Product Description

Winner of the silver medal in popular culture for the 2006 ForeWord Book of the Year Awards. This volume connects American social and religious views with the classic American movie genre of the zombie horror film. For nearly forty years, the films of George A. Romero have presented viewers with hellish visions of our world overrun by flesh-eating ghouls. This study proves that Romero's films, like apocalyptic literature or Dante's Commedia, go beyond the surface experience of repulsion to probe deeper questions of human nature and purpose, often giving a chilling and darkly humorous critique of modern, secular America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #480678 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 195 pages

Review
A fascinating, insightful tribute to the man who started it all. --Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead

Finally, a scholar who takes zombie movies seriously. In his nonfiction masterpiece, Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth, Kim Paffenroth explores how legendary filmmaker George A. Romero uses the living dead to criticize American society, covering topics from racism to materialism, from individualism to theology. Paffenroth describes and analyzes each movie in separate chapters, and makes comparisons to Dante's Inferno. But most disturbing, he indicates parallels between Romero zombies and humans; I've long known the sharp teeth that can undercut our hearts and consciences, but nothing has exposed our fangs quite like Paffenroth s deft scalpel of analysis. A must read for zombie fans and for those elitists who demean horror movies as thoughtless escapism--Paffenroth has taken a huge step in proving these critics wrong. --D.L. Snell, Editor/Contributor, The Undead: Skin & Bones

The author provides terrific insights into an underexamined facet of American popular culture: the zombie films of George Romero. His grasp of the zombie myth and his analyses of the films should inform all future work on the subject. --David Wellington, author of Monster Island: A Zombie Novel

About the Author
Kim Paffenroth (Ph.D. Notre Dame) is Professor of Religious Studies at Iona College

Customer Reviews

Good Book, But Incomplete
I'm a longtime fan of Romero's work, so a philosophical look at the living dead and what they have represented over time seemed a welcome treat, and for the most part, it was.
Most of the comparisons I'd overheard over the years were mentioned within this work, and made me quite happy. I won't mention them specifically here as to do so would be a Spoiler.
The book is good...but in my opinion, a whole movie, AND it's philosophical value, go completely missing.
The Remake for Dawn of the Dead got it's own chapter, just like the original.
But.
The Night of the Living Dead remake (1990) that Romero had Tom Savini direct, was not given equal treatment.
If the 'Night' remake were no different from the original, I would certainly understand it's absence in this book, but because there were some VERY specific differences...differences equally representative of the changing cultural times, and most certainly deserving of analysis...I cannot say I'm pleased about the absence.

Worth reading, but there's room for improvement
If you enjoy zombie movies, especially the work of George Romero, I recommend that you read this book. It's a pretty quick and easy read and holds some interesting insight -- sociological, economical, philosophical, religious, and otherwise. However, it wasn't exactly what I expected going into it, and while I made some pleasant discoveries while I read, I also met with a bit of disappointment.

Based on the title and the description in the book jacket, I was expecting more talk relating these films to Dante's "Inferno", which the author mostly mentions in passing. I think "Inferno" is one of the most interesting and unique pieces of literature around, and I would have liked for him to focus a bit more on the similarities between it and the zombie movies. If someone were reading this book who had little or no knowledge of Dante's "Inferno", I'm sure the parts where he mentions it could be pretty confusing. He doesn't elaborate on it enough for those who like "Inferno", but he doesn't ignore it enough for those who don't know much about it either.

One reviewer wrote, "At times, I felt this book was overreaching a bit in its textual analysis, which irks me." I agree. While George Romero's movies certainly have plenty of Christian undertones, I feel that Paffenroth overthought and over-analyzed a couple of his interpretations. For example, he interprets Big Daddy and the other zombies in "Land of the Dead" crossing the river to Fiddler's Green as analogous to the Israelites crossing the Red Sea with the help of Moses in the Old Testament. I can certainly see why one would make this analogy, but the zombies crossing the river could be more easily and simply interpreted as a purification process, such as a baptismal ritual. Earlier in the book, he interprets the human desire to bury the dead, zombie or not, as a human desire to have a personal relationship with God. This is also a fair interpretation (merely one sub-par out of many great ones), but I just feel like Paffenroth grasps at straws sometimes in this book. Most every culture has some sort of burial ritual, and they do not necessarily seek a close relationship to the Christian God.

These are really my only complaints about this book, but I feel they are significant ones. If I could give this title 3.5/5 stars, I would. If you love zombie movies and seek deep, philosophical and/or religious insight into the world of zombie movies, it is definitely worth your time. But just check it out at the library and give it a quick read, rather than buy a copy to keep on your bookshelf.

Worth it for the summaries
At times, I felt this book was overreaching a bit in its textual analysis, which irks me. Still, I really liked it. The idea is great, and the movie summaries are worth the price alone. I think some Christians might be upset by Paffenroth's compassionate, anti-Fundamentalist Christian beliefs, but I guess if you're buying this book that probably won't be an issue. (It actually really pleased me to find that that was the case.)