The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia
By Peter Dendle (2001 McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers)
To borrow a quote, borrowed from the film ‘Ouanga’ by the author, “Oh, the whole thing has me… confused.”
The publisher, McFarland Press, began as a library-oriented publisher, publishing monographs and “comprehensive reference works on a variety of subjects”. The “Performing Arts 2006 – 2007” catalogue reflects this tendency, presenting a wide array of books addressing an interesting variety of topics, many of which with a critical, reference, or anthological bent. ‘The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia’ is my first exposure to the publisher’s style of presentation. The publisher claims their “books are manufactured to the highest specifications”. This is exhibited by the colorful glossy hardcover surrounding the contents, which will survive many a spilled beverage and repeated reading.
As to the contents of the book, the catalogue listed it as an “exhaustive overview” and the back cover of the book claims to be a “comprehensive reference” that “covers more than 200 movies produced in 16 countries over more than six decades (1932-1998)”. This book did present a wider variety of films than I have seen covered in other horror film anthologies that share this format. [A relatively common format, presenting an introductory essay or essays, followed by an alphabetically, or chronologically listed selection of reviews/synopses.] The problems I have are the terms “exhaustive” and “comprehensive” when used to address film genres that continue to grow and evolve. Not only does the “zombie” sub-genre of horror films continue to expand and evolve, but the author’s criteria for consideration was unclear.
Before I address this lack of clarity, allow me to establish that I genuinely enjoyed the author’s introduction. I found it to be an excellent introduction for anyone unfamiliar with the zombie film, and a pleasant review of the historical evolution of the zombie film subgenre for knowledgeable horror film enthusiasts. The author also briefly and clearly interweaves most of the critical theories put forth in discussion of the themes present in and underlying most zombie films.
The author in the section of his introduction titled, “Definition, Scope, and Principles of Selection”, puts forth definitions of his criteria for what makes a zombie film, and takes pains to explain his reasons for exclusion of similar films, such as “mummy” movies, “ghost” movies, those possessed by demonic forces, and those who are overtaken by the symptoms of a behavior altering disease. Despite these limitations, there were a pleasant variety of films addressed, and almost all of the films which I expected to be addressed in a book of this title were covered. [The George Romero ‘…of the Dead’ Trilogy, Fulci’s Spaghetti Zombie films, the miscellany of drive-in B movies with “zombie” in the title, as well as films from early film history.]
The book does present a satisfactory range of selections from history of film, and if this film had presented itself as an overview or anthology, for which it is indeed sufficient, my complaint regarding cohesiveness of inclusion would be unfounded.
But I found the author’s inconsistency troubling. The author includes a segment of a Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror Episode and one Scooby Doo feature length release, as well as a part of the infamous animated feature ‘Heavy Metal’ (1981), but these selections are confusing. If one is going to include two references to zombies in animation, one of which being a part of an episode, it would be difficult to justify the exclusion of all other incidents of zombies in animation, which would make for a lengthy work on its own. Better to exclude animated selections in the introduction than to include them minimally and peripherally and claim “comprehensiveness”.
In the introduction, the author writes, “this book will limit coverage to movies in which the creatures are actually revived corpses, or are explicitly referred to as zombies.”
I recognize and appreciate that it is difficult to make strict distinctions among zombies, the undead, the re-animated, the products of scientific experiments, ghouls, cannibals, automatons, cyborgs, mutants, aliens, parasites, symbiotes, and the sufferers of the ravages of disease, pollution, or nuclear radiation, since often the boundaries between these concepts blur as the argument of what the boundaries between life and death are, and the difference between what is a part of and what is apart from the self and one’s body. The author does an admirable job of defining his criteria.
But if the Frankenstein monster was cobbled together from dead bodies and brought back to life by science, doesn’t that make him a zombie? Which would bring in the long legacy of films inspired by Mary Shelley’s novel. And if so, then what about Robocop, another dead person brought to life again by technology. And how are Frankenstein and Robocop different from the girl in Wes Craven’s ‘Deadly Friend’, returned to life by a skull implant, which is included for consideration in this anthology?
Perhaps I’m just being nitpicky. My “Frankenstein is a zombie” argument is a personal pet peeve, and I admit that part of the fun of reading anthologies that claim to be authoritative or exhaustive is trying to think of those films that were not included, and discussing these inconsistencies with fellow fans of horror films.
The author’s reviews are concise, succinct, and appropriate for the most part, but at times the author indulges in the urge to treat some films with an ill-humored derisiveness, which seemed unnecessarily harsh. I accept that the derivative, threadbare plots; minimal and transparent “special” effects; and uninspired performances, sometimes test the patience of even the most enthusiastic “zombie” film enthusiast. But it seems that comments, like, “Amateur, juvenile, and depressing, ‘Flesheater’ is mostly a waste of a good barn.”, add little to the insightfulness of the entry for the film, instead it seems like taking unnecessarily mean-spirited effort to point out a film’s deficiencies, rather than mentioning what the film’s strengths or points of interest were. Especially considering that the author claims in the second paragraph of the introduction that he is “not as interested in the quality of the films as in the attention and creativity they devote to their particular treatment of the zombie.” The reviews do even out over the length of the book, but this weighs in as another example of a disturbing trend in these kind of anthology books. Authors who claim to be enthusiasts of the type of film the book addresses who go on to mean-spiritedly deride many of the less aesthetically pleasing films selected for consideration. John McCarty did not indulge in this tendency to malign during his career of writing the anthologies that seem to have inspired contemporary composers of themed horror anthologies, but perhaps this tendency to sarcastically critique the films we claim to like is simply reflective of our times.
The above faults aside, this book was a pleasant, easy, read, and inspired me to revisit the zombie movies in my DVD library and look for some of those which I had not yet experienced. In the words of George A. Romero, “Stay Scared.”
Listed at $35 in the catalogue, the price is somewhat prohibitive. This is the kind of book that it’s a pleasure to peruse at the bookstore, but I rarely have the opportunity (or more importantly the spare cash) to purchase for myself. Books that intend on passing for reference books or college textbooks often have inflated prices as anyone that has ever had to buy a college textbook surely knows.
Although if there’s anyone out there that doesn’t find the $35 price tag prohibitive, I’d be pleased to receive a copy of McFarland’s “Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931-1946” for review weighing in with a cover price of $55.00
Buy it on Amazon.com!
On the internet: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers: www.mcfarlandpub.com
Contact Scott at: Scott_Lefebvre@hotmail.com
