Book Review/Interview: Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture by Annalee Newitz - Page 4

With corporate and technological identity influencing one's personal life and self-image more and more (e.g., iPodders), what effect will this have on the direction of future horror films in their distribution, and more importantly, their content?

Obviously making and distributing independent film is going to become easier and cheaper, and I look forward to a rebirth of the Z-grade horror film. I'd love to see a YouTube-generation Herschell Gordon Lewis or Frank Hennenlotter. The world would be a better place with more people like Frank Hennenlotter out there making cheap, amazing horror movies — or simply bringing back forgotten gems on DVD as Hennenlotter has been doing with Something Weird Video over the years.

As for how content will change, I think we're already seeing it. There are movies like The Ring  — about the horror of the mass-duplication of video content. More recently there's the gawdawful flick Pulse — about the horror of Evil Wifi Technology From The Internets. Both are reflections of a new era in techno-horror. I can't wait for the first iPod horror film. The new Doctor Who series has already done some episodes about how the Cybermen control people via Bluetooth headsets, which I thought was genius.

Let's do a little word association test. Tell me the horror-related word, film, or image that comes to mind when I mention the following:

Cubicle: land of the Cenobytes in Hellraiser
Business: the "corporation" in Alien
Editor: Annie from Misery
Technology: the rotted, organic game consoles in eXistenZ
Sales Person: Body Snatchers from the awesome 1978 version of the film (with Leonard Nimoy!)
Business Meeting: zombie army in Night of the Living Dead
Manager: Hannibal Lecter
Associate: nurse who kills herself for Damian in The Omen
Tech support person: robot slaves in Westworld
CEO: head vampires in either the Blade movies or the Underworld movies

Do you see the increasingly insecure social climate created by terrorism as a factor in your equation of capitalism and horror?

Absolutely, and I talk about this in various places in my book. In the US right now, terrorism often translates itself into more long-standing fears about people of color and ethnic groups who are outcasts in mainstream US culture.

I definitely think the resurgence in zombie movies fits into this — not only is the zombie a figure borrowed from Afro-Carribean culture, but often you'll notice that in zombie movies there's some ancient curse connected to, say, Egypt or someplace in the Middle East that has caused the zombie action to erupt.

Article Author: ILoz Zoc

Founder of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTT D), expiring writer of Zombos Closet of Horror Blog, and valet to Zombos, the noted B-movie horror actor (to his few remaining and decaying fans).

Visit ILoz Zoc's author page — ILoz Zoc's Blog