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Moving between Life and Death: Horror Films and the Medieval Walking Corpse
Linköping University, Department of Culture and Society, Division of Culture, Society, Design and Media. Linköping University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. (COMPASS)ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0496-3093
2018 (English)In: From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past / [ed] Marina Gerzic, Aidan Norrie, London, UK: Routledge, 2018, p. 67-81Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

A knight called William Laudun complained to Bishop Gilbert Foliot, that a certain 'evil Welshman', who 'died unchristianly' kept haunting the village, calling the locals by their names. Those who were called fell ill and died within a few days. Gilbert's advice to pierce the cadaver's neck and to sprinkle the body and the grave with holy water did not work. Eventually William cleaved the revenant's head with a sword thus putting an end to his wanderings. This story, written in the twelfth century by a court cleric Walter Map, bears a number of features typical of today horror films: death of the revenant is surrounded with negative circumstances which caused him turning into a 'zombie', the restless cadaver spreads infection, the efforts of the official authorities bring no result, the situation is saved by an ordinary hero, and the remedy is the destruction of the revenant's head. A walking corpse is a creature deprived of mobility, as it cannot move to the afterlife without assistance. As we can see, centuries later the image of someone stuck between life and death remains appealing. Moreover, while horror films, as it is currently argued, reflect the anxieties of a modern man, they often employ medieval narrative patterns. This chapter explores the continuity between medieval tales and today zombies, demonstrating how the walking dead have evolved to answer the concerns of modern society while still preserving their medieval nature.  

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
London, UK: Routledge, 2018. p. 67-81
Keywords [en]
Film, horror, medieval, death
National Category
Studies of Specific Literatures
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-194409DOI: 10.4324/9780429400544Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85073862691Libris ID: vc6z12q5s31nf9smISBN: 9780429400544 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-194409DiVA, id: diva2:1763128
Available from: 2023-06-06 Created: 2023-06-06 Last updated: 2025-02-21Bibliographically approved

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Ignatova, Polina

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