Vampires and transnational horror

Vampire films suggest transnational frameworks for formulating film histories according to nuanced multiplicities rather than linear developmental narratives for national cinemas or jigsaw puzzles of world cinema that exclude Hollywood to affirm its self-promotion as universal. By situating “vampire films” from Hong Kong, Lahore, and Mumbai at the center of its analysis, this chapter explores what can be gained by not prioritizing the European subcontinent as equivalent to the rest of Asia and by not universalizing the particular of Hollywood. Vampires appear in all grades of South Asian films from A-grade prestige pictures to B-grade lower-budget productions and C-grade “quickies.” The most well-known are Zinda Laash/The Living Corpse, an A-grade Lollywood film, and Bandh Darwaza/The Closed Door, a C-grade Bollywood film. Generic “infection” and national “contamination” within vampire films reveal globalization’s uneven and unequal transnational histories and processes.