Horrors of War

The Undead on the Battlefield

Cynthia J. Miller, A. Bowdoin Van Riper

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9798216225560
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Comics & Graphic Novels Literary Criticism

Battlefields have traditionally been considered places where the spirits of the dead linger, and popular culture brings those thoughts to life. Supernatural tales of war told in print, on screen, and in other media depict angels, demons, and legions of the undead fighting against—or alongside—human soldiers. Ghostly war ships and phantom aircraft carry on their never-to-be-completed missions, and the spirits—sometimes corpses—of dead soldiers return to confront the enemies who killed them, comrades who betrayed them, or leaders who sacrificed them.

In Horrors of War: The Undead on the Battlefield, Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper have assembled essays that explore the meaning and significance of these tales. Among the questions that the volume seeks to answer are: How do supernatural stories engage with cultural attitudes toward war? In what ways do these stories reflect or challenge the popular memories of particular wars? How do they ask us to think again about battlefield heroism, military ethics, and the politics of sacrifice? Divided into four sections, chapters examine undead war stories in film (Carol for Another Christmas, The Devil's Backbone), television (The Twilight Zone), literature (The Bloody Red Baron, Devils of D-Day), comics (Weird War Tales, The Haunted Tank), graphic novels (The War of the Trenches), and gaming (Call of Duty: World at War).

Featuring contributions from a diverse group of international scholars, these essays address such themes as monstrous enemies and enemies made monstrous, legacies and memories of war, and the war dead who refuse to rest. Drawing together stories from across wars, branches of service, and generations of soldiers—and featuring more than fifty illustrations—Horrors of War will be of interest to scholars of film, popular culture, military history, and cultural history.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. MONSTROUS ENEMIES
• CHAPTER 1. “Blood-Thirsty Graybacks”: THE MONSTROUS OTHERING OF THE CONFEDERACY IN ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER
• CHAPTER 2: Cry “Havoc!” and Let Slip the Vampires of War
• CHAPTER 3. Vampire Pilots and Industrialized War in: The Bloody Red Baron
• CHAPTER 4. Nazis on the Moon! Nazis under the Polar Ice Cap!: AND OTHER RECENT EPISODES IN THE STRANGE CINEMATIC
• Part IITHE DEAD DON’T REST
• CHAPTER 5. The Wages of War: SPECTRAL CHILDREN IN THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE
• CHAPTER 6. Traversing the Afterlife Fantasy: THE HAUNTED SOLDIER IN JACOB’S LADDER
• CHAPTER 7. The Haunted Tank
• CHAPTER 8. (Re)Remembering the Great War in Deathwatch
• Part III. MAKING MONSTERS
• CHAPTER 9. The U.N.dead: COLD WAR GHOSTS IN CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMAS
• CHAPTER 10. Pall in the Family: DEATHDREAM, HOUSE, AND THE VIETNAM WAR
• CHAPTER 11. Strategic Military Reconfiguration in Horror Fiction: THE CASE OF F. PAUL WILSON’S THE KEEP AND GRAHAM MASTERTON’S THE DEVILS OF D-DAY
• CHAPTER 12. Horror under the Radar: MEMORY, REVELATION, AND THE GHOSTS OF BELOW
• CHAPTER 13. The Supernatural, Nazi Zombies, and the Play Instinct: THE GAMIFICATION OF WAR AND THE REALITY OF THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
• CHAPTER 14. “Strange Things Happen in a War-Torn Land”: CAT DEMONS, SAMURAI, VICTIMS’ VENGEANCE, AND THE SOCIAL COSTS OF WAR IN KANETO SHINDO’S KURONEKO (1968)
• CHAPTER 15. Public Memory and Supernatural Presence: THE MYSTERY AND MADNESS OF WEIRD WAR TALES
• CHAPTER 16. War in The Twilight Zone: ROD SERLING’S HAUNTED VISIONS OF WORLD WAR II
• CHAPTER 17. Specters of Media: JACQUES TARDI’S GRAPHIC REANIMATION OF THE WAR OF THE TRENCHES
• CHAPTER 18. R-Point as Postcolonial Palimpsest: GENERIC COMPLEXITY AND THE GHOST IN THE WAR/HORROR FILM
• Index
• About the Editors and Contributors