Undead Apocalypse Vampires and Zombies in the 21st Century

by Abbott, Stacey

• ISBN13: 9781474438377
• ISBN10: 1474438377
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2018-03-01
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

Twenty-first-century film and television is overwhelmed with images of the undead. Vampires and zombies have often been seen as oppositional: one alluring, the other repellant; one seductive, the other infectious. With case studies of films like I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, as well as television programmes like Angel and The Walking Dead, this book challenges these popular assumptions and reveals the increasing interconnection of undead genres. Exploring how the figure of the vampire has been infused with the language of science, disease and apocalypse, while the zombie text has increasingly been influenced by the trope of the 'reluctant' vampire, Stacey Abbott shows how both archetypes are actually two sides of the same undead coin. When considered together they present a dystopian, sometimes apocalyptic, vision of twenty-first-century existence.

Author Biography

Stacey Abbott is a film and television scholar at the University of Roehampton. Her research focuses on the horror genre and the gothic in film and television, with a particular specialism in both vampires and zombies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Needing to know the plural of apocalypse
1: The Legacy of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend
2: 'Cancer with a Purpose': Putting the Vampire Under the Microscope
3: The Second Rising: The Resurgence of the Cinematic Zombie
4: A Very Slow Apocalypse: Zombie TV
5: The Hybrid Hero
6: 'Be Me': I Vampire/ I Zombie
7: How to Survive a Vampire Apocalypse: or, what to do when the vampires are us
Afterword: They Walk Among Us: Vampires and Zombies Popular Culture
Filmography
TV Guide
Work Cited