By Peter Rowe
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
Nov 8, 2008
Zombies are red, vampires are blue.
Whatever its challenges, the Bush White House has presided over a period of robust health for a genre that – if history is any guide – will soon fade: the zombie movie.
Tuesday's election of a Democratic president, meanwhile, comes at the start of a new cycle of vampire films (“Twilight,” “Let the Right One In”) and TV shows (HBO's “True Blood.”)
Coincidence? Or something spookier?
“I think there's something to this,” said Peter Dendle, a Pennsylvania State University professor of English and author of “Zombie Movie Encyclopedia.”
“The question is, why?” asked Annalee Newitz, editor of io9.com, a pop culture Web site.
One answer: These gore-flecked flicks are really competing parables about class warfare.
“Democrats, who want to redistribute wealth to 'Main Street,' fear the Wall Street vampires who bleed the nation dry,” Newitz argued, noting that Dracula and his ilk arose from the aristocracy. “Republicans fear a revolt of the poor and disenfranchised, dressed in rags and coming to the White House to eat their brains.”
Or perhaps the bloodsuckers' latest incarnation, as less-threatening undead citizens, reflects a more inclusive politics. “Suddenly,” said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, “the vampires have become people just like us.”
“After the upsurge of zombie films that symptomized the Bush era, the latest re-investment in vampirism signals hopefulness,” said Larry Rickels, a UC Santa Barbara professor of German and comparative literature.
Whatever the reason, when forecasting White House victories, monsters have been nearly as accurate as pollsters. By Newitz's tally, Bush's election in 2000 came at the start of a massive upsurge in zombie flicks: 183 in seven years, for an average of 26 a year.
This year, though, only nine zombie films shambled into theaters, while a rising tide of vampire flicks – 18 in '08, with more on the way – indicated that the blood-red tide had turned.
Penn State's Dendle noted that the political-horror nexus has been strong since 1968. “Night of the Living Dead” opened a month before Republican Richard Nixon's election, inspiring a zombie film boomlet that persisted until the mid-1970s.
Zombies fell out of fashion when Democrat Jimmy Carter took the White House; his presidency coincided with Werner Herzog's “Nosferatu,” the Frank Langella “Dracula” and “Love at First Bite.”
“The 1980s, the Reagan era, is the most prolific era for zombie movies,” Dendle said. “They drop off the face of the Earth in 1990, in terms of high-budget studio films.”
Vampires – and Democrats – swooped back to prominence. Ten days after Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, “Bram Stoker's Dracula” hit theaters. The Clinton years were also haunted by “Interview with the Vampire,” “Dracula: Dead and Loving It” and “Blade.”
Zombies returned with a brain-eating vengeance during George W. Bush's tenure: “28 Days Later,” “28 Weeks Later,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “Day of the Dead,” “Diary of the Dead.”
Bush-era zombies, noted Chera Kee, a University of Southern California doctoral candidate studying these cultural icons, also wandered into video games and comic books.
Recently, though, there were signs that the zombie's heyday – and the GOP's hold on the White House – was ending. Between 2008 and 2010, at least 39 vampire films have been green-lighted for production.
Whether the current passion for vampires endures or quickly fades, horror genres resemble political parties in another eerie way: The base isn't going anywhere.
“You can never get away from the undead,” Kee said.
