Flame Tree Fiction

The history of zombies in horror fiction is a long and intriguing one. From their use as a threat or weapon to their emergence as an archetype horror villain in their own right, zombies have been a force to be reckoned with. In this week’s blog we take a look at the development of zombies in horror and some key examples that shaped our view of the zombie sub-genre.

Topics: Zombies, gothic horror, Horror Fiction History

This new outing for the Nazi zombie genre sees Jovan Adepo and Wyatt Russell as American soldiers who lead their squadron on a mission to disable a radio tower on the night before D-Day. What they discover is something much darker than any of them expected.

Topics: Zombies, Film Review

Topics: Gothic Dreams, Zombies

The British Library’s recent exhibition Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination celebrated 250 years since Horace Walpole’s ‘Castle of Otranto’, though the popular exhibition sadly closed its doors last month, leaving fewer ways to now satisfy that thirst for all things gothic. With our new range of ebooks on the subject, we thought we’d take a look back at how the exhibition looked at the gothic genre, and see if we can’t provide some material for those who missed out or simply need another fix!

Topics: Museums & Galleries, Gothic Dreams, Zombies, vampires

Image via totallyuselesstrivia

Topics: Gothic Dreams, Zombies

So it seems everywhere I look at the moment are zombie pictures, visions of the walking dead – sometimes relatively unscathed and human-like; mostly fairly bloodily down the road of decay – whether in art, film or on TV. Having been immersed in making a book on zombies has obviously contributed to my high intake of undead depictions, but even when I decide to read something apparently non-zombie, my thoughts return to these shuffling, grasping creatures. Going through my other half’s eclectic collection of books the other day, looking for something new to read, I plucked out John Wyndham’s The Day of The Triffids – a 1951 post-apocalyptic science-fiction tale of worldwide blindness enabling the rise of some rather nasty, stinging, lurching, carnivorousplants…

Awakening to A Changed World

OK, so first of all, the post-apocalyptic thing is there – a trope much beloved of zombie-filmmakers – but more specifically, I experienced much déja-vu in the opening scenes as the protagonist wakes up in hospital to discover he has been abandoned by his carers and no one is left, save for some desperate, groaning, shuffling people wandering the wards... Where had I seen this before?

Topics: Gothic Dreams, Zombies

Today’s Zombie

In the last decade, Zombie pictures, movies and games have entered the mainstream in a big way. The Walking Dead has not only seen huge success in its comic book form, but also in the tv show adapted from it. Even an actor as well loved as Brad Pitt produced and starred in a film adaptation of Max Brook’s World War Z. Yet even as the genre grows, it is important to remember that it owes a huge debt to the the wonderfully twisted mind of George Romero.

Topics: Gothic Dreams, Zombies

Mary Shelley’s (1787–1851) Frankenstein is an interesting work of horror fiction to consider. It independently stands as a classic of Gothic horror fiction with its roots deeply within the Romantic movement, which has for the last two hundr ed y ears captured the minds of many. At the same time, the popular culture perception of Frankenstein is as a large, lumbering monster which, while not terrorizing the countryside, has zany adventures with Dracula, Wolf-Man and Abbot and Costello. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that was probably not what Mary Shelley had in mind when she questioned what it exactly means to be human in her original work.

Mary Shelley’s Creature

The original Creature is never described in great detail in the novel. The most we are told is that he is large and, in some way, hideous. Horror is at its best when the threat, when the feared thing, is enigmatic. What exists in our minds will always be something more than could ever be clearly described on the page. This is also true because the creature transforms throughout the book. Not physically, of course, but in how we view him. Perhaps we see him first as a sympathetic creature, shunned from society due to his ugliness. We might even sympathize further, as we see a character whose inner value is hidden under a rough exterior. As the creature turns towards evil, towards murdering those who Victor Frankenstein loves, our view of him turns to a dark avenger. Whether a terrifying figure who haunts, or a disgusting creature whose face is darkened by flashes of lightning, what it actually might look like is informed by how we view and comprehend it.

Topics: frankenstein, Zombies, sf fiction