Rhetoric of modern death in American living dead films / by Outi Hakola.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hakola, Outi, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Death in motion pictures.

Horror films--United States--History and criticism.

Horror films.

United States.

Physical Description:

viii, 175 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Bristol : Intellect Books, 2015.

Summary:

Zombies, vampires and mummies are frequent stars of American horror films. But what does their cinematic omnipresence, and audiences' hunger for such films, tell us about American views of death? In this book, Outi Hakola investigates the ways in which American living dead films have addressed death through different narrative and rhetorical solutions during the twentieth century. She focuses on films from the 1930s, including Dracula, The Mummy, and White Zombie, films of the 1950s and 1960s such as Night of the Living Dead and The Return of Dracula, as well as more recent fare like Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Mummy, (1999) and Resident Evil. In doing so, the book framing the tradition of living dead films, discussing the cinematic processes of addressing the films' viewers, and analyzing the films' sociocultural negotiation with death in this specific genre. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1.1 Cultural Context: Change of Death-Related Attitudes 3

1.2 The Material: Living Dead Films 7

1.3 Theoretical Departure Points: Understanding Textual and Generic Addressing 10

Chapter 2 Modality of Living Death 19

2.1 Embodying Death 23

2.2 Narrating Death 32

2.3 Symbolizing Death 41

Chapter 3 Classical Living Dead Films 51

3.1 Dracula - Horrifying and Unnatural Death 55

3.2 White Zombie - Distancing and Alienating Death 62

3.3 The Mummy and Scientific Death 70

3.4 Idealization of Modern Death 77

Chapter 4 Undead of the Transitional Era 81

4.1 Familial and Americanized Vampires 84

4.2 Mummy - Scientific Control of Natural Death 89

4.3 Getting Out of Control - Zombies, Violence and Death 91

4.4 Challenging the Ideals of Modern Death 100

Chapter 5 Post-Classical Undead 103

5.1 Mummies and Body Horror 108

5.2 Mistreatment of Dead - Zombies and Death Industries 112

5.3 Desire for Self-Expressive Vampires 115

5.4 Ambiguous Return of Ordinary Death 123

Chapter 6 Digitalized Living Dead 125

6.1 The Mummy and Aesthetics of Trivial Death 129

6.2 Discomforting Position of the Viewer in Zombie Apocalypses 134

6.3 Vampires and Death as Part of Personal identity 139

6.4 Obsessive Interest in Death 144

Chapter 7 Transforming Traditions of Rhetoric of Death 149.

ISBN:

9781783203796

178320379X

OCLC:

896907422