bollywood horror

Rise of the Zombie Bollywood Production Context

Within this blog post I shall be discussing Rise of the zombie and how it fits into the Bollywood production context. I shall also explore how this production context relates to the genre and how that production context has affected the outcome of the film.

Rise of the zombie is a unique Bollywood film and the first zombie film from there I have seen. Its genre is still deeply connected with the core aspects of Bollywood films, that being about romance and love etc. The core story is about a man who splits up with his girlfriend and goes on a photography trip to clear his head. During said trip he is bitten by a bug and begins to slowly turn into a zombie. The film features a lot of cross cutting to give the perspective of the “zombie” and his loved ones. This is a feature of the movie which is most unusual when compared to similar movies of a different production context such as Hollywood. We’re strongly encouraged to usually follow a single hero character or group around during the entire movie.

With this film we have a strong “drama” feel with the cross cutting to and from locations. I believe the target audience of this movie is quite clear, although the movie is a zombie film in terms of horror and Gore the film is quite tame at times. Bollywood is quite centred on romance and musical films so I believe the reason for a lack of Gore is to prevent that audience being turned away from the common aspects and conventions that they are usually expecting to see from a Bollywood film. Other areas which show the Bollywood context is through the use of music and how it reflects what’s happening on screen. Many Bollywood films feature a music video-esque type scene where the characters usually break out and dance. This film doesn’t actually feature any scenes like that however it still has the uplifting romantic music which we can commonly find in most Bollywood films. I believe the film was created this way in order to appeal to a western audience but to also stay true to its Bollywood origin.

The context of this film is further shown through its apparent budget, as Bollywood doesn’t generate as much money as Hollywood we see a large amount of sponsors at the beginning of the movie that have helped contribute towards the films production. The movie also only features two key locations throughout, the forest and the city. This would have saved a large amount of money. If we compare this movie to World War Z which is from a Hollywood context we can see incredibly drastic differences in budget. Here we a have a fairly straight forward film with a minimal approach to “horror” special effects. On the other hand we have a Hollywood film that uses the latest in CGI technology to create this entire “world” affected by a virus outbreak. World War Z uses incredibly intricate visuals to help sell this idea to the audience.  Rise of the zombies only features one main character that is affected by the zombie virus which obviously keeps expenditure down.

Post production is the primary factor in what makes this film a horror, especially with the use of flash backs as the zombie sees his past life. This type of editing is a fairly cheap method of creating that visual aesthetic that we usually associate with horror films. The film also has an incredibly western looking Bollywood actor which further shows how this production context is trying to emulate the conventions of western cinema.

Overall this film isn’t immediately seen as being a Bollywood film especially when compared to what Bollywood usually produces. It’s evident that this film is attempting to break into a wider western audience.