Film Studies Librarian
Dartmouth College
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Hanover, NH 03755
Other library resource(s)
Zombies in cinema and media from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Zombies had a moment in the first decade of the 21st century. Whether this was the result of a reinvigorated interest in the boundary line between life and death due to advancements in medical technology, or was the fallout of apocalyptic panic brought on by the turn of the millennium, or whether it was, more simply, due to a capitalizing by the entertainment industry upon the success of the zombie video games that became popular in the late nineties, one cannot say for certain. Nonetheless, the cinematic zombie experienced a “renaissance” in the new millennium, and scholars of cultural critique responded with a boom in the production of articles, books, and book chapters.
Horror Film Societies
- The Big List of Horror Film FestivalsThis is the author's attempt to make a complete and current list of all the horror film festivals in the world.
- Chicago Horror Film FestivalWhat began as a simple one-day festival to showcase Short, Independent Horror films has now become a festival for both feature and short horror films and is known for seeing many of it’s featured films picked up for distribution.
- Eerie Horror FestSince its debut in October of 2004, the Eerie Horror Film Festival has become one of the most popular and respected events of its kind in the country. Each year the Eerie Horror Film Festival attracts thousands of fans, filmmakers and screenwriters to the city of Erie, Pennsylvania, for a four day celebration of independent cinema, featuring special celebrity guests, screenings and workshops.
- New York City Horror Film FestivalEach year the NYCHFF celebrates both the horror classics we grew up with and the new horror films & filmmakers who created them. the NYCHFF fills the city with special screenings, parties, celebrity guests and free giveaways.
- Sacramento Horror Film FestivalThe Sacramento Horror Film Festival was created in 2007 with many purposes. The festival founder desired the festival to be a platform for the horror filmmaker
while providing a satisfying and valued movie going experience to the film patron. - Screamfest LAScreamfest was formed in August 2001 by film producers Rachel Belofsky and Ross Martin in order to give filmmakers and writers in the horror/sci-fi genres a venue to have their work showcased to people in the industry.
Internet resource(s)
- Horror Films from Filmsite.orgFrom Filmsite.org, this page gives a very short primer on horror films.
A quick definition for horror films
A large and heterogeneous group of films that, via the representation of disturbing, violent, and dark subject matter, seek to elicit responses of fear, terror, disgust, shock, suspense, and, of course, horror from their viewers. Horror is a protean genre, spawning numerous subgenres and hybrid variants, including gothic horror, supernatural horror, monster movies, psychological horror, splatter films, slasher films, body horror, comedy horror, serial killer films, and postmodern horror.
The horror film’s antecedents in the European gothic literary tradition and Grand‐Guignol theatre are evident in its archaic settings, its fascination with the supernatural, and its melodramatic narratives. Early examples include L’Auberge ensorcelée/The Bewitched Inn (Georges Méliès, France, 1897), Frankenstein (J. Searle Dawley, US, 1910), and Der Golem/The Golem (Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen, Germany, 1913). The roots of the genre can be traced back to German Expressionism, which influenced the mise‐en‐scene of Das Kabinett des Dr Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920) and Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens/Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (F.W. Murnau, 1922). Influences have also been noted in the Surrealist movement, as seen in films such as La chute de la maison Usher/The Fall of the House of Usher (Jean Epstein, US/France, 1928) (see surrealism).
Horror spectaculars such as Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925) were popular in the US in the mid 1920s, leading to a cycle of popular Hollywood monster movies in the early 1930s. Associated with Universal Pictures, Dracula (Todd Browning, 1931) is considered seminal; it was followed by Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), The Mummy (Karl Freund, 1932), and Freaks (Todd Browning, 1932), with the term horror film in common critical usage from 1932 (see also cinematic universe). Numerous sequels followed in the 1930s and 1940s, and horror became a staple of B‐movie production, with films such as Cat People (1942) and I Walked With A Zombie (1943), both produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur. Although the horror genre is driven by affect (see emotion), the Universal horror cycle is broadly indicative of the genre’s narrative tendencies and distinctive iconography: a pervasive fascination with the supernatural, monsters, bodily transformations, transgression, fear of otherness, and violent death; and the use of chiaroscuro lighting, low or canted camera angles, distorted images, and restricted point of view; and these have remained central to the genre to the present day. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Horror film. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 8 Apr. 2022
Getting started in the Library's collections
To find zombie films in the Library's collections, you can click on the subject headings below:
- zombie filmsCall number range PN 1995.9 .Z633 on Baker Level 4.
- horror filmsCall number range PN 1995.9 .H6 on Baker Level 4.
Introductory reading(s)
Screening the undead: vampires and zombies in film and television by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .V3 S37 2014ISBN: 9781848859241The vampire and the zombie, the two most popular incarnations of the undead, are brought together for a forensic critical investigation in Screening the Undead. Both have a long history in popular fiction, film, television, comics and games; the vampire also remains central to popular culture today, from literary 'paranormal romance' to cult TV and movie franchises - by turns romantic, tortured, grotesque, countercultural, a goth icon or lonely outsider. The zombie can shamble or, nowadays, sprint with alarming velocity, and even dance. ...
The zombie movie encyclopedia by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .Z63 D46 2001ISBN: 9780786408597Zombies are cautionary forms of humankind's most universally cherished ideal--life after death. Often ragged, unkempt, ill-spoken, rotting individuals, zombies (or the post-dead) seem socially awkward in comparison to the more popular and more aristocratic, undead, like Count Dracula and his peers. And so, the humble zombie remains, for the most part, unappreciated and unacknowledged--until now. No longer will films devoted to them be buried in the last pages of horror movie guides.The exhumation of zombie films from obscurity is accomplished in terrifying detail in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia. The first exhaustive overview of the subject, this book evaluates over 200 movies from 16 countries over a 65-year period starting from the early 1930s. ...
Zombie movies: the ultimate guide by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .Z63 K39 2008ISBN: 9781556527708Zombie Movies is an essential purchase for all those who love (or fear) horror cinema's most popular and terrifying creation. This thorough and authoritative yet uproarious guide reviews and rates nearly 300 zombie films from Bela Lugosi's White Zombie (1932) to George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (2008). It traces the evolution of the zombie over the decades, from voodoo slave to brain-eating undead to raging infected.
Zombies on film: the definitive story of undead cinema by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .Z63 I54 2014ISBN: 9780789327390Zombies on Film chronicles popular culture's greatest and most terrifyingly intriguing monsters in the very medium their shuffling, rotting, flesh-eating characteristics were shaped--at the movies! Spanning nearly a century, the zombie genre has been built by a creative and cultural transfer of influences from generation to generation of storytellers, filmmakers, and artists.
Selected book titles
American zombie gothic: the rise and fall (and rise) of the walking dead in popular culture by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .Z63 B52 2010ISBN: 9780786448067Zombie stories are peculiarly American, as the creature was born in the New World and functions as a reminder of the atrocities of colonialism and slavery. The voodoo-based zombie films of the 1930s and '40s reveal deep-seated racist attitudes and imperialist paranoia, but the contagious, cannibalistic zombie horde invasion narrative established by George A. Romero has even greater singularity. This book provides a cultural and critical analysis of the cinematic zombie tradition, starting with its origins in Haitian folklore and tracking the development of the subgenre into the twenty-first century.
Back from the dead: remakes of the Romero zombie films as markers of their times by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1998.3 .R644 W48 2011ISBN: 9780786446421Since 1968, the name of motion picture director George Romero has been synonymous with the living dead. His landmark film 'Night of the Living Dead' formed the paradigm of modern zombie cinema; often cited as a metaphor for America during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, the film used the tenets of the drive-in horror movie genre to engage the sociophobics of late-1960s culture. Subsequently Romero has created five more zombie films, and other directors, including Tom Savini and Zack Snyder, have remade Romero's movies.
Theories of international politics and zombies by Call Number: Baker-Berry JZ 1305 .D74 2011ISBN: 9780691147833What would happen to international politics if the dead rose from the grave and started to eat the living? Daniel Drezner's groundbreaking book answers the question that other international relations scholars have been too scared to ask. Addressing timely issues with analytical bite, Drezner looks at how well-known theories from international relations might be applied to a war with zombies. Exploring the plots of popular zombie films, songs, and books, Theories of International Politics and Zombies predicts realistic scenarios for the political stage in the face of a zombie threat and considers how valid--or how rotten--such scenarios might be.
Zombie holocaust: how the living dead devoured pop culture by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .Z63 F55 2009ISBN: 9780859653978Zombie Holocaust is a lively history of one of the most enduring fictional archetypes: the shambling, stalking, lethal living dead. From mentally enslaved cane field workers in Haiti, first described in early-20th-century travelogues, to the mindless hordes of soulless killers that regularly destroy our civilization onscreen and on the printed page, the zombie has undergone an eye-popping transformation. With wry humor and unflinching attention to detail, this colorful book celebrates these creatures in all their fetid glory.
Zombifying a nation: race, gender and the Haitian loas on screen by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .Z63 P74 2016ISBN: 9780786494248The figure of the zombie that entered the popular imagination with the publication of William Seabrook's The Magic Island (1929)-during the American occupation of Haiti-still holds cultural currency around the world. This book calls for a rethinking of zombies in a sociopolitical context through the examination of several films, including White Zombie (1932), The Love Wanga (1935), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988). A 21st-century film from Haiti, Zombi candidate la presidence ... ou les amours d'un zombi, is also examined. A reading of Heading South (2005), a film about the female tourist industry in the Caribbean, explores zombification as a consumptive process driven by capitalism.
Finding scholarly journals & articles
Articles and other writings about zombie movies can be found in many publications. We don't have journals that look exclusively at zombie films or horror films. We do have a book that looks at the history of monster films. That is listed below. However, you can use either Film & Television Literature Index to find relevant articles.
The great monster magazines: a critical study of the black and white publications of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .M6 C66 2008ISBN: 9780786433896This is a critical overview of monster magazines from the 1950s through the 1970s. "Monster magazine" is a blanket term to describe both magazines that focus primarily on popular horror movies and magazines that contain stories featuring monsters, both of which are illustrated in comic book style and printed in black and white. The book describes the rise and fall of these magazines, examining the contributions of Marvel Comics and several other well-known companies, as well as evaluating the effect of the Comics Code Authority on both present and future efforts in the field. It identifies several sub-genres, including monster movies, zombies, vampires, sword-and-sorcery, and pulp-style fiction. The work includes several indexes and technical credits.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about zombie films.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
A Selected list of zombie films
Find more zombie films in the library's online catalog.
I am legend by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #6664ISBN: 9781419861017Robert Neville is the last human survivor in what is left of New York City. A pandemic has left only 1% of the population alive and most of those who survived are no longer human. The infected, now lurking in the shadows, watch Neville's every move. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by the only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood.
Juan de los muertos = Juan of the dead by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #18111ISBN: 9781417238125When Havana begins to fill up with zombies, Juan, a 40-year-old slacker, is forced to become a hero, defend his country and protect his own on an island that has turned into a real bloodbath.
Last man on earth; last woman on earth by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #12084The sole survivor of a devastating world plague battles the undead who come to his home nightly in search of blood.
Two friends clash over the love and attention of the only remaining woman on planet Earth.
Nightmare city = Incubo sulla cittâ contaminata by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #18006Over exposure to radiation in a nuclear accident turns a plane full of passengers into a mutant race of blood sucking vampire monsters that need to constantly replenish their decaying red blood cells. They invade a large city where the population begins to drop rapidly.
The omega man by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #7848ISBN: 9781419855207Welcome to the future where biological warfare has decimated life on Earth. Los Angeles is a windswept ghost town where Robert Neville tools his convertible through sunlit streets foraging for supplies. He fends off attacks by The Family-- sinister neopeople spawned by the plague. He also becomes a man with a mission after meeting Lisa, another infected survivor, and guardian of some healthy children representing our species' hope.
Shaun of the dead by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #14994ISBN: 9781417018161When flesh eating zombies go on the hunt for a bite to eat, it is up to Shaun and his best pal to save their friends and family from becoming the next entree.
Wam bodies by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #17762After a zombie epidemic, R (a zombie) rescues Julie (a human survivor) from a zombie attack. The two form a special relationship in their struggle for survival, R becomes increasingly more human, setting off a chain of events that begins to transform the other zombies and maybe even the whole lifeless world.
White zombie (1932) by Call Number: Streaming videoA young couple, Madeleine and Neil, are coaxed by an acquaintance, Monsieur Beaumont, to get married on his Haitian plantation. Beaumont's motives are purely selfish as he makes every attempt to convince the beautiful young girl to run away with him. For help Beaumont turns to the devious Legendre, a man who runs his mill by mind controlling people he has turned into zombies. After Beaumont uses Legendre's zombie potion on Madeleine, he is dissatisfied with her emotionless being and wants her to be changed back. Legendre has no intention of doing this and he drugs Beaumont as well to add to his zombie collection. Meanwhile, grieving 'widower' Neil is convinced by a local priest that Madeleine may still be alive and he seeks her out.
World war Z by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #16441ISBN: 9781415773789Former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane travels the globe in an effort to eliminate the zombie pandemic that is endangering the existence of humanity.
Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.