Screening the Undead

The vampire and the zombie, the two most popular incarnations of the undead, are brought together for a forensic critical investigation in Screening the Undead. Both have a long history in popular fiction, film, television, comics and games; the vampire also remains central to popular culture today, from literary 'paranormal romance' to cult TV and movie franchises - by turns romantic, tortured, grotesque, countercultural, a goth icon or lonely outsider. The zombie can shamble or, nowadays, sprint with alarming velocity, and even dance. It frequently lends itself to metaphor and can stand in for fascism or ecological disaster, but is perhaps most frequently a harbinger and instrument of the apocalypse. Leading writers on Horror and cult media consider the sexy vampire and the grotesque zombie, as well as hybrid figures who do not fit neatly into either category. These are examined across a range of contexts, from the Swedish vampire to the Afro-American Blacula, from the lesbian vampire to the gay zombie, from the Spanish Knights Templar riding skeletal horses to dancing Japanese zombies. Screening the Undead sheds new light on these two icons of terror - and desire - whose popular longevity has taken them 'Beyond Life'.

Leon Hunt is the author of British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation (1998), Kung Fu Cult Masters: From Bruce Lee to Crouching Tiger (2003), The League of Gentlemen (2008), Cult British TV Comedy: From Reeves and Mortimer to Psychoville (2013) and Danger: Diabolik (2018) and co-editor of East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film (2008) and Screening the Undead (2014).

Leon Hunt, Sharon Lockyer and Milly Williamson, 'Introduction' Part One: The Mark of the Vampire - Race, Place, Gender, Identity and the Modern Undead 2. Ian Cooper, 'Manson, Drugs and Black Power: The Counter-Cultural Vampire' 3. Stacey Abbott, 'Taking Back the Night: The Female Vampire in New York' 4. Peter Hutchings, 'Northern Darkness: The curious case of the Swedish vampire' 5. Milly Williamson, 'Let Them All In: The Evolution of the Sympathetic Vampire' Part Two: Re-Writing the Living Dead - The Zombie in Popular Culture 6. Jeffrey Sconce, 'Dead Metaphors/Undead Allegories' 7. Russ Hunter, 'Nightmare Cities: Italian zombie cinema and environmental discourses' 8. Emma Dyson, 'Diary of a Plague Year: Perspectives of Destruction in Contemporary Zombie Film' 9. Darren Elliott-Smith, '"Death is the New Pornography!": Gay Zombies, Homonormativity and Consuming Masculinity in Queer Horror' Part Three: Hybrid Bloodlines 10. Costas Constandinides, 'From Mexico to Hollywood: Guillermo Del Toro's Treatment of the Undead and the Making of a New Cult Icon' 11. Nicola Woodham, '"Nollywood, Our Nollywood": Resisting the Vampires' 12. Steve Rawle, 'The Ultimate Super-Happy-Zombie-Murder-Mystery-Family-Comedy-Karaoke-Disaster-Movie-Part-Animated-Remake-All-Dancing-Musical-Spectacular-Extravaganza: Miike Takashi's The Happiness of the Katakuris as 'Cult' Hybrid' 13. Andy Willis, 'Amando de Ossario's 'Blind Dead' Quartet and the Cultural Politics of Spanish Horror'