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

Cover; Half Title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Series Editors' Preface; Chapter 1: Introduction; 1.1. Cultural Context: Change of Death-Related Attitudes; 1.2. The Material: Living Dead Films; 1.3. Theoretical Departure Points: Understanding Textual and Generic Addressing; Chapter 2: Modality of Living Death; 2.1. Embodying Death; 2.2. Narrating Death; 2.3. Symbolizing Death; Chapter 3: Classical Living Dead Films; 3.1. Dracula -- Horrifying and Unnatural Death; 3.2. White Zombie -- Distancing and Alienating Death; 3.3. The Mummy and Scientific Death; 3.4. Idealization of Modern Death.

Chapter 4: Undead of the Transitional Era4.1. Familial and Americanized Vampires; 4.2. Mummy -- Scientific Control of Natural Death; 4.3. Getting Out of Control -- Zombies, Violence and Death; 4.4. Challenging the Ideals of Modern Death; Chapter 5: Post-Classical Undead; 5.1. Mummies and Body Horror; 5.2. Mistreatment of Dead -- Zombies and Death Industries; 5.3. Desire for Self-Expressive Vampires; 5.4. Ambiguous Return of Ordinary Death; Chapter 6: Digitalized Living Dead; 6.1. The Mummy and Aesthetics of Trivial Death; 6.2. Discomforting Position of the Viewer in Zombie Apocalypses.

6.3. Vampires and Death as Part of Personal Identity6.4. Obsessive Interest in Death; Chapter 7: Transforming Traditions of Rhetoric of Death; Filmography; Bibliography; Back Cover.

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 Stoke.

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