Not of the Living Dead

A killer monkey. Suburban witchcraft. Motorcycle jousting. A cockroach invasion. Despite this enticing list of other subjects, George A. Romero is best known for the genre-defining 1968 film Night of the Living Dead and subsequent zombie films. The non-zombie films in his decades-long career have gotten varied degrees of critical examination but they remain underexamined compared to the Dead flicks.
This book focuses on Romero’s “other” work, highlighting lesser-known films such as There’s Always Vanilla (1971) and Bruiser (2000), as well as more popular films such as Martin (1977) and The Crazies (1973). It examines how his body of work participates in social critique by delving into issues such as capitalism’s pitfalls and excesses, domestic and racial power imbalances, and our patriarchal culture’s expectations of masculinity, femininity, and sexuality.

Noah Simon Jampol is an assistant professor of English at Bronx Community College, City University of New York. He lives in New Jersey.

Cain Miller is a PhD student in cinema and media studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. His research focuses on masculinity and the male body in horror cinema.

Leah Richards is a professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York. She has published articles on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Romero’s Land of the Dead, and the penny dreadful on which Sweeney Todd is based.

John R. Ziegler, associate professor of English at Bronx Community College, City University of New York, has published work on early modern literature, Shakespeare, and video games. He serves as co-editor of the journal Supernatural Studies.

Noah Simon Jampol, Cain Miller, Leah Richards and John R. Ziegler
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 268
Bibliographic Info: 12 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2023
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8568-7
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4835-4
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments v
Preface 1
Introduction 5
1. “Isn’t that cheating?”: Extradiegetic Narrative Control in There’s Always Vanilla
Leah Richards 17
2. “You’ve really got to get with it, Mrs. Mitchell”: Freud, Friedan and Jack’s Wife
Leah Richards 30
3. L’Univers Concentrationnaire of The Crazies
Noah Simon Jampol 47
4. Draining the Blood of the Patriarch: Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity in Martin
Cain Miller 58
5. The King Is Dead; Long Live the King: Capitalism and Nostalgia in Knightriders
Leah Richards 74
6. Creepshow and Patriarchal Horror(s)
John R. Ziegler 87
7. Race and Murder in Creepshow 2
John R. Ziegler 111
8. “The Monkey Ruled the Man”: Phallocentrism, ­Able-Bodiedness and AIDS Anxieties in Monkey Shines
Cain Miller 132
9. Animating Politics, Reanimating Genres in “Cat from Hell” and “The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar”
Noah Simon Jampol and John R. Ziegler 148
10. Queer Reproduction and the Family in The Dark Half
John R. Ziegler 170
11. “The New (White) Face of Terror”: White Male Victimization in Bruiser
Cain Miller 186
Conclusion: From Amusement to Evil 203
Chapter Notes 215
Works Cited 231
Index 241