Blood and the Bomb: Atomic Cities, Nuclear Kinship, and Queer Vampires

Abstract

This chapter considers how national anxieties over communism, queerness, and nuclear war were mobilized in vampire films set during the Cold War. The chapter focuses on two case studies: the 1973 public health film The Return of Count Spirochete, produced by the US Navy to educate soldiers about sexually transmitted diseases, and Matt Reeves’s 2010 film Let Me In, a nostalgic Cold War vampire story set in 1980s suburban Los Alamos, New Mexico. Hannabach argues that queer possibilities lurk in the way these films represent blood, sex, race, and kinship. Hannabach traces the imperial history of Los Alamos as a nuclear city, as well as the racial, sexual, and gender norms shaping American national identity, military policy, and popular culture.