She is presented as a strong, independent female, and even saves main character Shaun from zombies. This is yet again displaying the post-modern approach to horror as a genre in Shaun of the Dead.
In structuralist horror films, the characters attitude to killing would be shocked and stunned that they have been placed in that type of situation, whereas in Shaun of the Dead, the characters have an oblivious, careless attitude to the brutal act of killing zombies. Upon killing their first zombie, the two main characters go straight back to watching TV, drinking tea and eating cornettos, oblivious and careless to what they have just done. This type of post-modern attitude is later contradicted in the film, when serious situations of killing family members, arises. So, whilst having a comedic, post-modern take to the mindless killing they adhere to, the films post-modern attitudes are contradicted by the introduction of a mere slight strucutralist attitude to the horror genre.
To begin with, the characters show a serious lack of emergency to save themselves and get as far away from the zombies as possible; they continue to stand there as the zombies edge closer. In structuralist horror films, the characters would have a huge fear of the opposing enemy, and want to get as far away from them as possible before they catch up with them. Again, this un-structuralist attitude of their lack of emergency is later contradicted in the film, as they slowly get more and more desperate to escape the threat, and hide away in their local pub. The way the zombies are presented in the film is a very stereotypical representation, which balances out the post-modern and structuralist attitudes of the film, as while they have a post-modern ‘fearless’ attitude to the threat at hand, the zombies are stereotypical, paradigms of normal structuralist horror films.
Typical paradigms of weapons for a structuralist horror film would be items such as knives, axes etc. However, with a comedic and post-modern twist to Shaun of the Dead, their choices of weapons are not so conventional of the horror genre. Using pool cues, garden spades, children’s plastic chairs and a pole from the game ‘Swingball’ to kill zombies displays the post-modern attitudes to this film. Comedy aspects are also introduced, when one character kills a zombie with another dead zombies’ leg. The main character, Shaun, also chooses to use a rifle as his choice of weapon. Guns are normally associated with action films, and are therefore still considered a post-modern paradigm for this film. The way in which they use the gun to shoot down the zombies whilst in the pub, could be considered as a metaphorical reading for the western genre, with the pub acting as a ‘saloon bar’, again showing the way this film defies structuralist notions of the horror genre. Similarly, at the start of the film we are shown a more comedic re-enactment of the classic shower scene from Psycho (1960).
Other comedic aspects to the film, which lead it to be of a post-modern approach to horror, include a scene where a zombie is beaten continuously with a bat by 3 characters to the beat of the non-diegetic, upbeat background music. Whilst creating a light-hearted approach to killing, this also shows the way the film doesn’t want to adhere to structuralism. Similarly, the characters acting like zombies to blend in with the real zombies adds to the post-modern, comedy side of the film.
The post-modern approaches to horror in Shaun of the Dead are easily justifiable through paradigms and even character types, but it is the way the film still sticks slightly to the structuralist attitudes, such as sticking to the horror convention of a variety of character types, that makes it a post-modern horror film.
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