Vampires and Zombies

Transcultural Migrations and Transnational Interpretations

Dorothea Fischer-Hornung, Monika Mueller

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781496804754
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Popular Culture
• Index: Social Sciences

The undead are very much alive in contemporary entertainment and lore. Indeed, vampires and zombies have garnered attention in print media, cinema, and on television. The vampire, with roots in medieval European folklore, and the zombie, with origins in Afro-Caribbean mythology, have both undergone significant transformations in global culture, proliferating as deviant representatives of the zeitgeist.As this volume demonstrates, distribution of vampires and zombies across time and space has revealed these undead figures to carry multiple meanings. Of all monsters, vampires and zombies seem to be the trendiest--the most regularly incarnate of the undead and the monsters most frequently represented in the media and pop culture. Moreover, both figures have experienced radical reinterpretations. If in the past vampires were evil, blood-sucking exploiters and zombies were brainless victims, they now have metamorphosed into kinder and gentler blood-sucking vampires and crueler, more relentless, flesh-eating zombies.Although the portrayals of both vampires and zombies can be traced back to specific regions and predate mass media, the introduction of mass distribution through film and game technologies has significantly modified their depiction over time and in new environments. Among other topics, contributors discuss zombies in Thai films, vampire novels of Mexico, and undead avatars in horror videogames. This volume--with scholars from different national and cultural backgrounds--explores the transformations that the vampire and zombie figures undergo when they travel globally and through various media and cultures.

PART 1

MIGRATORY TRANSFORMATIONS

THE SMILING DEAD; OR, ON THE EMPIRICAL IMPOSSIBILITY OF THAI ZOMBIES

KATARZYNA ANCUTA

Although originating in Haitian vodou¹ culture, zombies have truly made their mark on the popular imaginary courtesy of the North American film industry. It is in their George Romero–inspired representation as slow-moving, instinct-driven, brain-eating corpses, rather than soulless (dead or alive) beings controlled by a bokor (a vodou priest) for the purpose of slave labor, that they continue to inspire filmmakers around the globe toward producing their own versions of the violently hungry (un) dead for local audiences. Thailand seems an exception here because, taking into consideration that horror remains one of the strongest Thai cinematic genres, it is significant to note the relative absence of Thai zombie movies from its repertoire. Only five out of all theatrically released Thai horror films up to 2014 can be said to feature zombies at all and even then the identity of the creatures in question is not always consistent with what the international horror audiences have come to expect of a zombie icon.

As far as horror monsters are concerned, whether raised from the dead by Haitian voodoo priests, resurrected by accidental chemical spills, or created from scratch through medical experimentation, zombies rely heavily on their corporeality. If, for the sake of simplicity, we could define a zombie as a reanimated corpse driven by instincts in the absence of the higher intellectual powers of the brain, then faced with a culture that customarily cremates its dead we would not expect it to be particularly threatened by a vision of a zombie apocalypse. And, indeed, while zombie-themed films from North America have spurred similar productions from filmmakers in places as distant from each other as Cuba and Australia, Spain and Korea, the Thai horror film industry continues to display a peculiar hesitancy to invest in homegrown zombie films, even as Hollywood productions such as the Resident Evil franchise do astonishingly well in drawing crowds to movie houses.²

This begs the question as to why filmmakers in Thailand refuse to see zombie films as particularly frightening fantasies worthy of investment. It cannot be said that the local horror-film industry is diffident toward the monstrous or the uncanny, as indeed the typical horror film is almost completely dedicated to supernatural plots. Nor can it be said that the larger Thai film industry has but a small regard for the horror genre, as the Thai movie audience’s almost insatiable love of horror has convinced financial backers that horror films are a safe investment. Why, then, are Western-style zombies so rarely able to shuffle their way into the pantheon of Thai cinematic monsters?

THE SUPERNATURAL IN THE THAI FILM WORLD

Part of the problem lies in the very understanding of what a zombie is, and how the essential nature of the zombie displaces it from the Thai concept of what is seen as the essence of horror. Investors see the zombie as a risky monster around which to shape a film, the sense of risk arising from an awareness that such creatures cannot possibly exist in the real world. The argument thus extends to the Thai belief that impossible creatures (for example, zombies) are not as frightening, and therefore for investors not nearly as potentially profitable, as creatures that are either familiar in Thai society or viewed by traditional belief systems as possibly being real (for example, ghosts). In this respect, the rules of Thai horror fiction are rather different from those of the West.

Within multicultural Thailand there exists a great tolerance for the supernatural. This belief in the supernatural originates in the animistic practices of both urban and rural populations, as well as the spiritual beliefs of various migrant communities that have contributed historically to the shaping of contemporary Thai culture and society. Prevalent throughout Thailand is a belief in the coexistence of the material and the spiritual realms, the latter of which is populated with ghosts, angels, guardian spirits, spirits of nature, ancestor spirits, Buddhist demons, Indian wise men, Hindu gods, spirits of past kings, monks and teachers, Chinese mythological figures, and angry spirits of the violently dead. These inhabitants of the spiritual realm are well known for their tendency to meddle in the affairs of the living (Guelden 1995, 14–15). The existence of ghosts and spirits is verified not only through urban legends and office gossip, but also through the media and national institutions. Thairath, the most popular Thai daily newspaper, carries stories of magic, haunting, and spiritual possession on the front page almost every day; influential politicians are known to employ fortune-tellers and mediums to help them run the country; shamanistic practices and curses are commonly part of political protests³; dead relatives are expected to offer up lucky lottery numbers; and magic tattoos as well as amulets are among the most prized possessions. These and many other examples from everyday life illustrate that when it comes to cinematic ghosts and spirits, no suspension of disbelief is necessary. Ghost stories are successful with Thai audiences because they are seen as authentic and realistic; they are frightening because they portray possible situations that can happen to anyone.

Zombies simply do not exist in the Thai concept of what is physically or supernaturally possible. The Thai language does not even have an original word or phrase to describe the rambling undead, although there are dozens of specific terms for every spirit imaginable. The phrase most typically used to identify a zombie is phi dip,⁴ roughly translated as a “raw” (uncooked) ghost; the term also refers to an uncremated corpse. Unlike other categories of ghosts and spirits, phi dip is not connected to any specific set of beliefs, nor is it a legitimate member of the spirit realm. The phi dip is seen rather as an imaginary and impossible monster, quite unlike ghosts that are accepted as a part of everyday existence.

Indeed, domestically produced horror films are known in Thai as nang phi, or “ghost movies.”⁵ Almost every Thai horror film follows a narrow ghost-story formula.⁶ Breaking away from this pattern is difficult because Thai horror fans have rather fixed expectations when it comes to the horror genre. And although the steady demand for horror films allows for moderate experimentation as far as film technologies are concerned, the same cannot be said about the plot or the creation of characters. Pakphum Wongjinda,⁷ the director of such horror movies as Scared/Rap Nawng Sayawng Khwan (2005), Video Clip (2007), and Who R U?/Krai … Nai Hong (2010), recalls the problems he encountered trying to justify a relatively uncomplicated slasher film plot with investors:

If you want to talk about, let’s say, serial killers you’re going to hear that we don’t have serial killers in Thailand. It’s simply impossible to make people believe that serial killers could actually exist here. You cannot even say that this or that guy is sick and he’s running around killing people. Thai people would deny it—no, there is no one like that in Thailand. It’s simply impossible…. But in Thailand most crimes are seen as motivated by personal revenge. People believe there has to be a reason to kill; cause and effect. And so the only way to show killing outside that cause-and-effect pattern is to involve black magic. And that’s something the audience will easily believe here. (Wonjinda 2008, 125–26)

Zombies, like serial killers, seem acceptable to Thai audiences solely as imports, favored only as long as they feature in foreign, preferably Western, films. Thai audiences have different expectations for domestic horror films. Domestic horror films are easily seen as scary, with the fear arising from the social and cultural belief in the possibility that the cinematic source of horror has full potential for actual manifestation in the everyday lives of the viewers. Foreign horror films, both Asian and Western, on the other hand, are generally accepted as entertaining but are only seen as frightening if they tap into the same cultural reservoir of fear the domestic films rely on. In practice, this means that foreign horror movies featuring vengeful spirits, black magic, and other horror figures that have a local Thai equivalent will likely be seen as more frightening than those involving zombies, werewolves, beasts and monsters, serial killers, or nature-gone-wild plots.

This does not mean that zombies are completely alien to Thai cinema. Spurred on perhaps by recognition of the contemporary Western obsession with the zombie, a number of Thai filmmakers have attempted to introduce the pop icon into the domestic horror-film industry. Of the several such attempts, if we exclude straight-to-DVD production frequently with erotic content, only five “zombie” films have been released theatrically, all of which were made in the past decade (2004–14). Four of these films are analyzed in this essay: Formalin Man/Rak Ter Tau Fa (2004) by Pakphum Wongjinda, Curse of the Sun/Suriyakhaat (2004) by Kittipong Panyataweesap and Anat Yuangnhern, Sars Wars/Khun Krabii Hiiroh (2004) by Taweewat Wantha, and Backpackers (a segment of Phobia 2/Ha Phraeng, 2009) by Songyos Sugmanakan. The fifth and latest production, Gancore Gud (dir. Apisit Opasaimlikit, 2011), despite the director’s early promises,⁸ ended up being a hip-hop zombie comedy very similar to Sars Wars and therefore does not add anything new to the discussion here. While the first two films struggle with the conceptualization of zombies as an existential or philosophical category, the remaining two productions of the four analyzed here engage more openly with the conventions of a zombie movie. Sars Wars can easily be seen as a direct descendant of classic 1980s zombie comedies, such as The Return of the Living Dead (dir. Dan O’Bannon, 1985), while Backpackers is clearly a tribute to Danny Boyle’s zombie-like rage-infected creatures from 28 Days Later (2002). At the same time, as this analysis suggests, these four films achieved a degree of success by dramatically altering the definition or understanding of what a zombie is and, thus, making their “zombies” more palatable to the Thai audience.

To win over their audiences, the filmmakers resorted to a number of strategies aimed at justifying the existence of zombie characters in the plot and boosting the culturally defined elements of realism in the stories. All four films engaged in a discussion of zombies as an existential category, as well as a generic one, derived from Hollywood-based zombie-film narratives. Zombies were “explained” in terms of ghosts inhabiting the dead body, black magic, possession by a shaman, or foreign disease. In one instance, the zombie became a metaphor of racial oppression. Each of the films also refrained from using the word zombie, referring to the zombies as phi (ghosts) or refusing to categorize them altogether.

The appearance of zombies in Thai horror films is a relatively new theme. The latest productions engage more directly with the zombie-film genre, ignoring both the incompatibility of the creatures with the local supernatural lore and the preset condition that all Thai horror films must relate to entities and phenomena accepted as “real” or “possible” by its audiences. Chances are we will see more Thai celluloid zombies in the future. This chapter analyzes a number of zombie validation strategies used in the four discussed movies, such as the presentation of the zombie as a variation of a ghost or a lifeless body reanimated by black magic. It questions the influence of the Western zombie genre on the appearance of new figures of fear in contemporary Thai horror movies and argues the (im)possibility of integrating zombies into the fabric of Thai horror culture.

FORMALIN MAN (2004): THE LIVING DEAD GHOST

The Thai title of Pakphum Wongjinda’s first film, Rak Ter Tau Fa, can roughly be translated as “I love you like the sky” and comes from one of the songs used in the film.⁹ This in itself already suggests that we are not dealing with a typical horror production. Indeed, although the film is based on a supernatural concept, it remains a rather straightforward musical comedy throughout. The plot revolves around the struggle of a Thai lukthung¹⁰ singer to keep his band together and save his musicians from falling into the hands of an unscrupulous gangster who would stop at nothing to exploit their talents. Interestingly, the main character, Chatthong, is actually dead and oblivious to the fact that his body continues to decompose throughout the film despite an injection of formalin. Chatthong’s death is a result of a car accident and his almost instant resurrection is initially unnoticed by everyone, including himself. Contrary to viewer expectations, the undead Chatthong does not turn into a flesh-eating monster and retains his humanity (exemplified through empathy, fair judgment, honesty, and so on) until the end, the only indicators of his abnormality being his lack of appetite, constant insomnia, his decaying body, and his ability to survive all the accidents and assassination attempts that befall him in the course of the film. His supernatural condition is known only to dogs that howl in his presence, a wise monk who offers advice on the rites of passage, and the ghost of a young girl who identifies herself as the most devoted fan of the band (figure 1.1).

1.1 FORMALIN MAN, 2004

The monk describes Chatthong as a ghost that clings to his own body, and this was, indeed, the design of the movie, as confirmed by the director, who explains:

I wanted to do something different. So, I thought, how about if the guy dies but he doesn’t want to leave his body. It’s like you’re already dead but you don’t know it and you still want to do something in this body, even though the body is decomposing. But the conscience is still there. Only it doesn’t want to know that it’s dead. (Wonjinda 2008, 135)

Identified as a “conscience” tied to a body, Chatthong can easily be seen in terms of a Thai ghost, especially since in Thai cinema ghosts are customarily anthropomorphized and portrayed as indistinguishable from the living. But if this is the case, why would the director insist that his approach to the theme was in any way different or innovative? The difference lies in the fact that although Thai cinematic ghosts are by and large material creatures, they are not bound by the materiality of their bodies: they do not rot, grow old and unsightly, or lose body parts in an undignified manner. Even when dealing with the ghosts of the violently dead, or phi tai hong, although audiences may be faced with a hideously deformed spirit, the physical condition of the spirit will not deteriorate any further; quite the contrary, once appeased, phi tai hong frequently return to their primary human form. This, as we know, is not the case with post-Romero zombies, which by the end of many films are often reduced to oozing fragments of human flesh. It is therefore not difficult to conclude that the “unusual” ghost created for the purpose of Wongjinda’s film is actually a zombie, although it is never referred to as such.

Wongjinda explains that like many Thai movies, Formalin Man resonates with Buddhist teachings: “We’re talking about the body that’s not going to last forever. About impermanence. Fame, money, everything will be gone. The only thing that counts is love, whatever love you give to the people who surround you” (2008, 134). The choice of a zombie motif to portray this spiritual tenet is understandable. What better way to portray the impermanence of the body? At the same time, however, zombies known to Thai audiences from foreign movies are usually bloodthirsty creatures driven by murderous instincts, and it is quite possible that such a depiction might have overshadowed the spiritual message of the film. Furthermore, the fact that Western-style cannibalistic zombies feature in the Thai imagination only as figures of momen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1: Migratory Transformations
• Part 2: Non/Normative Sexualities
• Part 3: Cultural Anxieties
• Part 4: Circulating Technologies
• List of Contributors
• Index