Harold’s Going Stiff: Aging and Mental Health in Zombie Narratives

Fryers, Mark (2025). Harold’s Going Stiff: Aging and Mental Health in Zombie Narratives. In: Bacon, Simon ed. The Palgrave Handbook of the Zombie. Cham, CH: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 1–19.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24734-7_55-1

Abstract

One of the many uses of the zombie metaphor in society is to describe mental impairment in its many forms—whether that is through medicated states, mental illness and neurodiversity or aging and dementia. While these may create a convenient cultural shorthand, by stigmatizing these societal groups as alike to monster figures, it also creates distancing and damaging stereotypes. This chapter will explore the relationship between the zombie subgenre and cultural attitudes toward aging and mental health, using examples from across the identified zombie canon of texts and beyond to argue that zombie and broader horror narratives reveal underlying societal prejudices as well as point to intergenerational schisms and conflicts. Although many of the texts discussed are from the western canon, in particular, the main case studies The Amusement Park (1975) and Harold’s Going Stiff (UK, 2011), this chapter suggests that these societal fears and attitudes remain consistent across multiple time periods as well as national and cultural contexts.

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