TheoFantastique: Kevin, thank you for helping me secure a copy of your book, and for your willingness to be interviewed to discuss it. Given your background in theater, how did you come to develop both a personal and academic interest in zombies?

Kevin Wetmore: Actually, the interest in horror was probably there first. I am an actor and director and academic by training and inclination, but have been a horror fan since I can remember. I had always loved Romero’s films – I remember seeing the commercials for Dawn of the Dead on TV back in 1978, when I was 9 and being both frightened by the images and drawn to them. I asked my parents to take me, but wisely they did not. I eventually saw it as a teenager and have seen all the films since perhaps hundreds of times. I moved to Pittsburgh to attend the University of Pittsburgh for a Ph.D. in Theatre, and Pittsburgh is America’s zombie capital. I talk in the book about moving there the same weekend as the 25th anniversary of Night convention and going to that instead of unpacking. I am also part of a generation of fanboy academics. We would be reading theory and critical analysis in grad school and then go home and watch movies or TV and see the same cultural patterns. While I was doing research on African and Japanese theatre, my present to myself was to write a book about Star Wars (The Empire Triumphant) that took a postcolonial approach to the depictions of religion and race in those films. I have also been fortunate enough as an actor living in Los Angeles to appear in several horror b-movies, so I have been a zombie myself and eaten by zombies (and a werewolf, and a serial killer). So all parts of my life: academic, artist, horror fan have kind of blended together.

TheoFantastique: In your book you look at Romero’s zombie films, and various remakes or films influenced by his zombie narratives, and you approach them from the perspective of cultural sociophobics. Can you define that, and explain why this perspective helps us understand important dimension of these films and the times in which they were produced?

Kevin Wetmore: Films don’t mean – they generate meaning. You watch, not as some personality-less, history-less witness, but as someone who brings your own stuff to the story. Sociophobics looks at the fears not of the individual but of society as a whole – what scares us collectively? What are we as a nation or even as a species worried about. So you have a number of films in the late Sixties and early Seventies, such as NOTLD that on the surface are simple drive-in horror films but which contain subtext about the Vietnam War or the civil rights movement. And it doesn’t matter what the filmmakers intended, because we are shaped by our culture and times whether we are aware of it or not. So, for example, at a time of economic crisis and concern about the consumer culture, Romero gave us the original Dawn. Seven years later, under Reagan, Day showed an out of control military exploiting amoral scientists. But the 2004 Dawn reflects the realities of a post-9/11 culture: one in which people do not really connect with one another and in which we fear that our neighbors or even friends and family may turn out to be a monster trying to convert us to their way of life.

TheoFantastique: How have sociophobocs changed from 1968 with the original Night of the Living Dead, to our postmodern and post-9/11 period?

Kevin Wetmore: As the nation, society and culture change, so too does what frightens us. We can still watch the originals and they have something of the power to frighten, but they no longer speak with immediacy to our culture. To give but one example of difference. Both versions of Dawn feature humans trapped in a mall confronted by zombies. The original features slow zombies. The remake featured fast, running zombies. We can see this as a marker of the change in fear. 9/11 was fast, took us by surprise, and the threat was immediate. Films reflect the times and the people that made them. It is no coincidence that the Saw and Hostel films were made at a time when our nation was debating torture. It is no coincidence that films like Cloverfield and Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, which show monsters attacking buildings in New York came to prominence after 9/11. All horror, even crappy 2-AM-on-theSyFy-channel horror, reflects the fears of the culture that made it. The best horror films, in my humble opinion, function both as horror and as sociophobic marker. They stand the test of time because they scare us on a visceral level, not by yelling “boo” or showing gore but by filling us with dread. They allow us to view the things we fear from a distance and somehow contain the fear.

TheoFantastique: One of the interesting facets of this discussion comes up in light of your mention of audiences now being “active participants” in regards to these films. Now with participatory culture fans are involved in participation with the zombie and its sociophobics through websites, blogs, horror conventions, fan film creations, Zombie Walks and other things. How has this participatory aspect of fans helped shape the development of the “zombie canon” of films?

Kevin Wetmore: It’s interesting how the age of the zombie has arrived. I suspect we are seeing a few different phenomena here. First is that the zombie is a monster for all milieu. You can put it anywhere and you can have it while anything is going on. Vampires and werewolves tend to dominate their narratives and must be fought. Zombies are just there and you can do anything with them. This flexibility also means that we can use the zombie to express any fear: of the masses, of foreigners, of change, of religious people, of the young, of the old, and, of course, of the dead. The zombie is also a safe way to think about your own demise. Except for the goths, the truly morbid, and those who like to frighten their parents, few of us think about our own bodies after we die. The zombie gives us a way to live on, so to speak. The horror in zombie films is that once bitten or when one dies, one becomes a zombie, but is that really the worst thing ever? It becomes a form of wish fulfillment: do what you want, when you want, and the only way to cease existing is if you suffer a head injury. There is a freedom in being a zombie. You can disappear into the mob and you have no individual responsibility. There is also a power. Zombies are terrifying. If you are a zombie, others fear you and fear what you can do. Participatory zombie culture is also wish fulfillment on the other end. Last year for Halloween, I went to a “Zombie hunt” wherein one was given a gun that shot soft pellets and had to negotiate a maze set up in a warehouse and emerge on the other side without being caught by the zombies. The zombies wore goggles over their makeup and you could shoot them on sight, but only a head shot would cause the actor playing the zombie to lie down and let you pass. In other words, my friends and I paid for the privilege of running through a warehouse shooting “zombies” in the head without consequences. So all aspects of zombie participatory culture represent freedom and power: I can kill without consequence if I am living or if I am zombie. The participatory culture allows one to act out a part of these fantasies safely, and we see that then echoed in the films, it becomes a kind of loop. At the same time we see what Henry Jenkins calls “textual poaching” – fans take the zombie stories and make them their own, sometimes writing their own and sometimes living their own. It’s the exact same thing as a Star Trek convention. In the case of the zombies, the guy with the dull 9 to 5 job gets to be a monster or a monster slayer, in the case of Trek the same guy gets to be Commander Vertrox of the starship Verillion.

TheoFantastique: What has been the result of the shift of horror from an adult genre to youth culture in the depiction of zombies and their sociophobics?

Kevin Wetmore: Hmmm…I do not know if I agree entirely that there has been a shift. Horror in one sense has always been a part of youth culture since youth culture developed in the post-war years. The Fifties aimed horror at teens with cars and disposable income. Whereas Dracula and Frankenstein was aimed at adults or at least the whole family, I Was a Teenage Werewolf wears its target demographic on its titular sleeve. Likewise, Eighties slasher films were clearly aimed at the 14 to 30 demographic as well. The original Dawn was released unrated, so on those over 18 were technically allowed to see it, but the development of the home video market in the Eighties also rendered the MPAA ratings kind of moot. I would see twelve-year-olds renting The Exorcist and I Spit on Your Grave. Carol Clover (among others) pointed out that most horror films were, in fact, cautionary tales aimed at the young: if you smoke, drink, disobey authority and have sex, the monsters will kill you. So I actually see a shift back towards more adult or serious horror since 9/11. What we see happen now is a kind of bleak nihilism and a sense of helpless despair. I am thinking here of films like The Mist or The Strangers, but even the remake of Dawn ends with the implied deaths of all characters. In a sense, the original Night, with its bleak, ironic ending, paved the way for the current crop of films which end with the deaths of all the characters, often for stupid, avoidable reasons. That might also explain the current popularity of zombie culture: not that it has caught up with our culture but that our culture has finally caught up with it.

TheoFantastique: You refer to Romero’s zombie films as “apocalyptic and millennial.” What do you mean by this? And how did 9/11 and fears of religious fundamentalism impact this element of zombie films?

Kevin Wetmore: Yes, I think 9/11 certainly brought religion to the forefront in a number of ways, both the religious faith and culture of the terrorists and our own nation’s response to it. President Bush responded to 9/11 and framed the two wars in its wake in religious language, most obviously casting terrorists as “evil” and America as a force of goodness and Godliness in the world. So we fear religion and we fear those who give themselves wholly over to it, as there is no reasoning with someone who believes God himself wants them to kill you. There are two streams of horror that result from this. The first are films that present evil as real: the devil exists and he is out to get us. The second are films that show fundamentalists as being dangerous. The behind every deeply believing person is a sinister reality: witness The Last Exorcism, End of the Line, The Rite, and The Reaping. Either the devil is real and out to get us, or it does not matter as fundamentalists will actually do his work for him.

But there is also something of the apocalyptic in both the biblical sense and the popular sense both in American culture in general and in zombie films in particular. In the biblical sense, “apocalyptic” means “hidden things revealed,” but in the popular sense it is conflated with eschatological things: the end of the world. Zombies represent the end of the world. Romero shows the dead rising, outnumbering the living, and then eventually owning the world, transforming it in their image. The living have two choices: die in a way that one does not “come back” or become a zombie and perhaps kill those you love. Similarly to President Bush, Romero also frames his stories in religious language. There is a reason that the most famous line from the original Dawn, repeated by the same actor in a cameo in the remake is, “When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.” The language of Revelation is also very zombie-friendly. It speaks of the dead returning and rising and battles between good and evil. There is not that much difference between, say 28 Days Later and Left Behind. And there are even some apocalyptic Christian zombie stories out there, most notably Mark Roger’s The Dead. I also find it fascinating that the phrase “the Zombie apocalypse” has come into common usage. It conflates popular zombie narratives with the Christian idea of the end of the world and a battle between good and evil. It is a secular apocalypse, to be sure, but still, religion frames the idea of zombies.

TheoFantastique: In your discussion of Dawn of the Dead (2004) you conclude by stating, “The ending is emblematic of post-9/11 horror. It is bleak, nihilistic and offers little to no hope of survival.” You have a forthcoming book titled Post-911 Horror in American Cinema (Continuum). How do you see the current wave of zombie films, and with The Walking Dead perhaps television too, reflecting various aspects of post-9/11 horror?

Kevin Wetmore: There are several tropes, if you will, that have risen to prominence in the wake of 9/11 in horror cinema, many of which were present in zombie cinema before but which are now almost central. The first is the bleak ending. Let us compare Dawns. In the first, Fran and Peter get in the helicopter and escape. She is pregnant. They have nowhere to go, but some sense of hope or a future is implied. Four people reach the boat at the end of the remake, but if one continues to watch through the credits, we see the boat run out of fuel, we see them find a living head in a cooler and then we see them land on an island and get attacked by a horde of zombies. The camera then falls and a zombie falls in front of it. The implication being that hope is impossible. We see the tropes as well in Romero’s post-9/11 films. The pseudo-documentary has become a central subgenre in horror: Paranormal Activity, Apollo 18, Devil Inside, and Cloverfield, for example. Romero gives us Diary of the Dead, a pseudo-documentary that still contains his social commentary (the film students are more concerned about how many YouTube hits their footage gets than their friend who just died), but also reflects the mediated-yet-immediate experience of 9/11. For most of us, 9/11 was immediate but not experienced directly. We watched it happen on television in real time, and then repeated over and over and over again. This is what pseudo-documentaries do – give us the echo of the experience of 9/11.

Another trope that the zombie film has had all along, but which we have finally caught up with is the idea of a hostile world. As with ghosts in Pulse and vampires in Stakeland or 30 Days of Night, zombies have taken over “our” world and it is theirs now. If we are to remain safe, we must change how we live our lives and even curtail some of our freedoms and desires in order to remain alive, safe and ourselves. As I noted above when we discussed participatory culture, there is also an element of freedom from restraint that is reflected in post-9/11 horror. Zombies do not deserve mercy, the opportunity to surrender or the protection of the Geneva convention. “They” attacked “us” and cannot be reasoned with, therefore anything we do in response is not only justified but necessary. Fighting zombies allows us to justify the worst kinds of behavior. I am not suggesting it was necessary to read Osama bin Laden his rights, just that zombie cinema reflects a world in which we are fighting to win, but the old rules no longer apply.

Most of all, however, post-9/11 horror is bleak, nihilistic and hopeless. In slasher films, one dies because of what one has done: ignored one’s responsibilities or authority figures, engaged in immoral behavior such as premarital sex, or ignored the dangers of camping where a massacre occurred 25 years ago tonight. In post-9/11 horror, one dies not because of what one did but because of where one is. Perhaps the best example of this comes from The Strangers, in which Kristin asks, “Why are you doing this?” and one of the masked killers answers “Because you were home.” One dies not because of action but because of proximity. The terror attacks of 9/11 showed random, anonymous death killing thousands for no reason other than they were on the hijacked plane or they were in the targeted building. Shows like The Walking Dead demonstrate the same random, anonymous death. People die and/or become zombies for no real reason or justification. And that reflects the world we live in now, or at least the way it is perceived.

It’s their world now.

TheoFantastique: Kevin, again, thank you for your discussion of the book. I hope you can come back in the near future to discuss Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema.

Kevin Wetmore: I would be delighted to. Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss this book.

This raises the question as to why we are so fascinated by the idea of demonic possession, and in turn, why we produce so many horror films that build upon this premise (with little depth or variation). Psychology Today explores this topic with an essay by Dr. Stephen Diamond titled “The Devil Inside: What Fascinates Us About Exorcism and Demonic Possession?.” Diamond introduces his topic with reference to The Devil Inside by asking

What does the astounding and unexpected popularity of this movie say about us and our culture psychologically? Why are high-tech, scientifically-minded, religiously secular twenty-first century cynics so fascinated with a (bad) film about exorcism, Satan and his demons?

A number of social, cultural, and religious elements could be explored in an attempt to answer such questions, but given Diamond’s area of training, and the focus of the publication in which he is writing, Diamond challenges his colleagues in psychology to consider what belief in possession and exorcism might tell us about the human condition in this area.

Perhaps it’s time psychologists start asking some of those same questions. What is exorcism? How does it heal? Can we learn something valuable about psychotherapy from exorcism? Are there certain techniques employed by exorcists that psychotherapists should consider when treating angry, psychotic or violent patients? Are there vital existential or spiritual questions addressed by exorcism–for example, the archetypal riddle of evil–that psychotherapy detrimentally avoids or neglects?

One need not necessarily accept either religious or psychological interpretations for what Diamond labels “possession syndrome” in order to benefit from an exploration of this topic through this essay. It serves as another reminder that horror films have much to tell us about our fears as well as how they are informed by cultural and religious ideas.

Related posts:

“Satanism, Exorcism, and Social Horror Trends”

“Cinefantastique Online – THE RITE: Satan, Possession, and Unlikely Sources of Faith”

“Satanic Cinema”

“Scott Poole: Satan in America”

TheoFantastique: Regina, thank you for your time to discuss a great book. I’m not aware of previous treatments of this topic in book form which, if true, is curious given the prevalence of Roman Catholicism in horror and other genres of the fantastic. How did you come to develop this subject matter and these contributors?

Regina Hansen: I started planning for the book during discussions with friends at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (two of the book’s contributors, Christa Jones and Isabella van Elferen were part of those discussions). You’re right in that there hasn’t been much scholarly inquiry into this particular topic. There have been some terrific books on Catholicism in film, and Victoria Nelson’s essay on “faux Catholicism” in works like The Da Vinci Code was very helpful in our thinking about this book. The great thing is that many of the volume’s contributors wanted to be part of the project precisely because they’d always wanted to write on the topic of Catholicism in fantastic film but never had a chance. I came to the idea from both personal and scholarly interests. My family (at least my mother’s side) were very much steeped in the supernatural aspects of Catholicism: my great-grandmother really understood and studied the various devotions, to Mary especially. My grandfather read Aquinas and Francis of Assisi for fun. Being a part of that tradition really opened me up to the fantastic, to supernatural and metaphysical themes – in the stuff I like to write about, and in what I like to read and see in film. I think you’d find that to be true of many people actually. Still, in putting together the book, I didn’t need or want everyone to have the same point of view as I do. I love being a Catholic; I love everything about the practice of my faith – even though there’s also a lot that disappoints me on the social level. There’s plenty to question and a lot of that questioning has been done by filmmakers and critics in the fantastic. I wanted to have contributors who represented a spectrum of attitudes toward Catholicism and a spectrum of scholarly approaches as well. I think we really succeeded in that goal.

TheoFantastique: Can you comment on the various ways in which Roman Catholicism is uniquely suited to provide material for the fantastic in contrast with Protestantism?

Regina Hansen: The elements of Catholicism that make their way into films of the fantastic tend to be the ones that were rejected during the Reformation as idolatrous or pagan – devotion to Mary and the saints, the use of statues or other physical objects as a means of veneration or an aid to worship. But, I wouldn’t say it’s just a Catholic/Protestant thing. I think filmmakers are drawn to the non-Enlightenment, irrational aspects of Catholicism, in the same way that Gothic novelists used to be. Catholics are supposed to fully believe in a supernatural world, in supernatural events occurring on a daily basis – the priest actually turning bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood, Mary and the saints as intercessors with God, angels, demons, all that stuff. Many Protestants are meant to believe in some of those things, too. The recent movie Exorcism deals with demons, etc. from a Pentecostal rather than Catholic perspective. Still, Catholicism has been around longer, and there is a Catholic presence in almost every country in the world. Catholic practice and iconography are weird and familiar at the same time, especially in the United States, where there weren’t really a lot of Catholics until the 1800’s.

TheoFantastique: Readers might first think of vampires and demonic possession in connection with Roman Catholicism, but while your book touches on these areas it also sketches broader areas of influence. Can you touch on the connection of this branch of Christendom to the broader realm of the monstrous and fantastic?

Regina Hansen: There are a lot of issues. For instance, in fantasy film and literature, so much of the traditional narratives grow out of Medieval romance, or have a Medievalist aesthetic that goes back to the pre-Raphaelites and the work of Morris and Rossetti. That kind of aesthetic is just not possible without dealing with the iconography of Catholicism, even if you end up changing it around a bit. Also, people don’t necessarily think about religious movies as movies about the fantastic, but of course they are. Traditional stories of saints’ lives are as full of that kind of stuff as anything from J.K. Rowling. In our book, Paulo Cunha and Daniel Ribas write about Marian apparitions in film – particularly Our Lady of Fatima. These are films about a supernatural personage appearing to a group of children and performing supernatural feats, like making the sun spin etc. That’s the fantastic right there. Also, one reason I wanted to do this book was to show how often entirely realist films create an atmosphere of the fantastic or uncanny simply by adding elements of Catholic religious practice or belief to the narrative. Kathleen Urda and Brett Gaul talk about this in their chapters, on the new Brideshead Revisited film and Gone Baby Gone respectively. A really great example (not in the book) is in The Godfather when Michael Corleone’s enemies are being slaughtered as he takes part in a baptism, and is supposedly rejecting Satan.

TheoFantastique: One of the chapters I connected with was the one by Christopher McKittrick in his analysis of the films of Terry Gilliam. I was surprised to learn of his being raised Protestant, and yet he has incorporated Roman Catholic elements in his films of the fantastic. How has this religious tradition impacted his work?

Regina Hansen: Again I see the impact in the Medievalist aesthetic of a lot of his work, from the interstitial cartoons he did for Monty Python’s Flying Circus to Monty Python and the Holy Grail to The Fisher King. At the same time, Gilliam/the Pythons pretty cleverly satirize some Catholic beliefs or doctrine, as in the song “Every Sperm is Sacred,” from The Meaning of Life. Chris McKittrick writes about all this but also suggests that the narrative arc of many of Gilliam’s films echoes theological questions that have often brought Catholicism and Protestantism into conflict: free will and the problem of evil, the importance of good works relative to faith. These are interesting things to think about.

TheoFantastique: I enjoyed Em McAvan’s exploration of The Lord of the Rings. How has Tolkien’s text come to involve multiple readings and layers in terms of Tolkien’s Roman Catholicism as well as New Age and pagan elements?

Regina Hansen: Tolkien was an observant Catholic; most people know that. At the same time, we don’t usually see LOTR as having much Catholicism in it. It seems much more based in Anglo-Saxon or Norse mythology, the kind of literature Tolkien studied and taught. Em sees the influence of Tolkien’ Catholicism in the novel’s sacramentality, its use of holy objects. She suggests that objects like “Galadriel’s phial of light and the elvish lembas bread” represent “the sacred embodied in the material.” (43) This idea is certainly central to Catholic practice, though not unique to it. Em also suggests that the films replace that element of sacramentality — of particular objects carrying particular holiness — with a more generalized New Age “reverence for all living things.” (49) So, if you look at the novel and films together, there really is the interplay among paganism, Catholicism and New Age thinking, and also, as Em reminds us, the danger of consumerism – taking objects so seriously, making them so holy that they become more important than what they represent, or just things to be acquired.

TheoFantastique: I’m finalizing some research for a chapter in the forthcoming book The Undead and Theology, so Jana Toppe’s chapter on zombie films and the Resurrection and Eucharist were of special interest. In what ways might zombie “resurrection” and the consumption of flesh and blood be read as a satire of Resurrection and Eucharist?

Regina Hansen: Christianity and Catholicism in particular make certain promises – people will achieve eternal life through the consumption of Christ’s body and blood; there will be bodily resurrection at the end of time. Zombie films sort of half fulfill these promises: Zombies eat flesh. Zombies live forever (or almost, until they get shot in the head) but they live forever without identity, without soul. Zombies are walking resurrected bodies, but just bodies and corrupt ones at that. The Zombie Apocalypse involves the resurrection of the body but, as Jana says, leaves out the promise for a better world. Interestingly, as Jana points out, early zombie films (like The White Zombie) were based on Haitian Voudoun, or a heavily exoticized version of it anyway. Since Voudoun has many Catholic elements, it seems as if Catholicism and movie zombies have been interacting since the early days of film.

TheoFantastique: I was pleased to see a discussion of The Others, a ghost story that was very well done. How does Roman Catholicism inform the identity and struggle of the main character, Grace, portrayed by Nicole Kidman?

Regina Hansen: Grace is obsessed with the “rules” of Catholicism, and her interpretation of them. She follows those rules obsessively, as a way to hide from herself the truth of her present situation (spoiler alert) that she’s dead and also killed her children, that she is the “other,” the ghost in the house. In their chapter, Anabel Altemir Giral and Ismael Ibanez Rosales suggest that in clinging to rules, to dogma, Grace not only blinds herself to her own state of being but to the potential for holiness all around her. They write about Grace’s denial of her “sacramental imagination,” her inability to see the objects and people in the house as potential “revelations of God’s grace.” (277) A full understanding of Catholicism includes the experience of a world alive with spirit and holiness. As happens with the character of Grace, blind adherence to rules for their own sake can cut one off from that world, that sacramental experience.

TheoFantastique: I would love to have seen someone grapple with the place of Roman Catholicism in the films of Guillermo del Toro. Are there any plans for a follow up volume that might include explorations like this?

Regina Hansen: Del Toro’s work is fascinating in this regard. He very much rejects organized religion and some of his nastiest characters are Catholic clerics. At the same time, he often portrays people of simple faith, who happen to be Catholics, in a very appealing way, and his work seems to find some kind of real power/value in Catholic objects and images. I’m working on a single author volume right now that will continue some of the work started in Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film, and I do plan to include Del Toro.

TheoFantastique: Regina, thank you again for a great book, and for your time in discussing aspects of this volume.

Regina Hansen: Thank you very much, John.

After Frank Darabont’s unexpected and sudden departure from The Walking Dead at the beginning of production for Season 2 many fans wondered and worried whether the quality of the writing for the program would be compromised. Although some have expressed concerns about the allegedly slow pacing of this season in contrast with the first (a curious criticism in light of the nature of episodic television and the ability to explore characters, relationships, and other aspects of story in a protracted fashion unavailable in film) the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead should have removed any doubts about whether the series could continue in a quality fashion without Darabont’s creative input.

I would argue further that the program has continued to wrestle with a major concern of Darabont, one that he has dealt with in a previous horror film of his own, and which other horror directors have explored as well. That is that the real threat is posed not by the monsters on the outside wanting in, but rather by the fellow human beings one is locked up with in any number of apocalyptic scenarios in an attempt to survive. This is exemplified in what I think is the key scene in Darabont’s The Mist where several of the characters meet in the back of a store and strategize about the need to escape their temporary sanctuary and risk death from the various monsters inhabiting the mist. This is viewed as a more tolerable option than waiting for an increasingly popular religious fanatic in their midst to exercise her judgment in human sacrifice to appease her god. In the dialogue that ensues among the characters in this scene a decided lack of trust in human nature is evident:

DUNFREY: You don’t have much faith in humanity, do you?

MILLER: None whatsoever.

DUNFREY: I can’t accept that. People are basically good, decent. My God, David, we’re a civilized society.

DRAYTON: Sure, as long as the machines are workin’ and you can dial 9-1-1, but you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the shit out of them, no more rules, and we’ll see how primitive they get.

MILLER: You scare people badly enough and you can get ‘em to do anything. They’ll turn to whoever promises a solution, or whatever.

DUNFREY: Ollie, please, back me up here.

WEEKS: I wish I could. As a species we’re fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us into a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?

According to several participants in this dialogue it is only social order, and with it the conventions of law, politics, and religion, that keep human beings from reacting in their most base manner and turning on one another, all in an effort to survive the challenges that come with the arrival of the “monster(s)” and the breakdown of that social order. This same major theme is prevalent in The Walking Dead, perhaps more so in Season 2 than in the first, and embodied in the battle between Shane and Rick Grimes. The zombies have overrun society and in the new social order questions have arisen as to who is best suited to lead the group of survivors. In addition, each member of Grimes’ group must ask themselves about what kind of ethical choices and actions are best in this new “survival of the fittest” reality.

So while some may lament the current season of The Walking Dead, I am enjoying its slower pace up to this point in that it provides more opportunities to reflect on the human condition in greater depth. In my view, fast pacing, extreme gore, and the zombie kill of the week is only so entertaining, and many viewers want more “meat” from the monsters they love in this groundbreaking zombie television program.

A description of Horror Noire from the book’s back cover:

From King Kong to Candyman, the boundary-pushing genre of the horror film has always been a site for provocative explorations of race in American popular culture. In Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890′s to Present, Robin R. Means Coleman traces the history of notable characterizations of blackness in horror cinema, and examines key levels of black participation on screen and behind the camera. She argues that horror offers a representational space for black people to challenge the more negative, or racist, images seen in other media outlets, and to portray greater diversity within the concept of blackness itself.

Horror Noire presents a unique social history of blacks in America through changing images in horror films. Throughout the text, the reader is encouraged to unpack the genre’s racialized imagery, as well as the narratives that make up popular culture’s commentary on race.

Offering a comprehensive chronological survey of the genre, this book addresses a full range of black horror films, including mainstream Hollywood fare, as well as art-house films, Blaxploitation films, direct-to-DVD films, and the emerging U.S./hip-hop culture-inspired Nigerian “Nollywood” Black horror films. Horror Noire is, thus, essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how fears and anxieties about race and race relations are made manifest, and often challenged, on the silver screen.

Robin R. Means Coleman discusses this book with TheoFantastique in the following interview.

TheoFantastique: Robin, thank you again for helping me secure a copy of the book for review, and for making time in an academic schedule for an interview. I was pleased to read in the Preface about your interest in horror, and to see the mention of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, going back to your childhood. How did your childhood interests in horror combine with your academic explorations of the topic?

Robin R. Means Coleman: I am from Pittsburgh, which was not only home to George Romero and Tom Savini but, as you and your readers certainly know, the Pittsburgh area is the setting for the Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead films. The Dead films are fantastically political, and incredibly ideologically sophisticated. The films were my first textbooks, teaching me how to ask tough questions about race, class, and consumption. Only horror can interrogate such themes with real courage and honesty because the genre isn’t beholden to mainstream sensibilities.

TheoFantastique: I think I’m fairly well read in the academic study of horror and genre films, but I don’t recall seeing much by way of a focus on an exploration of race. Is this an accurate understanding, and what drew you to focus on the unfortunate depiction of race, racism, and White vs. Black in much of horror cinema?

Robin R. Means Coleman: Actually, there are several great scholarly articles out there on Blacks in horror films by folks like Harry Benshoff, Frances Gateward, and Ellen Scott. But, as far as I know, no one has attempted to take on a book-length, full history—from the 19th century to present — of Blacks’ participation in American horror films. Though an academic book, I wanted to be respectful of this fun, evocative genre by not sucking the life out of it with overly puffed up academese.

I wrote the book because there are two themes which emerge about Blacks’ participation in horror. The first theme focuses on unfortunate depictions. This includes an obsession with Blacks as savage jungle dwellers practicing voodoo while placing White women in peril. Think: King Kong or Black Moon. I discuss these films, and a host of others, in the book. In addition, I specifically cite the 1931 film Ingagi as one of the most grotesque films ever made for its disgusting treatment of Blacks. Ingagi was promoted as a real-life documentary (it really wasn’t) about Blacks in the Congo who engaged in bestiality and even procreated with apes. The film featured an actor in an ape costume and was shot in a zoo in L.A. Still, people believed it that the film was absolutely true. It was devastating to race relations.

The second theme I present in the book is one about empowerment, unity, and camaraderie. Horror is one of the few genres that has the capacity of shun stereotypes and clichés. This means we can get beyond stereotype spotting, and focus on the innovative representations. There are horror films, like Welcome Home Brother Charles which is an indictment against police brutality and the notion of the hypersexual Black man. Charles is a Black man who takes out rogue cops with his penis! Another example of more empowering films are Hellbound Train, Go Down Death, Def by Temptation, or Tales from the Hood that offer inspiring lessons on protecting Black communities from drugs, gangs, and other “sins,” while valuing Black life. Horror films such as Kracker Jack’d expose Black-on-Black or intraracial strife, like calling one another the n-word or dismissing someone for not being “Black enough,” while presenting a message of unity. There are horror films with integration themes like Omega Man. And, then there are the horror films that are cool because they are simply horror—no more, no less—like Holla, The Embalmer, or The Final Patient. The point is, horror has shown it can be trailblazing in its treatment of Blacks.

TheoFantastique: What are some of the earliest representations of the connections of various fears to Blacks in horror?

Robin R. Means Coleman: I trace the Black boogeyman back to 1915 with Gus in The Birth of a Nation. Gus is the unbridled Black male in the film who obsessively pursues a young White girl. She is so sickened and terrified by Gus that she throws herself off of a cliff, and to her death, to save herself from Gus who is depicted as grotesque and utterly repulsive. By way of comparison, Frankenstein’s Monster is similarly grotesque, but we are moved to feel sorry for him. When Frankenstein’s Monster accidentally kills the little girl he is playing with, we feel just as bad for him as we do for her. That isn’t the case with Gus. He is so monstrous that the audience is asked to side with the KKK in its hate for such a creature. The horror genre constantly reinvents Gus. You see him in a range of movies from King Kong to Candyman. Gus as a horror figure is even traded on in political campaign ads like the infamous Willie Horton commercial. Gus gives rise to the brutal buck stereotype, and unfortunately that stereotype is still with us in horror and beyond.

TheoFantastique: I was interested in your mention of the enjoyment of horror in the Black community for many years. Why do you think there is strong connection to horror in the Black community, particularly when negative representations of Blacks have been so prevalent in the genre?

Robin R. Means Coleman: Initially, the book was also going to include interviews with Black viewers about their experiences with the horror genre. When I would ask about horror viewing, many Blacks would declare that they never watch horror: “too demonic” was often the reason for swearing off the genre. Then, they would proceed to recount the plots of dozens upon dozens of horror films that scared them! Night of the Living Dead, Blacula, Sugar Hill, I Am Legend, Blade, Candyman, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, nearly every Vincent Price scary movie, the comic horror films like Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein…these were all cited as popular films among Blacks. My research reveals that films like these were less expensive to acquire for “nabe” or neighborhood theaters located in Black communities. More, the Black press had a hand in promoting films that included Black characters. Though the Black characters were at times stereotypical, sometimes the press celebrated the fact that the rare Black face could be seen on the big screen. Then, Black audiences worked to see moments of resistance — a fighting back against the stereotypes — embedded in the performances. However, with films like Blacula, which directly disparages racism and the slave trade, it is clear why such a film could be popular among Black audiences, even if cheaply made. More mainstream films simply don’t have the courage. For example, films such as Mississippi Burning or a Time to Kill deal with race hatred, but they become these odd ‘White savior’ films. Outside of horror, for example, Will Smith portrays a self-sacrificing ghost/caddy in service to Matt Damon’s character in The Legend of Bagger Vance. Michael Clarke Duncan is similarly sacrificing in the supernatural film The Green Mile.

TheoFantastique: You speak positively in the book about George Romero breaking through the problem of race in horror through his zombie films. Can you speak to what you see as his positive contribution here?

Robin R. Means Coleman: Indeed, Romero and his crew are presented as revolutionaries in the book. I have the greatest respect for what Romero has accomplished with Night of the Living Dead, and then with Dawn of the Dead. You see, much of the 1950s and 1960s, before Night, as it pertains to Blackness, horror hit a bit of a low. There were the science-fiction themed films of the 1950s in which no one could image Blacks (or White women for that matter) competently working in laboratories. Films like The Giant Claw and The Alligator People render Blacks nearly invisible, and that goes on for much of the decade. Spider Baby kills off a deliveryman played by Mantan Moreland in its first minutes. This is pretty much Blacks’ existence in horror in the 1950s and 1960s. They are either comic relief or are rendered invisible, that is, until Night of the Living Dead which presents a Black man—Ben — in a serious, complex, dramatic role. Before Ben, Blacks simply were not depicted as smart and, absent voodoo, they could not be resourceful (for example, could the Haitian people in The Serpent and the Rainbow be powerful without voodoo). It is important to remember that Romero was driving his film to New York for distribution on the day of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. That was a real life reminder of how intent society was on limiting Blacks’ status. Hence, Ben was behaving on the big screen in a way that some Blacks in real life could not. In Dawn, Romero depicts the Black SWAT officer, Peter, as surviving the zombies alongside a very pregnant White newscaster, Francine. A great number of films before Dawn exploited fears of miscegenation. But Romero didn’t go that route. Working against the conventions of social fears was truly heroic. I think Romero showed image-makers across genres what is possible in how to write a human story. I just wish more filmmakers would pay attention.

TheoFantastique: You discuss Black-produced horror films. How have these helped express forms of horror that articulate Black fears and social issues?

Robin R. Means Coleman: In Horror Noire, I give significant attention to horror films made for and by Blacks. One thing that Black filmmakers tend to have in common is a theme of religiosity and redemption. The films of Eloyce Gist, Spencer Williams, James Bond III all focused on succumbing to temptation, sin, and the struggle for salvation. They all root their stories in the history of the Black southern Christian church. The fear is falling into wickedness. You see similarly themed movies coming out of Nigerian Hollywood or “Nollywood,” and in Tyler Perry films. The cautionary tale is universal.

Rusty Cundieff as director of Tales from the Hood and Snoop Dog as producer and star of Hood of Horror extend these religious themes by going beyond stories of saving individual souls. They exploit fears of being labeled a sell out to your community. You can imagine what happens to the Black cop who keeps quiet about White police brutality, or the Black guy who works on the political campaign of a White supremacist, or the Black guys selling drugs in the ‘hood. These actions are all depicted as the ultimate sins, from which there can be no redemption. In short, these movies say that the thing that Blacks fear most is discrimination, inequality, and actions that keep their communities from thriving.

TheoFantastique: With the changes of depictions of Blacks vs. Whites in horror as the genre has developed, what do you see the future holding in this area?

Robin R. Means Coleman: Like any other genre, horror presents great diversity in form and quality. Some films are craptastic, some are wholly entertaining, and some are really smart and inspiring…some are all three simultaneously! Today, the genre displays a keen self-awareness of its past, as evidenced by the Scream and Scary Movie franchises. Horror continues to get smarter as it moves beyond negative stereotypes. Now, horror tales are not obsessively pitting Whites against Blacks over fears of integration or miscegenation. What you see at present are diverse, interracial teams fighting vampires or zombie-making plagues (e.g., Dracula 2000 or almost anything with the rapper/actor Coolio in it). Good horror does not sugar coat our social quandaries. Good horror is going to be honest about the fact that we are all not gathered ‘round singing Kumbayah. Really good horror is going to be imaginative in how it portrays evil. The future of horror will rise and fall on filmmakers’ imagination. But, if we keep being subjected to remakes and “reimaginings” — the genre is, regrettably, going to become stale.

TheoFantastique: Robin, again, thank you for this interview, and for a great book that explores an uncomfortable topic.

Robin R. Means Coleman: And thank you for letting me share. I want to impress upon your readers that the book is an interesting read, and while it exposes some poor treatments, it is not an uncomfortable read. I believe it will be a fun and enjoyable exploration for any fan of the horror genre!

Horror Noire can be purchased from the TheoFantastique Store.

Looking at the final scene of the film where the Arctic camp has been blown to bits and only MacReady and Childs have survived, each skeptical of the other as to whether they are human or an alien, yet too tired and cold to do anything about it, Coleman considers this scene as a possible indicator of Black vs. White. Coleman quotes Edward Guerrero in a negative view of the final scene and what it allegedly says about race:

as the camera frames the survivors in medium close reverse shots of mutual suspicion, one can discern that the breath of the white man is heavily fogged in the Antarctic air, whereas the black man’s is not. The implication is subtle but clear. The Thing lives on and, interestingly enough, its carrier is yet another socially marginalized form, the black male.

I couldn’t disagree more with Guerrero’s reading of this scene. MacReady is framed with greater light from the surrounding fires of the camp than is Childs, and it is only natural that his breath would be more readily visible in the cold air. When this scene is compared with a previous one, the argument is weakened if not invalidated. Earlier in the film, after Bennings is taken over by The Thing he runs into the cold air and is surrounded by the members of the camp. As they confront him he runs and lets out a wail, and with it his breath is easily visible. Guerrero’s idea that we can discern the alien presence by noting which character’s breath is visible in the cold air breaks down with this contrast of one scene with another.

I believe that Coleman’s book is an important one as we grapple with the unfortunate depictions of racism in horror films, a topic which we will explore on this blog in greater depth in the future. But the case for racism in horror is weakened when forced readings see racism where none exists. Carpenter’s The Thing is to be commended for its inclusion of a strong Black character, bucking the trends of decades of prior horror films.

Zombies: A Living History, will air on Tuesday, October 25 on The History Channel. See local listings for times. Curiously. the program does not show up on a search of the channel’s website.

Call for Papers: ‘Horror After Psychoanalysis’, A Special Issue of Horror Studies, edited by Dale Townshend.

Psychoanalysis, be it in its orthodox Freudian forms or via the revisionist theories of Lacan, Kristeva and Žižek, has become a dominant critical metalanguage in contemporary accounts of horror. Notions of the unconscious, the uncanny and the abject are firmly entrenched within literary-critical discourse, while much film theory continues to invoke Lacan in its accounts of the cinematic gaze. But, to paraphrase Deleuze and Guattari, has psychoanalysis not caught horror in the noose of an implacable grip? For all the apparent transgressions of the mode, do psychoanalytic readings not effectively reduce horror to a predictable set of theoretical concepts, not least of all Eurocentric conceptualisations of subjectivity subtended by culturally and historically contingent notions of the family? To what extent is psychoanalysis a legitimate theoretical lens with which to approach, say, Asian horror, and how might we employ it in a context in which Freudianism in contemporary Gothic writing is increasingly the subject of parody and ironic critique? Is there a place for horror beyond psychoanalysis? Does contemporary culture attest to the emergence of what we might term ‘post-psychoanalytic horror’, and, if so, what are the political and theoretical implications thereof? How might we begin to conceive of horror, filmic, literary and otherwise, outside of the therapeutic frame, beyond the analyst’s couch?

While acknowledging the important contribution that psychoanalysis has made to the modern critical vocabulary, this special issue of Horror Studies seeks to solicit essays on the theme of ‘Horror After Psychoanalysis.’ Topics might include, but are by no means limited to, the following:

Contemporary horror and the limits of psychoanalytic criticism
The Gothic after abjection
The politics of psychoanalysis in contemporary horror and its reading
Horror and ethics after the real
Freudian parody in contemporary horror film
J-horror, K-horror and the cultural limits of psychoanalysis
Vampires, Zombies and desire-without-lack.
The queering of Oedipus in modern and contemporary Gothic narratives

Potential contributors are required to submit articles of between 8 000 and 10 000-words in length (although longer articles will also be considered) to Dale Townshend at dale.townshend@stir.ac.uk by 31 March, 2012. The journal’s style guide, to which all authors are urged to adhere, may be accessed via a link on the following page: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/page/index,name=journalstyleguide/.

Timeline: Upon receipt, manuscripts will be peer-reviewed, and those accepted for publication returned to authors with feedback and any suggestions for revision by early May, 2012. Final versions of all reworked essays to be returned to editor by 31 July 2012, for publication in December 2012.

I recently shared this interesting video snippet at the TheoFantastique Facebook group page and thought it was worth including here. This piece was brought to my attention through Sociological Images in a piece titled “Pregnancy Porn: Alien Impregnation in Science Fiction.” The piece originally comes from Feminist Frequency: Conversations with Pop Culture. This feminist critique of aspects of speculative fiction brings another dimension to our consideration of science fiction and horror. For further exploration of this topic see Crystal Coleman’s “The Dangers of Mystical Pregnancy in Entertainment” at Persephone Magazine.