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'.