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James Aubrey, editor. Vampire Films Around the World: Essays on the Cinematic Undead of Sixteen Cultures

2022; Penn State University Press; Volume: 57; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/pacicoasphil.57.1.0091

2326-067X

Lisa Nevárez,

Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

In early vampire literature, the Undead love to travel, but are stymied by logistics. Using the first Western vampire story as a point of origin, “The Vampyre” (1819) by John Polidori, the adventures begin with the human Aubrey and the vampire, Lord Ruthven, embarking on a Grand Tour of Europe, where the vampire’s true nature emerges. Subsequent vampire texts follow this same pattern of globe-trotting vampires, although many of them have restrictions, notably Count Dracula needing to repose in soil from his homeland in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Other vampires, such as in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles (1976–present), are prolific travelers.It is in that spirit of global voyaging in foundational vampiric literary texts that Vampire Films Around the World: Essays on the Cinematic Undead of Sixteen Cultures (2020), edited by James Aubrey is literally grounded. This book fits nicely with other recent edited volumes that discuss globalism and vampires, such as Cait Coker’s edited collection The Global Vampire (McFarland Press, 2020). That Aubrey’s collection limits itself to films, and largely recent ones, is compelling. While the interplay between text and screen is a rich one, there is a clarity here with the focus solely on films.Aubrey aptly notes in the introduction: “It is, after all, the differences rather than the similarities among vampire traditions that are most interesting, even if some supposed traditions are imported and have become cinematic cliches such as capes and fangs, while other traditions such as wooden stakes have evolved. . . . Thus, aspects of vampire lore have been adopted or rejected by twentieth-century filmmakers as that mass medium spread vampire variants across the Atlantic and around the world” (3). These “vampire variants” are precisely what make up Vampire Films Around the World as Aubrey and the contributors explore the nuances of vampire films and do so in the context of the national origin of the films under analysis.Further, Aubrey’s collection complements existing scholarship that discusses many of these films in a variety of journals and anthologies. Here we see them gathered together under the twin auspices of film studies and vampire studies. Some of these films are popular ones that have received just this type of popular and critical acclaim, such as Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Byzantium (2012), and What We Do in the Shadows (2014). Seeing those films here juxtaposed with others that might be unfamiliar to some scholars forms a thought-provoking counterbalance.The merit of Aubrey’s collection is that it gathers here a wide-ranging assortment of film analyses and allows the reader to literally travel the globe without stepping foot outside the door. These seventeen essays are coherently organized by nation, with one hybrid (USA-Morocco). Refreshing in this collection is an avoidance of the frequent tendency in scholarship to focus on the Western vampire. More, each essay relies on a national instead of a regional analysis, which guides the reader into a more focused study of the film.As mentioned earlier, some of the essays discuss films likely familiar to a vampire film scholar. For instance, the collection is comprehensive in its inclusion of some of these impactful and critically appreciated films. One sees this in James Aubrey’s essay on Byzantium (2012), which links Ireland and the UK via myth-making, and in Charles Hoge’s look at the New Zealand blockbuster hit What We Do in the Shadows (2014). Other films are familiar names to many, such as Sweden’s Let the Right One In (2008), also analyzed by James Aubrey. Here these essays speak to the “authenticity” (or lack thereof with the vampire, as explored humorously in the film) in Hoge’s work and to the afterlives of the vampire text as in Let the Right One In.Two other films are truly hybrids, as the essays’ authors acknowledge. Wendolyn Weber addresses the “expat” vampires as they travel between Tangier, Morocco, and Detroit, Michigan, in Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), arguably the most well-known film under discussion in the collection, courtesy of its director (Jim Jarmusch) and leading actors (Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton). In her essay on A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), Uzoamaka Melissa Anyiwo rightly speaks to the positioning of that film between Iran and the US, observing the filmmaker’s own background and influences. Anyiwo’s observation that this film is significant “because of the limited representations available to an audience of marginalized identities” connects with her examination of feminism and hybridity in that essay (96).Two of the essays engage with pivotal yet under-viewed films in vampire studies, namely Ganja and Hess (1973) and its remake, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014), as analyzed by Cheryl D. Edelson, and also The Transfiguration (2016) as studied by Cain Miller. The essays on those films guide the reader into considering other aspects of the vampire, namely identity and intersectionality, in particular through a racialized black identity. Indeed, this very intersectionality is a significant approach to looking at the figure of the vampire. These concluding essays provide a strong finishing point for the collection.The collection also includes insightful analyses of Outback Vampires (1987) and The Caretaker (2012) in the opening essay by Graeme A. Wend-Walker, which focuses on Australia. Intriguingly, Lorna Hutchison’s essay examines a rather untraditional film, the vampire ballet-film Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2003), as performed by Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet. There is one essay organized under Latin America, Roberto Forns-Broggi’s reading of Cronos (1990). One hopes that other essays on vampires in Latin American cinema might follow, as this is an under-studied area in vampire scholarship.Essays on several European vampire films nicely round out the analyses, with Vincent Piturro’s look at Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D (2012) against the backdrop of politics, and Tatjana Aleksić's examination of The She Butterfly (1973) and A Holy Place (1990), two Serbian vampire films. The analysis of the German film We Are the Night (2010) in the essay by Kai-Uwe Werbeck, which looks at lesbianism and vampirism and “recalibrates both paradigms in the process,” is particularly compelling (71).A highlight of the collection is the inclusion of four Asian and Indian subcontinent essays. These include films that have gained some recognition, such as Thirst (2009) from Korea, analyzed along with The Wailing (2017) by David John Boyd. Others similarly examine Asian vampires, such as the Japanese film Moon Child (2003), and gender dynamics as discussed by Jade Lum, and Rigor Mortis (2016) from Hong Kong, analyzed by Fontaine Lien who includes a look at cultural contexts for that film. Anurag Chauhan’s essay discusses Bollywood culture and the Dracula legend, examining the vampire as a subaltern. These particular essays elucidate definite and expanding frontiers of vampire cinema and will be particularly welcome to the reader.In summary, this collection is highly recommended for scholars looking to diversify their knowledge of vampire films. Further, these essays could be used as individual pedagogical tools for educational settings. The versatility of the collection is such that a vampire studies student could benefit as equally as a film studies student. The filmography included is helpful for the reader and provides a superb starting point for the casual reader of the book. Vampire Films Around the World allows the reader to travel globally even while staying in place.