War, Generations, and Masculinities

This weekend's second feature was a Canadian horror film called Deathdream, a film set during the Vietnam war era and clearly drawing from the traumas of that war. The film begins with the death of two soldiers and the voice over of a woman saying a prayer. The woman, we discover, is the mother of the soldier killed in that opening sequence. She and her husband and daughter receive the terrible news of his death but are surprised when he returns later that evening, seemingly unscathed; however, the family quickly realizes that something isn't right with the son, named Andy. He spends his days sitting in a rocking chair, staring aimlessly at the wall and saying very little. Each family member copes with Andy's austerity in a different way: the father becomes angry and agitated with him, the mother denies that anything is wrong and coddles him, and the sister invites him out for social activities with the girl he left behind. But what begins as strange behavior turns violent when Andy kills the family dog and a doctor that suspects him of murder. The viewer soon learns that Andy is in fact undead, killing individuals for blood to sustain his decaying body.

What struck me as I watched this film was the fascinating way that it revealed generational tensions over masculinity and war. The father, played effectively by John Marley, chastises his son for being a "mama's boy" and not snapping out of his psychological trauma more quickly. While we learn that Andy's behavior is in fact a product of being undead, the more general image of a withdrawn young vet still seems to be reflected in Andy's stoicism. In other words, Andy's status as a zombie might serve as a metaphor for many veterans of this war, who struggle to reintegrate themselves into society. A recent CBS report reveals that an average of 120 US veterans commit suicide each week in this country, suggesting that such depression is epidemic among those who serve in wars. What better image to describe this epidemic than the undead zombie?