Written for Handbook of the Vampire by Matthew Jones the Chapter Page can be found here.
This chapter of the Handbook looked into science fiction vampires that were contemporaries to, and analogous of, the Cold War, with a view to opening a discourse on, what Jones terms, “the elusive extraterrestrial film vampire”. With that in mind, though the Thing from Another World is mentioned in passing amongst other, famous, monster features, it is not studied within the essay as a vampire film with an extraterrestrial origin to its creature. Given that it was released early into the Cold War its absence is unfortunate. The text is also silent on such films as Brainiac, which has an alien aspect (the brain eating vampire was human but returns from a comet having become monstruous and the author could have entered into an interesting discourse between this Mexican offering and US fare).
My only other criticism regarding content was that, although It! The Terror from Beyond Space was included, I’d have liked to have seen more space dedicated to the film, but that is because it is one that I have a tremendous soft spot for. This chapter does start the discourse the author wished to, and generally there is plenty of room for more on these alien vampire films.
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