Zombieland's Movie Review 2

(Zombieland, 2009)

I decided to redo my Zombieland's movie review as the movie review that I did last week was not my lecturer expected. Today I would like to discuss about another theory, which is Postmodernism as it is more suitable for the film that I need to study, Zombieland. Postmodernism appears as a theory during the sixties and fully incorporated and applied during the seventies till now. It is a theory that have the tendency to be anti-modernism. It posses pessimistic skepticism on modernism and constituting critical analysis on gender, structuralism, ideology. It promotes reflective stands from political, social, cultural agendas and resonance.

Synopsis:

The story had describe that the whole America had became a zombieland as the mutation of mad cow disease. The protagonist was a student and was going to Columbus from Austin to visit his parents. He had a set of rules in order to let him survive. On his way to Columbus, he met Tallahassee who gave him a ride. The protagonist soon found out Tallahassee had a weakness which is Twinkies. They went to a grocery shop and met Wichita who was along with her sister. Wichita and Little Rock had cheated them by taking away all their weapons and Tallahassee's car. They later met the other two again and undergo some problems later. Finally, Columbus found out what he really wants.

Analysis:

The character of Postmodernism includes prefabrication and simulation.

In postmodernism film, images or parts of scenes were fabricated from the earlier film are selected to placed into the new work. In facts, a new film can be made up with previously fabricated footage. The prefabrication can also be separated into two sections too, intertextuality and bricolage. Intertextuality refers to a relation of two or more texts are referenced from one main text. While bricolage was creating a new form of art from the existing resources by genre bending and hybrid genrre. Intertextuality can be seen when Tallahassee was obsessed with Twinkies which has the same personality as one of the character in the film 'Ghostbuster'.

As for the bricolage, from the film we can found out there are more than one genre is existing, such as action, horror, comedy, romance, sci-fi and road film. For the action genre, previously the action film has too many film that the hero has macho posturing of 'one-man-army' like the character Tallahassee who can wipe out the entire population of zombies in the film, and overwhelming special effects, and insane stunts. By the 1980s, the action film became higher cost, more hyperkinetic and violent to produce. So many of the films have morphed into other genre areas. Since then, many films have started to incorporate the action genre into their respective genres by allowing the action film to morph into other genres. There are other kinds of hero were invented in order to morph into respective genres. Columbus is the modern type of hero that uses brain to fight which his character is nerdy, scrawny, smart and coward. In order to let him survive in the zombieland, he had set a list of strategic rules, by having one of the rules 'double tapping' to make sure the zombie is dead. Wichita is a femme fatale, female hero that used her sexuality and intellect to survive in zombieland. She had cheated Columbus and Tallahassee by taking away their weapons and cars. Little Rock is a small little girl that is cunning. She would use her innocence to cheat people for her own goal, like she had cheated Columbus and Tallahassee with Wichita. There are also some scenes can be counted as action genre, such as the opening of the film, the double tap rule set by Columbus, the kill of the week that Columbus and Tallahassee discussed, the chasing scene and the fight scene appears almost every time they met zombies.

For the horror genre, it refers to the film has the purpose of frightening the audience who watch the film. There is some subgenres for the horror which are unnatural, psychological and massacre or slasher flicks. Zombieland hadd used the subgenre of unnatural which included the zombies. Under the category of unnatural the elements in this film is obviously the zombies and the bloody scene which contain not only blood but also gore that go along with the mad cow disease as the external threat in the film. We can see the element of frightening from the scene when the protagonist wanted to go toilet at the gas station, the zombie suddenly rushed out from the toilet. Another scene for the horror genre is that when Columbus woke up and found out that his neighbor, 406 had been zombified after he let her in to his room, the chasing scene then happened.

For the sci-fi genre, it is a genre of a speculative fiction, typically dealing with the imaginatives concept of futuristic science and technology, time travel, parallel universe, etc. Sci-fi genre always has the concept of dystopia, an imaginary placed or state is under unpleasant situation and typically the environment is degraded, which the film has the same concept too. The film also consists of post apocalyptic by the mutation of human into zombie, which means the viral outbreak. It also is a genre that inclined to male skepticism which often describe feminism threatening patriarchy. This we can refer to the scenes where Wichita and Little Rock cheated others in order to survive.

For the comedy genre, it is the film that is designed to bring laughter to the audience. It normally revisit and poke the fun of daily social and cultural frustrations. Sometimes, the political commentary is also embedded in the films as a joke too. This gives some form of escape. The types of comedy genre that used in this film is the black or dark comedy. Black comedy usually are something that is so wrong but you just find it is really funny. We can refer this to the scene that Tallahassee and Columbus just arrived the Pacific Playland to rescue Wichita and Little Rock. When they first arrived, Tallahassee shot the zombies and then later used the car ran over the bodies of the zombies due to make sure that zombies were dead.

For the romance genre, it is the love story or the affair of heart that centers on emotion, passion and the romantic, involvement of affectionate between the main characters. Many romantic films did not have fairy tale, wistful thinking and happy ending, although loves serves a shield to the harshness of the real world. (“Romance films,” 2017) Usually the scenario would be 'the boy meets the girl', such as Columbus first meet Wichita at the grocery shop and he thought she was another marriageable woman to take back to visit his parents. Characters end up in their separate way due to arguments and disagreements, such as Wichita said she and her sister will do everything to survive and the next day she drove the car away without letting Tallahassee and Columbus know. Finally they both reunite, when Columbus went to rescue Wichita at the Pacific Playland and happily ever after like any romance film (94, 2011).

For the road film, normally it has been a staple of American films from the very start. The thing in common for the road films are usually an episodic journey or quest on the open road, to search escape or to engage in a quest for some goals. Road films are usually a testing ground or proving ground for the main characters. (“Road films,” 2017) The road film scene in the film had shown us the bonding between the four main characters was gradually became stronger. The scene when they were heading to the Pacific Playland, they were taking turns to drove the car and during that period they were talking freely to others. Besides, Columbus felt free even though they were still suffering.

The simulation can be separated into two sections which are parody and pastiche. Parody is a new work is born out of previous work with different style, in an attempt to mock. While pastiche is a new work that is born out an imitation of previous work, in an attempt to respect. The movie has applied the parody by having the scene that Wichita, Tallahassee and Bill Murray were playing the roles of the characters in 'Ghostbuster'.

Conclusion:

As a conclusion, the film 'Zombieland' had used the theory of post modernism by having the intertextuality, having the reference of 'Ghostbuster', bricolage, having various kinds of genre in it, including horror, comedy, action, romance, sci-fi and road film, and parody, having the scene that characters played the role of the characters in 'Ghostbuster'.

This film is quite interesting to watch as it is not pure horror movie but also contain comedy, let the film not so scary. In the time giving us the element of scary, but also bringing laughter to us. This kind of film is quite popular due to it has a larger segment of customers as it can include the customers who want to watch comedy, the customers who want to watch horror and also the customers who want to watch horror but scare.

References:

Hayward, S. (2012). Cinema studies: The key concepts (4th ed.). New York: Taylor & Francis.

Romance films. (2017). Retrieved February 20, 2017, from film site, http://www.filmsite.org/romancefilms.html

94, suji. (2011, January 17). Typical conventions of romance. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from SlideShare, http://www.slideshare.net/suji94/typical-conventions-of-romance

Road films. (2017). Retrieved February 20, 2017, from film site, http://www.filmsite.org/roadfilms.html

Reitman, I. (Director). (1990). Ghostbusters (1984) - synopsis