Not only have zombies and zombie references taken over the United States, the zombie plague is spreading throughout the world and has now finally reached India! There have been few horror films made in India before but now with the sudden zombie craze that has reached the majority of the globe the Indian cinema is getting a bite (pun intended) out of the action.
This year Indian cinema is celebrating 100 years of existence with 3 zombie films that are slated for release. They've realized how large of an audience there is for zombie films in the United States, with the release of Warm Bodies and World War Z this year alone. One of the main concerns that they had about releasing zombie films in India is that they needed to educate Indian audiences about the living dead as there isn't any tails of zombie folklore there and there haven't been any Indian zombie films released before last week. On April 5th the film, "Rise of the Zombie" premiered, the trailer proclaims, "Prepare to witness the ultimate human fear". The director of the film, Luke Kenny, states that their target audience is 18 to 25 and that he believes that most people in that age group already have a knowledge of Hollywood horror films so they didn't need to provide much of a background.
Do you think that zombie films in India will succeed despite the lack of experience with zombie folklore within the country?
Indian films transitioning from this :
This post brings up a very interesting angle that we havent really gotten to study in class, international zombie culture. As you mentioned, zombie culture in the US is a nationwide craze though you dont see many zombie flicks coming from other nations. When I was studying in the UK this past summer there was a Zombie night at a local bar that seemed to be pretty popular with the locals but this interest could have stemmed from American zombie films/literature. I would be interested to see the different levels of interest in zombie lore by country and see what other nations have an enthusiasm for the walking dead.
As mentioned above, this is very interesting because we never got to talk too much into international zombie culture. It will definitely be interesting to see how well this film and others zombie films do in other cultures because it definitely could potentially point out some significant social theories within the media. Especially since bollywood films are so bright, cheery and happy with dancing - maybe the end of "Rise of the Zombie" will feature a thriller-esque dance scene during the credits!?!?