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Articles

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2007): Hollywood & Liberalism

(Zombie) Revolution at the Gates: The Dead, The “Multitude” and George A. Romero

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14288/cinephile.v3i1.197820
Submitted
January 27, 2023
Published
2007-04-01

Abstract

I propose that that we look to the resurgence of the zombie film in order to view how “revolutionary consciousness” is worked out within contemporary movie culture. I will modify early theories of the Horror film (such as those of Robin Wood and Barry Keith Grant) with contemporary Marxist theory – including Fredric Jameson’s reading of class and allegory in films he dubs “political” along with Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s writings on what they term “The Multitude” – to reconsider this increasingly popular form. Finally, I will attempt to re-situate the zombie film and its resurgence as a ‘political eruption’ of subgeneric material, and assert that this specific form (as with other subgenres, such as heist and the conspiracy films) only emerges within a very specific set of historical circumstances: circumstances which not only relate to, but that also embody the political climate from which they emerge.