This scene is when
there is a zombie on the way to attack Peter and Stephen is unsuccessfully
trying to shoot the zombie. However, he fails to do so and Roger pushes him out
of the way and takes over. In this shot, a phallic symbol has been used to show
the masculinity of the characters and how they are using guns. This shows how
the character who we would most expect to be the male hero in this film is
actually terrible with a gun and has no idea what he is doing. He continues to
be inept throughout most of the film even though he is tall, good looking and a
TV reporter. With this occupation and appearance, he is the typical male hero
but Romero has decided to make him awful in this situation. This is something
that the film's auteur George A. Romero likes to do in his films as he likes to
shock people by flipping the characters around and therefore challenge the
horror conventions. In Romero’s film ‘Day of the Dead’, one of the
zombies is one of the heroes of the film which is another example of his auteur
style and shocking the audience by not adhering to Propp’s Character theory. This
particular shot is a mid-shot which is not an expected convention of a horror
film but works well in this scene as it shows the audience what is happening in
the scene and allows them to fully engage with the characters and what they are
doing. Also, it would be largely irrelevant to use a lot of close ups in a gory
horror because they are mainly used in psychological horrors so we can see
emotion.
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