A while back Stephen King wrote a "Danse Macabre" which, among other things, discussed how the popular trends in science fiction, and especially horror films reflect the fears of the generation of young adults growing up in that era. For example, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" reflected the Red scare of the era in which it was made. In other films of the same era monsters were created, or unleashed, by nuclear tests. Many of these latter films were made in a Japan still scarred by the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Today as an America with the life sucked out of it by banking Ponzi schemes shambles mindlessly across the globe leaving death and destruction in its wake, Zombie movies are really popular...and vampires seem to be all over TV.
Just a coincidence I am sure.
Be seeing you.
Danse Macabre is an awesome book. I've worn out a couple of copies so far. As for the undead or unquiet dead, I think there's a big difference between the vampires and zombies. The vampires -- angsty or not -- are generally at the top of the food chain. The zombies are plague on legs, the embodied food chain itself. I suppose the difference is executives compared with the rest of us, but we're all sucked or gnawed to death, unable to lie down and rot in peace.
ReplyDeleteA sad meme for a dead and dying world, I suppose.