Books by Ian Olney

Charts the transformation zombies into pop culture icons, exploring their enormous appeal to viewers in the twenty-first century. It traces the evolution of the living dead on film, and surveys the present cinematic landscape, in which zombies have overrun every imaginable genre from the indie comedy to the teen romance. The book also maps the recent outbreaks of zombies on television.

Beginning in the 1950s, "e;Euro Horror"e; movies materialized in astonishing numbers from Italy, Spain, and France and popped up in the US at rural drive-ins and urban grindhouse theaters such as those that once dotted New York's Times Square. Gorier, sexier, and stranger than most American horror films of the time, they were embraced by hardcore fans and denounced by critics as the worst kind of cinematic trash. In this volume, Olney explores some of the most popular genres of Euro Horror cinema-including giallo films, named for the yellow covers of Italian pulp fiction, the S&M horror film, and cannibal and zombie films-and develops a theory that explains their renewed appeal to audiences today.