The most in-depth study of Romero’s Dead series imaginable, Gospel of the Living Dead dissects each film with the obsessive attention to detail of a religious scholar, which is fitting because the author actually is a religious scholar. Kim Paffenroth studied each film looking for symbolism, moral judgments and biblical common ground and he found it around every turn.

A very entertaining and enlightening book, if you’re an obsessive fan of the zombie genre this book will really make you think. Even with my attention to detail and uncountable re-watches of every movie mentioned in this book, there were many ideas I’d never noticed and symbolism I didn’t catch.

Movies studied, and “study” is truly the only word that works here, are Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, the Dawn of the Dead Remake and 28 Days Later.

Each movie is retold, with spoilers and important details included, then analyzed with a summery. This is literally a textbook for the study of these films, and if you’re looking for lighthearted fanboy trivia there’s none here.

For example, in Land of the Dead, Kaufman, a businessman, runs Pittsburgh for the rich on the backs of the poor, where the rich have every luxury at their fingertips and the poor can‘t afford basic medical care. Just like America. He backs this up by translating “Kaufman” to mean “merchant” or “trader”, and the film is filled with references and symbols of this association, down to the explosion caused by Big Daddy where burning cash cascades around Kaufman showing the damnable meaninglessness of it all.

To critique Gospel of the Living Dead, I’d first point out that some of the meaningful symbolism kinda seems like coincidence to me. For example much is made of Land starting in a town called Uniontown, symbolic of unions, the working man, and maybe even the nation itself (as in Union vs. Confederacy). That’s all interesting and entertaining, but it could just be that there’s a town right outside of Pittsburg named Uniontown (because there is). So it could be rich symbolism, but isn’t it just as likely it’s just geographic accuracy? Of course, it could be a little of both. These instances are few and far between, however, I’d agree completely with most of the author’s claims.

I really expected to see correlations and comparisons with Revelations and more "Hellfire and brimstone", but instead it's an insightful look at zombie films and their connection to classical Christian beliefs like decency to your fellow man, charity, love, rejection of greed and our baser instincts. (Not to be confused with neo-conservative Christian morality which doesn't seem to be linked to morality in any way.)

I used to live in a college town, and while there I’d sometimes buy the out-of-use textbooks and read them for my own entertainment, mostly sociology and psychology. My point being, I’m a big ol’ nerd. Due to this, the ultra-dry style of this book didn’t bother me at all, but I do fear that many people might buy Gospel due to the super-cool cover art, then be disappointed with the difficulty level of the text.

This book doesn’t look at the movies and seek to capitalize on them by rehashing plots and educating us on trivia, it looks at them with the scholarly scrutiny of an advanced literature professor analyzing Shakespeare or Milton. For hardcore fans or Christian intellectuals this one is all good, if you’re hoping for pictures or some details about how the special effects were done, look elsewhere.

7 out of 10