Forthcoming Publication

I have just received an email from Chris Hansen, the editor of one of the books that I am in - Ruminations, Peregrinations and Regenerations: A Critical Approach to Doctor Who - to tell me that it has just gone to press and is now available for pre-order on Amazon. The book, as a whole, considers all aspects of the series with my chapter examining the uncanny nature of the Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who, analysing in particular the Gothic and uncanny qualities that the Cybermen embody.

The book can be pre-ordered from both Amazon UK and US by following either of these links:

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Current Publications

I have over the past few months been working on a wide range of commissions, all of which are soon due for submission and publication:

The Director Series: Kathryn Bigelow
Book for Auteur Publishing

British Horror Cinema
The Directory of World Cinema: British Cinema, Intellect Publishing

The Mist
Electric Sheep

3:10 to Yuma
Splice

Body Horror
MediaMagazine

In addition to these publications I will be delivering a paper concerning Doctor Who at a conference in June (University of York) and have a travelogue piece due for publication in Rue Morgue.

Recently Published

My article on E4's Misfits has just been published in the April 2010 edition of MediaMagazine. The text explores what it means to be both an outcast and superhero and how these qualities relate to the humorous nature of the series.

To order a copy of this edition of the magazine or to subscribe to MediaMagazine, click here.

Recently Published

My essay Vincent and Victor: Two Early Shorts by Tim Burton has just been published in the Winter 2009-2010 edition of Splice. The text examines the shorts as a point of origin of Burton's auteuristic traits, critiquing visual style and elements on influence throughout the two short films. As I state in the opening paragraph to the text...

"Vincent Malloy is a seven year old boy with long black, wiry hair who fantasises that he is Vincent Price. He also imagines that he conducts arcane electrical experiments on his dog in a castle perched high on a craggy hill and dreams of dipping his aunt in a vat of molten wax. Another boy, Victor Frankenstein, is older than the first. He resurrects his deceased dog after it has been knocked down by a car and together they cause havoc in the middle-class suburbia in which they live. These are two different boys but both of them grew up into one man, Tim Burton."

For further information and ordering pleas visit Auteur Publishing.

Recently Published

My article, Reading the Apocalypse, has just been published in this quarters edition of Media Magazine: the text examines the history of the apocalypse narratives in British film and television, including The War Game, Threads and the recently revived series of Survivors. Here is a brief extract...

Throughout the steadily evolving history of the Post-apocalypse genre, those narratives based within Britain, be that film or on broadcast television, have a dominating preoccupation with two concerns: the contextual/political background to the story more often than not reflects the nation’s contemporary anxieties whilst its drama focuses on the plight of one or two families. When combined, this family becomes a metaphor for all families and so, in effect, come to represent the national experience in the face of real-world concerns. Perhaps predictably, these issues have a tendency to shift only slightly, fluctuating between the horrific consequences of a full-scale nuclear assault on mainland Britain to viral pandemics devastating the populace. In both scenarios, the causalities will be extremely high, its impact irreversibly changing the nation. And whilst these narratives are horrific, they function as a means of chronicling the social and political modes and shifts with the country. In this respect, these films and programmes of fiction becomes very clear works of fact for they respond clearly and without hesitation to the fears of the nation. With such destructive threats, the family – or at least what remains of it after the initial assault or outbreak – also shifts, from a normal functioning family unit to one that is at the mercy of a collapsing society: failing law and order, civil unrest, lack of food, fresh water and sanitary systems alongside looting, martial law, vigilante law and rape. Out of all these elements emerges a further recurrent element within the British post-apocalyptic narrative: in terms of its representation, these films and television serials have a clear preoccupation with realism. Instead of showing the consequences of assault or pandemic in abstract terms, they are shown in clear, brutal and graphic images, each time the camera lingering on the dire impact of a national catastrophe. Within these visual texts then the horror not only parallels but as warns us of our possible futures.

To order a copy of this edition of the magazine or to subscribe to MediaMagazine, click here.

Notebook Extract

The Fly

For most of Cronenberg's male protagonists, sexual contact results in disease and / or mutation. Personal identity and notions of the self disintegrate as Cronenberg represents the infected male as a womb in which the abstracted life form gestates. Often unable to cope with this transformation the male relies upon the strong female of the narrative in order to rectify the status quo. After his disastrous teleportation, Seth Brundle slowly transforms into a hybrid of human and fly, resulting in a breakdown of the human form into Brundlefly. Unable to deal with the consequences of his actions, Brundle retreats into science, cataloging his decay and keeping his rejected body parts in specimen jars. Accepting his mutation with a rational mind, Brundle's clinical approach emphases his self-alienation. As such Brundle becomes another Cronenberg male: obsessional, incapable of dealing with emotions and alienated from those who surround him.

Notebook Extract

The Silence of the Lambs

Buffalo Bill is not endowed with supernatural powers nor does he require the use of specialist tools to aid him in his killing. He is simply human but one who has been constructed through years of systematic abuse. He exists on the periphery of the narrative, shrouded in partially darkness. The viewer sees only fragments - a hand, an angle on his face; they hear his unusual voice. The viewer only fully sees him when he chooses to present himself to them through his own video camera.

Jame Gumb's desired transformation gives The Silence of the Lambs a two fold rite of passage subtext. Both protagonist and antagonist desire change, a shift that will align them with their opposite sex. By realigning their gender this way both can overcome the traumas of the past and accept themselves into society.

Recently Published

I have two pieces published in Issue 7 of The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies: Between the Dust and the Devil: An Interview with Richard Stanley and a review of Marc Price's low-budget British zombie film Colin. Extracts below and please click on the titles to be directed to the full texts:

Between the Dust and the Devil: An Interview with Richard Stanley

Rose: Your films and documentaries tend to feature strong women – Jill in Hardware, Wendy in Dust Devil, Edelle in The White Darkness. There is also the female cowboy who reveals herself near the close of The Preacher Man promo. Why is this character prevalent in your work?

Stanley: My parents separated when I was four years old and I was raised by my mother and two older sisters. Accordingly women tend to dominate my life and work whereas guys tend to come off as schmucks and ne'er do wells. On a wider level you could say its representative of my undying faith in the restorative power of the Goddess over patriarchal order and the sort of repressive dogma espoused by the Holy Roman Church and the other monotheisms. The Goddess rules.

Rose: Can you tell us a little about your intentions for Jill’s role in Hardware.

Stanley: Jill descends from a long line of embattled heroines, a combination of the 'last girl' of the slasher era and the lead character from a Super 8 movie I started shooting when I was fifteen. I saw her as a sort of 'everywoman' - hence her name which is drawn from Jill's America – the main theme on Morricone's Once Upon A Time In The West album – outsider artist, lover, big sister, 21st century cyber warrior and post technological cave girl all rolled into one. She was initially intended not only as the heroine of Hardware but as a continuing character in her own right.

Colin

Working with low-budgets often forces filmmakers to rule out certain genres and narratives and instead forces them to work with a limited cast, a limited crew and equally limited locations and effects. While these parameters may seem restrictive, they can often work to the benefit of the film itself, making the writer and director focus their narrative and work creatively with what is available in order to achieve a film of quality. With this in mind, choosing to make a zombie film – a genre which is heavy on zombie extras, requiring varied locations which should, preferably, be empty of people, and a whole host of realistic and gory effects – initially seems an ill-fated endeavour. Yet Price’s debut film takes the genre and gives it new life by positioning the film from the titular zombie’s perspective. The premise is this: for an unspecified reason, the undead are returning to life and consuming the flesh of the living. Zombies roam the streets as survivors either barricade themselves within their homes or form large groups to hunt down and slaughter the undead hordes. While fighting a zombie in his home, Colin (Alastair Kirton) is bitten and soon dies. Returning from the dead, he joins the undead masses and stumbles along the streets looking for flesh, encountering other zombies, violent survivors and, eventually, his sister (Daisy Aitkens). As Colin’s undead life unfolds, fragments of his human life are revealed alongside the barbaric acts of the survivors, culminating in a film that subtly meditates on the emotional impact of death and subsequent mourning.

Recently Published

Studying the Devil's Backbone

Just before Christmas I received one of my Author Copies of my latest book, Studying the Devil's Backbone:

The Devil’s Backbone (2001) is a Gothic film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, 2006). The story centers on a ghost that haunts an isolated orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. Studying The Devil's Backbone explores the narrative of the film in relation to central concerns, such as genre, theme, iconography, representation, and film language. Through these elements, the volume reads the film’s unique blend of literary Gothic, Western, and War film and the use of bombs, ghosts, and color as visual signifiers. It critiques the central characters and compares their representation of women, monsters, and political context against an examination of mise-en-scene, sound, and special effects. In addition, the author provides a critical biography of del Toro, an analysis of his auteurist traits, and an in-depth bibliography and filmography.

The book is available from the following outlets:

British Film Institute: BFI Filmstore, Columbia University Press, Amazon UK and Amazon.com - click on any of the names to be directed to the book's order page.

Recently Published

My article on the Horror Mockumentary has just been published in the December edition (Issue 30) of MediaMagazine: initially charting the rise of the sub genre, the text then goes on to provide in-depth textual analysis of films such as Cannibal Holocaust, The Blair Witch Project, Dairy of the Dead and Clovefield. The text concludes with an exploration of how the 'real' in these films is marketed to potential audiences.

To order a copy of this edition of the magazine or to subscribe to MediaMagazine, click here.

Recently Published

The Winter 2009 edition of Electric Sheep features my text The Law of the Gun, an essay on the Vigilante film in US cinema, featuring Death Wish, Dirty Harry and Escape from New York.

Notebook Extract

INT. KAHIKA PALMS MOTEL, ROOM No.2 – MID AFTERNOON

Otis turns Gloria around and whilst holding her neck he gently caresses her shoulder blade with the barrel of his gun. She is drawing short and panicked breaths, looking down at her husband. CUT. The side of his face and neck are splattered in congealing blood. He looks back up at her, helpless, knowing what is going to happen. He slowly drops his head and covers his face with his hat, unable to watch this humiliation. CUT. Otis continues to stroke Gloria’s body, trailing the barrel of the gun down her chest, between her breasts, pushing it beneath her bra. He whispers in her ear: “You like this don’t you. Say yes I do.” He pauses and then levers the cup of the bra off, exposing Gloria’s right breast. CUT. Otis grins. He continues to move the gun further down Gloria’s body, pressing himself against her as he pushes the gun into her panties and then between her legs. Gloria inhales sharply. Otis cocks the hammer of the gun and then begins to kiss Gloria, occasionally looking across at her husband.

“At the end of the day nothing really happens. It’s more just verbal abuse and mental intimidation but it’s so much worse than if he did anything”

Rob Zombie

Otis’s torturous act is carried out as a double performance and for a double audience. For Otis there is the dual pleasure of sexual arousal and the pleasure of humiliation. The gun – for Otis and the audience – is clearly a violent phallic symbol. As an extension of Otis is represents his power and authority whilst simultaneously allowing him the opportunity to indulge his perverse sexual needs. Pushing the gun between Gloria’s breasts, caressing her nipple with the barrel and then forcing it between her legs are all blatantly sexually aggressive actions, ones which simultaneously render her husband impotent and him as the powerful, dominant male.

The observers of this torture are both Gloria’s husband and friends and the audience themselves. Standing in front of the three hostages (and the camera), Otis carries out his humiliating actions. The characters watch as the audience watch, unable to move or act for fear of the consequences.

Although Zombie does not use any Point of View shot within this sequence (in fact, he rarely uses any POV shots throughout the entire film) he does force the audience into viewing the intimacy of the violation though using sustained close-up images. These are predominately of the sexual aggressive moments – a close up of the barrel pushing Gloria’s bra away to expose her breast, where the camera lingers on her erect nipple, all bleached out by the coarse sunlight filtering into the room and a further close-up of the gun being forced between her legs. So intense is this scene that these images take on the powerful connotations of the Point of View shot. Acting as a surrogate for this type of image, these close-ups highlight both the violation of Gloria and represent what her husband is seeing.

Given this, the torture itself becomes a double for just as Gloria must undergo the physical violation, her husband and friends must undergo a psychological torture: they can only sit and watch Gloria’s humiliation, bound by the knowledge that if they attempt to help her their actions will either get Gloria or themselves killed. Given Otis’s controlled sense of violence, it is likely that he would kill them both. This sense of character incapacitation finds itself reflected into the audience. Given the beginning of the film, the audience is aware that Otis is not just a psychopath but also a necrophile. The first time he is seen in the film is in ariel shot, lying in bed with both arms wrapped around the corpse of a naked cheerleader. His sadistic touching of Gloria can only lead to one conclusion – her rape and her death, with the order of these events remaining ambiguous. As the viewers gaze remains upon the lingering shots of Gloria’s exposed body the tension mounts as this inevitable conclusion draws near. This awful knowledge is in their eyes and that too is reflected in the eyes of Gloria’s husband. Seemingly aware of this, Zombie allows Otis further time to revel in the moment, making the scene a painful protraction for both the four innocent characters and the audience. And, just as they all think the inevitable is about to happen, Otis pushes Gloria away and tells the men they have work to do.

Beyond Hammer - Press Reviews and Recent Acquisitions

Since its publication in May 2009, Beyond Hammer has been reviewed in Sight & Sound, Empire, Filmstar, Total Film, SFX and Deathray: Kevin Stuart, in his review for Filmstar, states the book is "well-written and enlightening, managing to tread that difficult line between academic depth and easy readability" whilst in Total Film the book is described as "a genre primer that lucidly skin-peels four decades of scares and subtexts". Deathray's review comments that the chapter on Hellraiser is interesting, a comment reflected in the Stuart review. Other chapters singled out for commentary included The Descent, which Nigel Floyd, in his review for Sight & Sound states "Saving the best for last, however, the essay on Neil Marshall's The Descent is cogent and insightful".

Beyond Hammer has also been recently acquired by the BFI National Library and Harvard University.

Notebook Extract

Whilst writing the Reading the Apocalypse article for MediaMagazine, I looked through my notebooks and found a text regarding Jimmy T. Murakami's When the Wind Blows. Here is the notebook entry, in full:

In addition to The War Game and Threads, a further Cold War/ Post-apocalyptic narrative would emerge from Britain: based on the graphic novel by Raymond Briggs, When the Wind Blows is an animated film that recounts the effect of a nuclear strike on the UK from the perspective of an elderly couple, Jim and Hilda Bloggs. Like its predecessors, the film depicts narrative events from an extremely realistic point of view - Jim and Hilda’s radiation sickness brings about both calming hallucination and terrible sickness, their lack of food and water steadily starving them until, eventually, both die in their sleep. The film’s sense of tragedy is compounded not just by the simple metaphor that Jim and Hilda represent but because of their very lack of knowledge of how to cope in the situation they are forced into. Throughout the film Jim and Hilda recount there experiences of the Second World War, describing it as a violent period but one in which the threat was known and one in which society pulled together as a unified whole to overcome this shared enemy. The war, for them, was in another country, far, far away. From these experiences emerges their unwavering faith in the government. As Jim and Hilda drink cups of tea, Jim assures his wife that everything will be alright and that he is sure the government is working effectively to bring everything back to normal. For all his faith, Jim fails to realise that there probably is not a government and that although they have survived the nuclear blast, they are now subjecting themselves to fallout and radiation poisoning. Whilst the film shifts towards its extremely bleak ending, there are moments of stark humour that contrast sharply with the stark reality the film depicts, culminating in a film that is as poignant as it is terrifying.

Recent Commissions

I recently completed a commissioned article for the February Fantasy themed edition of MediaMagazine: Reading the Apocalypse is an overview of British post-apocalyptic film and television, covering The War Game, Threads, and both versions of Survivors. In the original draft there was a section concerning 28 Days Later but this was, eventually, cut due to the required word count.

Never one to waste words, it is included here...

28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)

While a nuclear assault destroys the physical landscape, a viral pandemic only destroys the populace, leaving in its deadly wake a litter of corpses but buildings, shops, and homes all still standing and untouched. Such a quality allows filmmakers to create desolate images of familiar locations, poignantly creating the horror of the consequences of a viral outbreak. The potential for these images to be so dramatic is validated by 28 Days Later: having woken from a comma, young bicycle courier Jimmy (Cillian Murphy) finds the British population virtually eradicated by the accidental release of the Rage Virus: stumbling outside, he finds a very familiar London totally devoid of people. There no corpses, just the empty streets, an overturned bus, and bank notes blowing in the wind. As he wanders through he streets, Jimmy passes familiar landmarks – Tower Bridge, the London Eye and Cenotaph – that are all rendered as if grave markers to the deceased population.

As Jimmy’s story of survival unfolds, the theme of family very quickly comes to the fore: being chased by a group of the Infected, Jimmy is saved by Selena and Mark. Taking him to their underground hideout, Jimmy is informed of the current national (if not global) situation. The three seem to form a family unit, but it is one cut very short when Selena thinks Mark might be infected and quickly – and rather brutally – kills him. From this act it would seem that the notion of the family has been totally voided by the pandemic but as the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that the film is not just about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world but starting a new and better family in this new world. As a consequence, Jim’s personal narrative trajectory becomes the search for a father figure, which leads him into encounters with two ‘families’ – the normal domestic of past offered by Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns) and that of the future represented by a military outpost. Soon, Jim has to make his choice between the two and, in a violently cathartic conclusion, takes on the role of the Father himself to eradicate the threat presented to him and those he cares for. For a violent and pessimistic film, 28 Days Later ends on a perversely optimistic end: the three survivors – Jim, Selena and Hannah – are seemingly rescued as the Infected slowly die of starvation.

The film’s writer, novelist Alex Garland, has stated that the influences upon 28 Days Later ranged from the classic texts by Wells and Wyndham as well as more recent American cinema, particularly the zombie films of George A. Romero. Using the realist elements of these texts to guide him, Garland created the fictional Rage Virus – a seemingly genetically engineered disease - as a blood borne disease. With such a construct, the Rage Virus becomes an obvious metaphor for the nation’s fears of Ebola, SARS, Avian Flu as well as the sustained awareness of AIDS.

Current Commissions

October has been a very busy month, hence the complete lack of posts . I have been working hard on multiple projects, all now complete and with their respective editors awaiting publication:

I finished the final amendments on The Devil's Backbone Study Guide and signed off the final proofs. The book is now set for publication and should be with the printers this week.

The article on Horror Mockumentaries is now finished and ready for publication in the next edition of Media Magazine.

The text on Vigilante Cinema has now been completed. A few minor changes were made and is now ready for publication in the Winter edition of Electric Sheep.

The essay on Tim Burton's early shorts - Vincent and Frankenweenie - is due for publication in the next edition of Splice.

The interview with Colin director Marc Price has been conducted, transcribed and formatted ready for publication in a forthcoming edition of Offscreen.

And finally, the interview with Hardware and Dust Devil director Richard Stanley is due for publication in this month's edition of The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies.

Personal Project Extract

I have, for the past year, being working on a personal project exploring traces and evidences of the Uncanny within the work of Guillermo del Toro. As personal research, this has fed directly into the writing of the forthcoming Study Guide on The Devil's Backbone as well as generating three potential texts for publication. What follows is a very rough draft from the conclusion of one of these essays, concerning the uncanny interrelationship between The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth.

"Inherently integrated into all these elements is the possibility of the uncanny. Because del Toro works consistently within the genres of horror and fantasy – genres that specifically attempt to generate the uncanny feelings of fear and dread – it is perhaps very easy to suggest that the uncanny is indeed a more subtle but overarching auteuristic trait. Yet such a conclusion seems arbitrary and clumsy. A more focussed analysis would, of course, prove this either way, but for the purposes of this conclusion it is worth noting that the uncanny elements embodied by Jacinto and Carmen reverberate throughout del Toro’s oeuvre: this is most explicitly seen in Pan’s Labyrinth, a sequel of sorts to The Devil’s Backbone: in many respects the two films are uncannily related because they double themselves (almost to the point of déjà vu, of being a copy of each other) and bear similarity in character. Carmen, from The Devil’s Backbone, not only has her name doubled in Pan’s Labyrinth but also her castrating quality is echoed in Pan’s Labyrinth's Mercedes as she also emerges from her narrative as an uncanny woman: victimised and then nearly tortured by antagonist Captain Vidal, Mercedes assaults him with a paring knife, not only repeatedly stabbing him but inserting it into his mouth and slicing open his cheek. This injury, like the one Carmen inflicted upon Jacinto, is not only a physical attack but also a castrating assault upon Vidal’s beauty and sense of masculinity. Throughout the film he is seen to be continually preening himself, forever looking clean, smart and in control. This appearance becomes a physical manifestation of his anger, violence, and power over the narrative’s other characters and so embodies a perversely ugly image of masculinity. Moments before Mercedes slices open his cheek, he verbalises this power by telling his officers to leave him and Mercedes alone. When questioned, Vidal spits out “For God sake, she is only a woman”. As he speaks, Mercedes draws her knife (a phallic weapon that mirrors Carmen’s equally phallic walking cane), ready to attack.

It seems logical that if Carmen is reflected in Mercedes, then Jacinto should be reflected in Vidal. As already stated, Vidal, like Jacinto, presents an image of masculinity that is, on the surface, attractive yet that very same masculinity is vile and thoroughly evil within that same person. Whilst Jacinto and Vidal share this quality, they also share a similar preoccupation with their past and in particular their childhoods: whilst Jacinto wants to destroy his past, Vidal is desperately trying to live up to his: throughout the film he is seen to be examing the watch his father held at the moment of his death. It preoccupies him, torments him, setting itself as a standard to be achieved. In his final moments, when faced by a group of armed Republicans, Vidal takes out his own pocket watch and crushes it, doubling his father’s actions at the moment of his own immanent death."

Current Commissions

I have just been commissioned to write a text for the next edition of Electric Sheep: I will be writing about US Vigilante films of the early 70's to the late 80's. The article will take a broad approach to the vigilante theme and so will include films such as Death Wish, Dirty Harry, Taxi Driver and First Blood.

My second book, Studying The Devil's Backbone, is with the copy editors, bringing it a step closer to publication.

Recently Viewed

The Zombie Diaries (Kevin Gates & Michael Bartlett, 2006)

“I just want to document everything” – Matt, cameraman, Diary One: The Outbreak.

Broken into three discreet sections, The Zombie Diaries is a collection of video diaries made by survivors of a viral pandemic. As indicated by the title cards within the film - Dairy One: The Outbreak, Diary Two: The Scavengers and Diary Three: The Survivors – the narrative chronicles the increasingly desperate situation the characters find themselves in: the first diary records the initial confusion over what is actually happening, events which are soon followed by the appearance of the first zombies. Lurching out of the darkness, they stumble towards the camera, groaning and drooling blood and spittle. The second diary, recorded one month after the first, depicts the efforts made by three people to survive what is now clearly an apocalyptic situation as food and fresh water supplies are running low and tempers fray as the amount of zombie steadily increases. The final diary depicts events well into the crisis and where the attempts to survive start to take quite a dramatic turn when the various small groups of survivors make contact with each other via short-wave radio.

The format of the video diary immediately provides a narrative structure and logical timeframe for the film and ensures a high level of intimacy between the characters and the viewer, a quality emphasised by characters repeatedly and aggressively covering the camera lens during arguments or scenes of explicit violence. The strategy of the hand-held camera brings a great sense of reality to the footage, a quality that is enhanced by the lack of composition and the sole use of diegetic sound. Because of this, the horror felt during the film is not actually generated by the zombies (although when they are seen, these reanimated corpses are particularly grotesque) but by the contrast between the normality of the locations and the increasingly volatile relationships between the characters. To this end, the film suggests that in situations in which we are positioned in direct threat our capacity to listen to others and work with others is our greatest strength for arguing and bickering (over such trivial matters as cigarettes and alcohol) leads only to more violence and more death.

As an interesting aside, The Zombie Diaries positions its antagonistic pandemic in contemporary real-world events: the opening voice-over is a montage of news reports chronicling the emergence of Avian Flu. Whilst the film does not overtly say this is the cause of the outbreak, it intimates its enough. As the characters discuss their situation, they speculate on what else could have caused the epidemic, with one suggesting “another terrorist threat”. The idea that the virus may have been released by terrorists is consolidated by another character who verbally equates the pandemic with the events of September 11 2001, saying that in the morning everything was normal but by the afternoon everything had changed because of one singular act. Whilst these comments position the narrative in relation to world-wide issues, the indication that the virus is related to the movement of livestock is reiterated by scenes in the third diary in which the group’s leader, who fears more than anything else contamination, insists that her fellow survivors wash their hands and feet in a bucket of disinfectant before entering the house. Such scenes of cleaning before entering a defined hygienic clearly recall the government imposed controls during the BSE crisis and so successfully aligns the fantastical narrative of the undead with the very real events that took place in the UK.

The success of the tension built within the film can be mostly attributed to the strong sense of realism that pervades the film: the dialogue is consistently naturalistic and, at times, feels as if it has been ad-libbed, a quality which only adds to the idea of recording events as they ‘happen’. The use of real locations as sets compounds this sense of realism. In addition to this the narrative itself is bound to reality. Instead of narrative events slipping into horror film cliché, it unfolds in a logical manner as the necessities of survival begin to dictate actions and events: after a few days of the country being in the grip of the pandemic the power goes out, forcing the contemporary citizens to revert to primitive means of sourcing light and warmth by making fire. This is then followed by the twin search for food and other survivors. Whilst at first food and water is abundant it soon begins to run out, necessitating excursions into the zombie infested shopping centres to loot supplies. And, as those supplies dwindle, rationing is enforced and life’s luxuries and addictions are voided in the face of the threat posed by the zombie hordes. Self defence becomes the optimum consideration. With only a few survivors possessing either a hand gun or hunting rifle, the breaking into shops and businesses becomes increasingly dangerous, and all the more so as one character points out “we’re running out of bullets”.

Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of The Zombie Diaries is the clarity by which it depicts a national catastrophe: although both the characters and audience are aware that the pandemic is successfully infecting the populace, the actual result of that is never actually seen. Instead, this horrific event is hinted at through fragments of news reports, fleeting images of vast empty landscapes and carefully composed shots of vacant suburban streets and car parks. The horror lies not what is seen but in what is not been seen.

Recently Published

Two of my essays have been published at the start of this month: the first is a critical analysis of the BBC Three serial Being Human, published in MediaMagazine (Issue 29) and the second is a comparative analysis of Requiem and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, published in Electric Sheep (Autumn 2009).

Electric Sheep can be purchased from the newsstands whilst MediaMagazine is available from their website: http://www.mediamagazine.org.uk/