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The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema by Jeffrey Weinstock

2014; Volume: 47; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mml.2014.0013

2162-6294

Marja Mogk,

Cinema and Media Studies

Reviewed by: The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema by Jeffrey Weinstock Marja Mogk The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema. By Jeffrey Weinstock. New York: Wallflower (Columbia University Press), 2012. 144 pp. In 1995, Nina Auerbach observed in Our Vampires, Ourselves that vampires seemed to have run their course. They were no longer the compelling creatures they were during the sexual revolution and civil rights eras of the 1960s and ‘70s or the conservative Reagan revival of the ‘80s. “Vampirism is wearing down,” as Auerbach put it, “and vampires need a long restorative sleep” (192). Only two years later, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) hit prime time, followed by its popular spin-off series Angel (1999–2004) as well as HBO’s True Blood series (2008–2014) and the phenomenon of Stephanie Meyer’s tetralogy Twilight, which has sold more than 120 million copies worldwide and was adapted for the screen (2008–2012) complete with midnight lineups and screaming teens, grossing more than 3.3 billion dollars and breaking box office records in 2009 with what was then the biggest opening day in film history. Clearly, vampires have an uncanny ability to reappear with undiminished allure. At this point, it is axiomatic in the critical literature that vampires and their stories derive their cultural currency from their ability to function as metaphors for a range of cultural anxieties and desires. Auerbach called this their “wonderful versatility,” noting that throughout the twentieth century, generations grew up with their own vampires who reflected the sociopolitical preoccupations and perspectives of their particular eras, from feminism to the cold war. But this could be said to some degree for all monsters: they are us projected onto other forms. The question [End Page 185] becomes: what is it about vampires in particular? The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema offers a distilled answer: vampires’ metaphoric potency arises from their deep associations with the cultural trifecta of sex, technology and otherness. This book is volume 48 in Wallflower Press’s Short Cuts series, which offers concise yet rigorous introductions to a full spectrum of film studies. Its aim is not comprehensive. It does not cover the representation of many subjects in relation to vampire films—such as the Vietnam War or HIV/AIDS—and it does not cover foreign vampire films, with a few exceptions. It also doesn’t offer the kind of graphic romp through cinematic representations of vampires found in visually oriented overviews of the genre, like Alain Silver and James Ursini’s The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to True Blood (4th ed. 2011). Instead, The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema provides readers with a clear understanding of what Weinstock identifies as the three major cruxes of vampire efficacy, and therefore of critical inquiry as well, making for an engrossing and efficient read. The book’s filmography lists 135 films and it offers pointed readings of 25, most of which are canonical: A Fool There Was (1915); Nosferatu (1922); Vampyr (1932); Dracula’s Daughter (1936); The Last Man on Earth (1964); Vampyros Lesbos, Requiem for a Vampire, and Daughters of Darkness (1971); Blacula (1972); Scream Blacula Scream and Ganja & Hess (1973); Rabid (1977); Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992); Cronos (1993); Interview With the Vampire (1994); Shadow of the Vampire (2000); The Breed (2001); Van Helsing (2004); I Am Legend (2007); the Blade series (Blade 1998, Blade II 2002, Blade: Trinity 2004); and the Underworld series (Underworld 2003, Underworld: Evolution 2006, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans 2009). This selection provides not only relevant examples of Weinstock’s argument, but also a sense of vampire topography in cinema from the early twentieth century to the twenty-first. In his introduction, Weinstock crystalizes seven principles that characterize the vampire across this cinematic landscape and its critical literature. These principles range from the de rigueur—the vampire is always more interesting than those who pursue it, and the vampire always returns—to the three major characteristics the book subsequently pursues: sex, technology and otherness. What makes these principles particularly useful are the corollaries that accompany them, which illustrate the potential resonance of any given principle without losing the schematic [End Page 186] clarity that makes the book as a whole an excellent teaching...