m_zombiebook review

The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia was one of the first books I ordered over the Internet; therefore, I purchased it without first perusing its contents, without really knowing what was in it; therefore, I built up my expectations a bit too high--I was hoping that this would be the living dead horror film reference guide to end them all, the one I had been searching for all my life: it would have extensive, in-depth reviews of every zombie film in existence, no matter how bizarre or obscure, describing all the bloody, gory carnage in graphic, loving detail, while also delving into the philosophical/sociological context, pretext and subtext of the zombie movie phenomenon; it would feature lots of huge, glossy, full-colour stills of all the goriest scenes from all the classic living dead movies; and it would include exhaustive interviews with all the best zombie movie writers, directors, actors and makeup artists, telling me absolutely everything I ever wanted to know about all my favourite zombie films.

Disappointingly, Peter Dendle's encyclopedia is not this. (And I still haven't found the ultimate living dead horror film book, though Allan Bryce's Zombie comes close). Of the 249 pages of The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, a full 52 are taken up by the acknowledgements, introduction, appendices, bibliography and index. Every 10 or 15 pages we get a small, black-and-white still from some of the well-known zombie films (Dead Alive, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Night of the Creeps, etc.). The reviews themselves average about a page in length--some of the more obscure films, such as the short amateur spoof Night of the Living Bread, get only a half-page review--while critiques of the classic zombie films can run as long as 2 or 3 pages (Dawn of the Dead gets the longest review). Dendle writes in a clear, crisp, straightforward fashion, following a distinct pattern in each of his critiques: a brief description of the story and the film's merits (or shortcomings) is followed by a detailed description of the zombies themselves and their distinguishing characteristics, going into more detail than most living dead film reference guides usually do: Dendle describes whether or not the zombies are cannibalistic, how extensive their makeup is, how they walk, if they talk, their general behaviour, and if and how they are "deanimated" (he doesn't employ the term "killed", since it's not appropriate--zombies are dead already). Dendle's description of the Nazi zombies in Jean Rollin's Zombie Lake, for example, goes like this:

As in Shock Waves, the undead reside on the bottom of the pond (though these Nazi zombies are exclusively fresh-water), lurking amidst the weeds and lily pads to grab imprudent bathers from below. On dry land they're much stiffer, slowly shuffling up to actors who don't make very inspired attempts to get away. The unconvincing make-up effects are laughable (with pink skin showing around the outlines of the face paint), and under water it even starts to peel off. (pg. 207)

As can be seen, Dendle occasionally adds funny touches to his descriptions of the zombies, befitting their ludicrous behaviour in some of the films. In his review of The Plague of the Zombies, John Gilling's 1966 film about the living dead being used as slave labour in a Cornish tin mine, Dendle writes: "... one zombie listlessly holds a spike while another taps it lethargically with a sledgehammer--at this rate, they're not going to mine the ore a whole lot faster than natural erosion would." (pg. 136)

Surprisingly, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia doesn't cover any of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies because, as Dendle correctly points out in his introduction, they are technically not zombie movies, but demonic-possession films. Previous zombie movie reference guides have included reviews of mummy movies and films in which people lose their souls and become willless and unthinking (like Village of the Damned and Invasion of the Body Snatchers), but Dendle avoids all of these, specifically concentrating on films in which the zombie is a reanimated corpse.

Even more surprisingly, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia doesn't just review the zombie in feature films, but in television programs as well, such as episodes of The Simpsons ("Dial 'Z' for Zombies"), South Park ("Pink Eye"), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ("A Very Important Zombie Affair"), and, of course, Michael Jackson's Thriller video.

In reviewing feature films, this book covers some incredibly obscure movies from North America, Europe and the Far East, such as The Gore-Met Zombie Chef from Hell ("Some designation such as 'ancient immortal cannibal demon sorcerer' would technically be more accurate than 'zombie,'" Dendle writes), along with Godfrey Ho's Zombie vs. Ninja, the shot-on-video zombie schlock epics of Todd Sheets (Zombie Rampage, Zombie Bloodbath), and one of my personal favourites: Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil Mutant Hellbound Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Living Dead, Part II. Though published in 2001, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia doesn't cover any movies after 1998, so we don't get reviews of such recent deadfests as The Dead Hate the Living! or Children of the Living Dead.

While not an absolutely essential, unputdownable, must-have reference guide, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia is still a good read for horror film fans. In spite of its shortcomings, the book definitely has its merits, such as a clear, concise appreciation of the zombie movie sub-genre in its introduction, which is interesting, if a tad too academic (Peter Dendle is a professor at the University of Kentucky).

The first of the book's two appendices features a list of every zombie film released in every year from 1932 to 1998--the most prolific year being 1989, with a grand total of 16 living dead films cranked out worldwide. The second boasts a list of all the zombie movies made in each of the covered countries, with the United States, Italy, Spain and Mexico making the most.

For me, the book's most valuable asset is its bibliography, which lists a total of 112 books and articles dealing with zombies, ranging from horror film guides, histories and encyclopedias, to studies of particular zombie movies and directors, to the appearance of the zombie in serious anthropological studies and in ancient folklore. Excellent and extensive, this bibliography features a slew of studies I never knew existed, and gives me a whole new list of zombie movie books to track down and devour.