‘Be Me’: I-Vampire/I-Zombie

This chapter examines the adoption and development of the first person narrative format within vampire, and more recently zombie, film and television. It considers how this trope has contributed to the rise of the sympathetic/romantic vampire figure from the Byronic hero within Polidori’s The Vampyre to Interview with the Vampire and Byzantium and the subsequent rise of the sympathetic zombie. This chapter questions if this first person point of view empties the vampire and zombie of symbolic agency, or manipulates the genre to explore new meanings. It considers how the genres of the vampire and the zombie are increasingly interconnected, moving away from themes of apocalypse and cultural anxiety to explore questions of identity and the self within a changing world, effectively queering the vampire and zombie for new audiences.Case studies include Let the Right One In, Byzantium, Only Lovers Left Alive, Warm Bodies, Colin, and In the Flesh.

The Cinematic Rising: The Resurgence of the Zombie

This chapter discusses how between 2002-2005 a selection of films emerged that sought to re-imagine the zombie film through the lens of 21st century cultural and scientific pre-occupations. The global blockbuster, and critical, success of these films served to launch a renaissance of zombie cinema that continues to dominate contemporary horror films. Like the vampire, the new zombie film has been reconceived through the language of science via discourses of virology and pandemic, but also through the language of 21st century media, in the form of the found footage film. This chapter discusses this new, post-Romero, zombie film in the light of 9/11 and the growing culture of apocalypse that dominates contemporary media. Case studies include [REC], 28 Days Later, Resident Evil, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, and Dawn of the Dead.

They Walk Among Us: Vampires and Zombies in Popular Culture

This chapter offers a brief consideration of the role that the renewed popularity of the vampire and zombie plays within popular culture. Through consideration of the growing popularity of zombie walks, zombie runs, vampire fashion, vampire cosplay, this chapter argues that a fascination with the undead is a response to an unsettling cultural climate in which we are bombarded by the threat of annihilation but also serves as evidence of a cultural appropriation of this apocalyptic threat.

‘Cancer with a Purpose’: Putting the Vampire Under the Microscope

This chapter examines the relationship between the vampire and science from its origins in folklore through to 21st century science-fiction cinema. It considers how the vampire in film has increasingly been re-imagined through the language of science, with a particular emphasis upon discourses surrounding virology, pandemic, contagion, that have played a significant role within the genre’s development. The chapter also considers how the blood of the vampire has, in recent years, increasingly been presented as a cure for human ailments and explore the relationship between this narrative trope and a growing culture of bio-politics and bio-medicine. Case studies include Blade, Twilight, Rise, I Am Legend, Underworld, Daybreakers and Perfect Creature.

The Hybrid Hero

This chapter considers the increasingly prevalent presence of a ‘hybrid’ hero, a hybrid of human and vampire and/or zombie, within 21st century vampire and zombie films and television. Through an examination of a selection of special-effects driven, hybrid horror/science-fiction films, this chapter considers how the hybrid hero celebrates notions of hybridity through the figure of the post-human, or cyborg, hero while also challenging conceptions of racial purity and the controlling doctrines of contemporary bio-politics. These heroes defy accepted behaviour, perceived racial boundaries, physical limitations and the boundaries of the body, reimaging the human as a hybrid form in which the lines between human, machine and monster are blurred. In so doing, they invite the audience to embrace hybridity in all of its forms and see the world through the eyes of the monster. Case studies include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade, Underworld, Ultraviolet and Resident Evil.

Introduction

This chapter argues that not only has the 21st century seen a rise in popularity of the vampire and zombie in film and television but that this period has also witnessed an increased dialogue between these two conceptions of the undead, which highlights symmetry over opposition. This chapter argues that the increased interconnection between vampires and zombies in popular culture is a result of a growing pre-occupation with notions of apocalypse. Rather than simply presenting this development as a response to the events of 9/11, this chapter posits that since the turn of the millennium there has been a growing fascination with the apocalypse within contemporary media, responding to a range of transformative global events. It is through fictions surrounding the vampire and zombie that the trauma of these events is negotiated. Case studies include Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

How to Survive a Vampire Apocalypse: Or, what to Do When the Vampires are Us

This chapter considers how the increasing popularity of the zombie apocalypse text has impacted on the vampire through the rise of a new hybrid genre of the vampire apocalypse narrative, bringing the vampire genre full circle from Matheson’s I Am Legend. This chapter argues that the vampire apocalypse offers an alternative to the sympathetic vampire in which the vampire has once again become monstrous and threatening within a post-apocalyptic landscape. This return to monstrosity is utilized to service an exploration and examination of class stratification and social deprivation, as well as offering an examination of the impact of religious fundamentalism within a post-9/11 world. Case studies include Stake Land, Priest, Daybreakers and Perfect Creature.

A Very Slow Apocalypse: Zombie TV

This chapter examines the role of the zombie within TV horror both in terms of a long established tradition of monster-of-the-week through to the increasingly prevalent place that the zombie plays within contemporary serialised television. This chapter challenges the dismissal of television as an appropriate space for horror and the political allegory often associated with Romero’s zombie films, by presenting a series of case studies in which the TV zombie serves such as narrative and thematic purpose. In particular it considers how the serialized nature of television, exemplified by the soap opera format, is well suited to the zombie narrative in which closure is traditionally denied. It also serves to structure the nature and function of allegory within the televisual zombie format. Case studies include: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, The Walking Dead and In the Flesh.

The Legacy of Richard Matheson’s

This chapter traces the 21st century synergy between vampire and zombie back to Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend, a book that both reinvented the vampire story as science-fiction by reimaging the vampire through the language of science, and served as origin text for the birth of the zombie genre with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Through an analysis of a range of adaptations of Matheson’s novel, including his own script written for Hammer Studios but rejected by the BBFC, this chapter considers how this text marks key transformative moments within the evolution of the horror genre on film.