Screening the Undead: Vampires and Zombies in Film and Television

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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'.

Author Bio

Leon Hunt is a Senior Lecturer in Film and TV Studies at Brunel University. His books include Kung Fu Cult Masters: From Bruce Lee to Crouching Tiger (2003) and Cult British TV Comedy (2013). He is co-editor of East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film (I.B.Tauris, 2008). Sharon Lockyer is a Lecturer in Sociology and Communications at Brunel University. She is editor of Reading Little Britain: Comedy Matters on Contemporary Television (I.B.Tauris 2010) and co-editor (with Michael Pickering) of Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour (2005, 2009). Milly Williamson is a Senior Lecturer in Film and TV Studies at Brunel University. She is the author of The Lure of the Vampire (2005) and Celebrity: The Making of Fame (forthcoming).