Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead by Christopher M. Moreman;Cory James Rushton

Author:Christopher M. Moreman;Cory James Rushton [Rushton, Christopher M. Moreman;Cory James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-03-03T12:29:00+00:00

NOTES

1. Films such as The Gore-Gore Girls (1972), Blood Feast (1972), and The Wizard of Gore (1970) are outrageous and thoroughly enjoyable, but have an intentional comedic quality.

2. Bishop (2010) argues that Fulci's Zombies symbolize racial clashes, pointing out that only the visitors, doctor and his wife are Caucasian. I believe, however, that those details are incidental to Fulci's aesthetic of disgust and revulsion.

3. Isabel Cristina Pinedo (2004) argues that "Fear and pleasure commingle" in what she terms "recreational terror, a simulation of danger not unlike a rollercoaster ride" (106). I combine this concept with Steven Jay Schneider's assertion that horror is "one's contemplation of, or even fixation on [an object, event, or image's] violative status" (2004: 140) to define pleasurable disgust-when horror and revulsion combine as a result of an image or sequence of images to form a pleasurable response. In part, this includes a necessary reaction of disbelief, as pointed out by Jeffrey Goldstein (1999). Pleasurable disgust also relies upon the level of imagination and uniqueness involved in such outrageous images, as noted by Stephen Prince in "Violence and Psychophysiology in Horror Cinema" (qtd. in Schneider, 2004:139). Audiences are not merely fascinated by such images; they take pleasure in the revulsion resulting from them.

4. Twitchell defines horror as "more internal and long-lasting" than terror, which he describes as "external and short lived" (1985: 16). Fulci is consistent with this approach-striving for a lasting impact rather than a temporary fright or shock.

5. Amando de Ossorio's films in the series are Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971), Return of the Blind Dead (1973), The Ghost Galleon (aka Ship of Zombies) (1974), and Night of the Seagulls (1975).

6. By "traditional," I refer to the "limping, shambling, decaying ghoul in search of human flesh" made popular by Romero's Night of the Living Dead and John Gilling's Plague of the Zombies (Dendle, 2001: 11).

7. According to Pinedo, the postmodern horror consists of films that 1) Fracture the operation of our everyday world through violence; 2) Expose and break boundaries; 3) Confront reason and logic; 4) Abandon closure; 5) Generate a "bounded experience of fear" (90-91). The three films of Fulci discussed in this essay would certainly qualify as "postmodern" under Pinedo's definition.

8. The Beyond is typically referenced as Fulci's most successful and influential film. Director Quentin Tarantino resurrected the film in his midnight movies circuit, and the film was celebrated by a new generation of fans. Tarantino often cites the film as an influence on his own movies (Anderson, 1998).

9. Thrower (1999) and Russell (2006) both identify Fulci's zombie trilogy as City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, and House by the Cemetery (1981), I contend that the sequence should start with Zombie and not include House, as the latter is less about a reanimated corpse, but instead a figure that never dies. Continually decomposing, Dr. Freudstein attacks anyone who enters his basement.

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