Undead and alone in the outback: Postcolonial anxieties in Cargo and the zombie genre

The 2017 film Cargo (Howling and Ramke) impressed critics and audiences alike with its emotional and character driven approach to the zombie genre. Set against the Australian outback, the film draws on Australian Gothic cinema traditions that represents the landscape as a place of unease, isolation and socio-political anxieties. Marking a growing trend in international zombie films, Cargo explores postcolonial Australian anxieties and connects to similar preoccupations in early American zombie films. This article serves to unite these two areas of scholarship by drawing on establishing research of the history and analysis of the American zombie genre and the Australian Gothic traditions to explore the thematic and narrative implications of Cargo.