The Living and the Undead: Slaying Vampires, Exterminating Zombies

By Gregory A. Waller

Book Overview

With a legacy stretching back into legend and folklore, the vampire in all its guises haunts the film and fiction of the twentieth century and remains the most enduring of all the monstrous threats that roam the landscapes of horror. In The Living and the Undead, Gregory A. Waller shows why this creature continues to fascinate us and why every generation reshapes the story of the violent confrontation between the living and the undead to fit new times. Examining a broad range of novels, stories, plays, films, and made-for-television movies, Waller focuses upon a series of interrelated texts: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897); several film adaptations of Stoker's novel; F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (1922); Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954); Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot (1975); Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979); and George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1979). All of these works, Waller argues, speak to our understanding and fear of evil and chaos, of desire and egotism, of slavish dependence and masterful control. This paperback edition of The Living and the Undead features a new preface in which Waller positions his analysis in relation to the explosion of vampire and zombie films, fiction, and criticism in the past twenty-five years.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252077725
• ISBN13: 9780252077722
• Release Date: August 2010
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A serious PHD look at one of my favourite genres...

This is one extremely comprehensive book that examines the literary and film examinations of the undead since 1897 - 1979. Gregory Waller looks at the sociological overtones of vampires and zombies, why they are so affecting to the reader/viewer, how they relate to the wider world, parables, trends etc etc. The book covers a broad range, from the obvious entries of original "Dracula" and the masterful "Dawn of the Dead" (they're both cited on the cover), the various remakes and rewrites of Stoker's original tale by Hammer and Herzog, Salem's Lot, The Last Man on Earth, the fantastic "I Am Legend" (which basically rewrote the rules for so many horror/sci fi books and films in the years to come), before rounding out the book with Romero.The book benefits from the abundant use of quotes and several pages of photos, including ones from Nosferatu (both 1922 and 1979), Dracula (1931 and 1979), Hammer, Night of the Living Dead and Dawn. As stated in the review title, I wouldn't be surprised if this was Mr Waller's PHD topic, as this has to be the most in-depth analysis' on the undead I have ever seen and it sometimes 'leans' with it's views... Some people may be put off by the scholastic prose, but I enjoyed it and found it a nice contradiction to the majority of film books that take a 'gee-whiz' stance at their subject matter.