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  • The Undead and Theology by Kim Paffenroth and John W. Morehead
  • Michael J. Gilmour
Paffenroth, Kim, and Morehead, John W. , Eds. The Undead and Theology. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012. 275 pp. $33.00 (USD). ISBN: 978-1610978750 (pbk)

In a rich and insightful study, Kelton Cobb examines “religious impulses” found beneath the surfaces of popular culture. At times he finds a “genuine stirring of the divine,” or resuscitations of insights and ideals found in organized religion that find expression in new and unexpected contexts (Cobb 2005, 292). This kind of approach to the diverse media subsumed under the term “popular culture” allows that the religious themes we find in film, television, literature, music, and the like are not only explicable as instances of borrowing (i.e., religion as an influence on pop culture) but are also in some sense a functional equivalent to more traditional religious experience and expression. Religion and myth present worldviews that help us navigate the human experience, giving us both a sense of purpose and a means to contemplate life’s mysteries. It is fascinating to consider how horror and the macabre in particular fit into this relationship between (often subtle) religious leitmotifs and the existential needs of audiences consuming pop culture art forms. The book The Undead and Theology does just this.

Wide-ranging in its scope and creative in presentation, this collection of essays is a rich foray into the hellish delights of religion-infused horror. Horror studies are in vogue, particularly research focused on those liminal characters that transgress the borderlines of life and death, such as vampires and zombies. It is in the nature of such work to be multidisciplinary, combining analysis of history, politics, and culture as represented in diverse media. Often missing, however, is a sustained exploration of the religious and theological dimensions of the horrific, a gap the editors speculate stems from a tendency among conservatives “to sanitize their religious tradition” and to “put a wedge between their understanding of the divine and the darkness that the monstrous symbolizes and embodies” (ix). The problem, however, is that there is “a long history of monstrous expression, many times intertwined with our religious traditions.” It follows that to neglect this grim subject matter is to skew not only our understanding of our past but also of the sacred texts and movements that contribute so much to our cultural expressions in the Western world. Consequently, Kim Paffenroth and John W. Morehead make a welcome contribution to a field of study easily and habitually neglected within religious studies circles, save for some notable exceptions (e.g., Timothy K. Beal, Religion and Its Monsters [2001], and Paffenroth’s Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth [2006]).

This book has three sections. The first focuses on vampires, with chapters considering author Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, the 2011 film Priest, the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and a historical piece by W. Scott Poole examining the influence of Hammer Studio films on Britain of the 1960s and 1970s. The second section turns to zombies with three chapters looking at aspects of Robert Kirkman’s/AMC’s The Walking Dead phenomenon, another considering the recent popularity of “zombie walks,” and the next analyzing Romero’s films in light of biblical, prophetic, and apocalyptic writing.

The final section turns away from the more familiar vampire and zombie categories to consider other embodiments of the undead. Here we find a chapter on the mythical golem of [End Page 432] Jewish folklore, another looking at gothic subculture, and finally one treating the undead cenobites, creatures in Clive Barker’s The Hellbound Heart and the subsequent Hellraiser franchise.

On the whole, this is a very engaging exploration of a widely represented theme in popular culture. It is broad in scope and we might quibble over whether focusing on one manifestation of the undead would strengthen the overall presentation; in addition, some readers will inevitably regret the omission of certain topics. I am left wondering, for instance, if the embrace of undead themes in some popular music and the related subcultures, particularly heavy metal, would suit this context, especially given...

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