Table Of ContentUndead in the West
Vampires, Zombies, Mummies, and
Ghosts on the Cinematic Frontier
Edited by
Cynthia J. Miller and
A. Bowdoin Van Riper
THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Lanham (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
2012
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Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2012 by Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Undead in the West : vampires, zombies, mummies, and ghosts on the cinematic
frontier / edited by Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8108-8544-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-8545-5 (ebook)
1. Western films—United States. 2. Horror films—United States. 3. Western
television programs—United States. 4. Horror television programs—United States.
5. Television programs—Social aspects—United States. 6. Popular culture—United
States. I. Miller, Cynthia J., 1958- II. Van Riper, A. Bowdoin.
PN1995.9.W4U53 2012
791.43'6278—dc23 2012016352
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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In honor of the
Gun-toting preachers
Cursed townspeople
Mystical medicine men
Unrepentant outlaws
and Pale riders
that brought the cinematic frontier to life.
Spirits of the West, all.
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Contents
Acknowlegments ix
Introduction xi
Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper
Part I: Reanimating Classic Western Tropes
Chapter 1 “So This Zombie Walks into a Bar . . .”:
The Living, the Undead, and the Western Saloon 3
Cynthia J. Miller
Chapter 2 “Hey Sammy, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore”:
The Frontier Motif in Supernatural 19
Michael J. Klein and Kristi L. Shackelford
Chapter 3 T he Whore with the Vampire Heart:
Frontier Romanticism in John Carpenter’s Vampires 33
Lindsay Krishna Coleman
Chapter 4 B illy the Kid vs. Dracula: The Old World
Meets the Old West 45
Rachel E. Page, Robert G. Weiner, and
Cynthia J. Miller
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vi w Contents
Chapter 5 The West—Reanimated and Regenerated:
Hollywood Horror and Western Iconography in
Gore Verbinski’s Rango (2011) 65
Sue Matheson
Chapter 6 Frontier Values Meet Big-City Zombies:
The Old West in AMC’s The Walking Dead 80
Shelley S. Rees
Part II: The Moral Order under Siege
Chapter 7 Savage, Scoundrel, Seducer: The Moral Order
under Siege in the From Dusk Till Dawn Trilogy 97
A. Bowdoin Van Riper
Chapter 8 Blood on the Border: The Mexican Frontier in
Vampires (1998) and Vampires: Los Muertos (2002) 113
Thomas Prasch
Chapter 9 Colliding Modalities and Receding Frontier in
George Romero’s Land of the Dead 133
Outi J. Hakola
Chapter 10 Zombie Nationalism: Robert Rodriguez’s Planet
Terror as Immigration Satire 150
Christopher Gonzalez
Chapter 11 Undead and Un-American: The Zombified
Other in Weird Western Films 166
James Hewitson
Chapter 12 Hungry Lands: Conquest, Cannibalism, and the
Wendigo Spirit 182
Robert A. Saunders
Part III: And Hell Followed with Him
Chapter 13 The Ghost from the Past: The Undead Avenger in
Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West 207
Matthias Stork
Chapter 14 Moving West and Beyond: Life in the Midst of
Death in Purgatory 220
Hugh H. Davis
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Contents w vii
Chapter 15 “You Nasty Thing from Beyond the Dead”:
Elvis and JFK versus the Mummy in Bubba Ho-Tep 237
Hannah Thompson
Chapter 16 The Subversive Jonah Hex: Jimmy Hayward’s
Revision and Reconfiguration of a Genre 253
Michael C. Reiff
Chapter 17 Queer Justice: Supernatural Strangers and Different
Conceptions of Law and Punishment in Two
Horror Westerns 268
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns
A Selected Filmography 283
Robert G. Weiner, Susan Hidalgo,
A. Bowdoin Van Riper, and Cynthia J. Miller
Index 289
About the Contributors 311
About the Editors 317
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Acknowledgments
This collection owes its existence to the efforts and good will of many in-
dividuals, from colleagues whose work provided inspiration and encourage-
ment to loved ones who graciously accepted less than our full attention and
offered words of support during long days spent conquering the undead. To
all of them, we give our thanks. Additionally, thanks to our seventeen fine
contributors for their energy, scholarship, and creativity.
We would also like to extend a special “thank you” to John C. Tibbetts
for his untiring work on our behalf, and to Helen Lewis, for providing us
with the opportunity to begin thinking and talking about Undead in the West
during the 2010 Popular Culture Association conference. Our thanks, also,
to Peter Stanfield, Sari Stewart, and Scott Charles Stewart, Deborah Miller,
Joey DePaolo, Billy Drago, Brendan Wayne, and Joe R. Lansdale for lending
their help, thoughts, and inspiration to the project. A final thank-you goes to
Stephen Ryan for his support, patience, and unfailing good humor.
ix
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