Book Description
Movie audiences seem drawn, almost compelled, toward tales of the horrific and the repulsive. Partly because horror continues to evolve radically--every time the genre is deemed dead, it seems to come up with another twist--it remains one of the most often-dissected genres. Here, author Kendall Phillips selects ten of the most popular and influential horror films--including Dracula, Night of the Living Dead, Halloween, The Silence of the Lambs, and Scream, each of which has become a film landmark and spawned countless imitators, and all having implications that transcend their cinematic influence and achievement. By tracing the production history, contemporary audience response, and lasting cultural influence of each picture, Phillips offers a unique new approach to thinking about popular attraction to horror films, and the ways in which they reflect both cultural and individual fears. Though stylistically and thematically very different, all of these movies have scared millions of eager moviegoers. This book tries to figure out why.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Read.......2005-05-18
A brilliant book - full of concrete examples and interesting history combined with insightful analysis. Intelligent without being "overly academic." A must-read for anyone interested in films, horror, or American cultural history.
Book Description
The American Horror Film moves from Dracula in 1931 to contemporary films such as Scream and The Sixth Sense. The various characters that recur in horror films -- Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll, the Mummy, the Werewolf -- are discussed, as are repeated themes such as the mad scientist, nuclear anxiety, psychological "monsters," the living dead, and "slasher" movies. Key directors including Jacques Tourneur, David Cronenberg, Roger Corman and Joe Dante are covered. The emphasis is on accessibility: while theory is included through reference to gender and politics, women's studies and psychoanalysis, it is introduced carefully and in direct relation to the films being discussed. No prior knowledge of the subject area is assumed. The book also features an extensive filmography, numerous references to the most pertinent writing on horror, and ten film stills augment the text.
Book Description
From the author of the acclaimed English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema, American Gothic presents an in-depth survey of the early years of the American horror film--ranging from the birth of cinema and the silent era to the mid-1950s. Jonathan Rigby examines a great many of the seminal films, including Cat People, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, The Fly, Frankenstein, Freaks, House of Wax, The Invisible Man, and She. He also looks at the actors and directors--Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Vincent Price, to name but a few. For fans and students of the horror classics, American Gothic is an essential work. This is the genre as it flourished from Univeral's early-thirties cycle and which culminated in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece Psycho, a film which forever changed and expanded the possibilities of horror cinema.
Amazon.com
In this academic work of film and literary criticism, Judith Halberstam examines the monster as cultural object. She discusses classic gothic texts such as Frankenstein and Dracula, and then looks at the impact of changing technology (horror movies with special effects) for depicting monsters. Her argument is that the gothic in its more lurid, unabashedly violent, and perverse forms may be more empowering to the reader/viewer than in its carefully articulated, understated, and sublimated forms. H-Net Reviews calls Skin Shows an "intelligent, well-informed, and provocative piece of writing" and writes that its "greatest strength ... is that it allows for other critics of the Gothic to proceed more self-consciously about the presuppositions that particularly psychoanalysis has introduced into the academic discussion." One caveat, though: the language is somewhat turgid, with awkward verbs such as "gothicize" and "metaphorize."
Book Description
In this examination of the monster as cultural object, Judith Halberstam offers a rereading of the monstrous that revises our view of the Gothic. Moving from the nineteenth century and the works of Shelley, Stevenson, Stoker, and Wilde to contemporary horror film exemplified by such movies as Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Candyman, Skin Shows understands the Gothic as a versatile technology, a means of producing monsters that is constantly being rewritten by historically and culturally conditioned fears generated by a shared sense of otherness and difference.
Deploying feminist and queer approaches to the monstrous body, Halberstam views the Gothic as a broad-based cultural phenomenon that supports and sustains the economic, social, and sexual hierarchies of the time. She resists familiar psychoanalytic critiques and cautions against any interpretive attempt to reduce the affective power of the monstrous to a single factor. The nineteenth-century monster is shown, for example, as configuring otherness as an amalgam of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Invoking Foucault, Halberstam describes the history of monsters in terms of its shifting relation to the body and its representations. As a result, her readings of familiar texts are radically new. She locates psychoanalysis itself within the gothic tradition and sees sexuality as a beast created in nineteenth century literature. Excessive interpretability, Halberstam argues, whether in film, literature, or in the culture at large, is the actual hallmark of monstrosity.
Customer Reviews:
A New Approach to Gothic.......2000-05-08
Indeed, the literary genre that we know as the gothic is inexhaustible in its interpretive capacity. From Freud's theory of the Uncanny and Mourning/Melancholia, to Feminist theories and reader response approaches (such as that of Norman Holland's), the gothic as a literary outsider has come a long way from its inception as a marginal form of literature to become one of the most studied and complex form of writing. Halberstam's book is one of the latest critical offerings of reading the Gothic, and it is indeed a timely arrival of an otherwise over-determined reading of this particular genre from the various theoretical approaches (interesting as they may be). Halberstam's approach, grounded in history and racism, renews the gothic's early preoccupation with otherness and the fear of it, but which emphasizes the societal fear of the alien/foreign other, and not so much the struggle between the public and private selves (the beloved of psychoanalytical theory). Her most interesting chapter is the reading of Stoker's `Dracula' as an anti-semitic propoganda text; indeed, I have appropriated some of her ideas in my view on postcolonial gothic, for I find that her theoretical stance has much to offer in this new and under-emphasized aspect of gothic literature. Halberstam's careful and brilliant intertwining of psychoanalysis, race-relations theory (history) and literary deconstruction is also critically executed in clear, precise language. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to have a fresh outlook on gothic literature.
Average customer rating:
- One of the best & most accessible academic books I've read
- See the movies, don't read the book
- Scarfication Is Powerful!
- Just Plain Wrong.
- Divine prophesy falls flat
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Nightmare on Main Street: Angels, Sadomasochism, and the Culture of Gothic
Mark Edmundson
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
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ASIN: 0674624637 |
Amazon.com
If you observe American pop culture, you'll recognize the questions Mark Edmundson raises in Nightmare on Main Street: Why are the 1990s seeing a resurgence of the gothic? Why do tabloid stories about people such as O. J. Simpson and Lorena Bobbitt captivate the public imagination? Why are "goth" fashions and music in vogue? Why is sadomasochistic sexuality on the rise? And what about the craze for what Edmundson calls "pop transcendence," the phony innocence exemplified by Forrest Gump, angels, and the inner child? Nightmare on Main Street is well written and accessible, and will be of interest to anyone appreciative of (or concerned about) horror books and movies. As Richard Rorty writes, "[This] book argues that America now has a bloated Id, a lascivious and cruel Superego, and almost no Ego at all: almost no moral resolution or political will." Edmundson's proposed solution is kind of vague, but he acknowledges the positive, creative role of horror: he proposes that we "take Gothic pessimism as a starting point and come up with visions that, while affirmative, never forget the authentic darkness that Gothic art discloses."
Book Description
Once we've terrified ourselves reading Anne Rice or Stephen King, watching Halloween or following the O. J. Simpson trial, we can rely on the comfort of our inner child or Robert Bly's bongos, an angel, or even a crystal. In a brilliant assessment of American culture on the eve of the millennium, Mark Edmundson asks why we're determined to be haunted, courting the Gothic at every turn--and, at the same time, committed to escape through any new scheme for ready-made transcendence.
Nightmare on Main Street depicts a culture suffused with the Gothic, not just in novels and films but even in the nonfictive realms of politics and academic theories, TV news and talk shows, various therapies, and discourses on AIDS and the environment. Gothic's first wave, in the 1790s, reflected the truly terrifying events unfolding in revolutionary France. What, Edmundson asks, does the ascendancy of the Gothic in the 1990s tell us about our own day?
And what of another trend, seemingly unrelated--the widespread belief that re-creating oneself is as easy as making a wish? Looking at the world according to Forrest Gump, Edmundson shows how this parallel culture actually works reciprocally with the Gothic.
An unchecked fixation on the Gothic, Edmundson argues, would result in a culture of sadomasochism. Against such a rancorous and dispiriting possibility, he draws on the work of Nietzsche and Shelley, and on the recent creations of Toni Morrison and Tony Kushner, to show how the Gothic and the visionary can come together in persuasive and renovating ways.
Customer Reviews:
One of the best & most accessible academic books I've read.......2004-08-04
I asked myself why this fine book generated so many negative reviews on Amazon, and I have concluded that the answer is - because it is an academic book. It is a book on critical and literary theory (although it deals with horror and Gothicism).
Unfortunately the title of the book has misled people to believe it another Joe Bob Briggs type of book, which it definitely isn't. Having said that you will find comments on Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween in "Nightmare on Main Street" but those comments deal with what's under the surface in these films (hidden meanings).
Some people (mostly non-academics) will find some of those comments labored and dry, but hey I am a big horror buff and an academic and I love Edmundson's book. He makes some incredibly intelligent observations about Romanticism, Gothic literature and horror films. Also if you ever wanted to understand Freud, Derrida and Nietzsche, Edmundson offers some of the best summaries I have come across on these great thinkers.
This is a great mind at work, and the connections may sometimes seem stretched but Edmundson will always tie things up (often with a twist) and leave you gasping for more.
See the movies, don't read the book.......2004-05-14
I only made it up to p. 45 for a paper I was writing on "Carrie." Along with a pompous tone, I didn't find this added anything concrete to what I know about horror flicks. The author might have found the Main Street and nightmare metaphors personally powerful for some reason, but they were idiosyncratic and I didn't find them in any of my other horror movie secondary sources. Not interested in having a conversation with myself, I moved on. Also, I'm put off by the author's need to see violence, sex, and greed in almost every detail of these films. Even Carrie and other horror movies have their moments of reflection and thoughtfulness that the author was too quick to suppress.
Scarfication Is Powerful!.......2002-02-21
Edmundson has got hold of a powerful idea here: that strategies and characters of Gothic literature have burst out of the realm of fiction and infiltrated our public life. While he sometimes pushes his broadly defined notion of the Gothic too far (it sometimes it seems as if everything belongs to the realm of the Gothic depending on his say so), for the most part he does stick to his original definition of a hero/villain, haunted structures, seduced and screaming heroines and the occasional heroic rescuer.
He suggests, quite believably, that the powerful Gothic themes, have been used by Marx (the capitalist as vampire), and by Freud (humanity haunted by the past, in the grip of infantile memory which dooms us to behavior we can never fully escape except with the help of modernist magicians like Freud). Moving from the talk show (where families reenact Gothic scripts wherein hero/villains describe their inexplicably destructive behavior without understanding or regret as their families hurl abuse at them), to movies (pick just about anything including Disney films), Edmundson strikes at the root of the malevolent vine of the Gothic, a vine which snakes through our political life - Gothic monsters such as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, through our social life - our collective perception that we are in danger even in the most benign circumstances.
He does see hope for using the Gothic the way it was intended: to throw off the dead hand of the past, originally the aristocratic, then the plutocratic, or therapeutic, now bureaucratic hand of power and discipline. His writings on Freud are particularly incisive on the therapeutic hand. Here's a quote: "Freud, in his most resolutely Gothic moods, believed that we never forget anything, so that every past moment is stored somewhere in the psyche... He also thought, at least at times, that *any* negative event that befalls us -- no matter how apparently contingent -- is in some measure the result of our guilty need for punishment, our wish to self-destruct. Edmundson also notes that Foucualt and Derrida and other "new" critics favor the Gothic as well. And if you think of Foucault's evocative prose style, and Derrida's "terrorism," Edmundson has a point, a minor point, but a point nonetheless.
The Cold War Gothic has now been replaced by the Terrorist Gothic, the apocalyptic version of Gothicism. George W. Bush whips up the external apocalyptic Gothic, while at the same time we're being terrorized internally by the second variety of the Gothic - the "terror" gothic - in this case, the recession terror gothic. The Gothic can be a powerful tool for critiquing the status quo. The problem is, it has become the status quo, and, unlike "healthy" Gothic horror, it never opens out into new territory now. Instead, we're all doomed, doomed, doomed!. Edmundson notes a few exceptions: the first Nightmare on Elm Street by Wes Craven for one. I heartily agree on that score!
Just Plain Wrong........2002-02-09
I admit that I didn't do more than skim this book. As a horror fan I couldn't get past the authors' factual error in stating that the early 1990's was a pinnacle of horror. WRONG! In terms of the number of horror films released the height would be the mid-1980's. In terms of box office returns it would be the mid-1970's (The Exorcist, Jaws, The Omen, Carrie, Halloween). We are now (2002) at a much higher peak for horror than the period that the Professor calls the pinnacle; the early 1990's was actually a nadir.
Divine prophesy falls flat.......2001-09-25
The first exasperating aspect of this book is its overambitiousness. Through some divine insight, it purports to explain ALL of American culture (almost) through the trope of the gothic. Forrest Gump, Tonya Harding, Walt Whitman, Wordsworth. They're all in there. Moreover, it uses broad brush strokes that hide more than they reveal. Its second offensive characteristic is a tone that's self-righteous. It stands far above the foibles of all these pathetically mortal characters.
Average customer rating:
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Frames of Evil: The Holocaust as Horror in American Film
Caroline J S Picart , and
David A Frank
Manufacturer: Southern Illinois University
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ASIN: 0809327236 |
Book Description
Challenging the classic horror frame in American film
American filmmakers appropriate the “look” of horror in Holocaust films and often use Nazis and Holocaust imagery to explain evil in the world, say authors Caroline Joan (Kay) S. Picart and David A. Frank. In Frames of Evil: The Holocaust as Horror in American Film, Picart and Frank challenge this classic horror frame—the narrative and visual borders used to demarcate monsters and the monstrous. After examining the way in which directors and producers of the most influential American Holocaust movies default to this Gothic frame, they propose that multiple frames are needed to account for evil and genocide.
Using Schindler’s List, The Silence of the Lambs, and Apt Pupil as case studies, the authors provide substantive and critical analyses of these films that transcend the classic horror interpretation. For example, Schindler’s List, say Picart and Frank, has the appearance of a historical docudrama but actually employs the visual rhetoric and narrative devices of the Hollywood horror film. The authors argue that evil has a face: Nazism, which is configured as quintessentially innate, and supernaturally crafty.
Frames of Evil, which is augmented by thirty-six film and publicity stills, also explores the commercial exploitation of suffering in film and offers constructive ways of critically evaluating this exploitation. The authors suggest that audiences will recognize their participation in much larger narrative formulas that place a premium on monstrosity and elide the role of modernity in depriving millions of their lives and dignity, often framing the suffering of others in a manner that allows for merely “documentary” enjoyment.
Average customer rating:
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Final Destination II: The Movie (Final Destination)
Nancy A. Collins , and
Natasha Rhodes
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Final Destination #2: Destination Zero
ASIN: 1844163180 |
Customer Reviews:
Better than the first.......2006-06-07
The first novelisation of the films was quite a good book, but this one was quicker to read, and more graphic and gory! There's also a slightly different storyline to how Alex died compared to the first movie - I haven't seen the first or second in a while, but according to this book, he was hit in the face by a brick, which instantly killed him. But I honestly can't remember.
The book is loads more gory in the description than originally comes across in the film, and it really works. Especially the added bit that during the massive car pile up at the beginning, seeing people's faces just before cars blow up. Very creepy.
There's some more storyline involving the lead character, Kimberley too, which involves you more with her character, as in the film, I didn't really like her character.
Most of the book sticks closely to the film, there's not many additions, apart from towards the end, but it's really enjoyable, and a good, if not gory, read.
Book Description
Stephen Spignesi, the world's leading expert on Stephen King (Enertainment Weekly) ranks 101 greatest creations of the man he calls "our greatest living author."
Working from a body of King's work numbering more than 550 individual creations, Spignesi lists all of King's writings in every genre and then determines the top 101. Each chosen work is synopsized and reviewed.
The Essential Stephen King provides an unbiased, uncompromising review of King's work by an acknowledged King authority. As such, it is a must for all serious and casual Stephen King fans as well as all lovers of superb contemporary literature.
Customer Reviews:
Utterly uncritical, and duller than dishwater..........2005-05-24
The problem with the book is that it's utterly uncritical of the entirety of Stephen King's work - it's simply a basic recounting of the novel's plot, followed up with a few bits of trivia and the author's "What I Liked" section.
The problem is that the author of this book likes everything about Stephen King, even when he's talking about King's weaker material. You could write the words "I love Stephen King and everything he's ever done!" on an index card, then post it next to the Amazon search results for Stephen King and you'd have this book in a nutshell.
Plus, he refers to the Gor novels as "wildly popular". Uh, no.
-Darren MacLennan
Great book, entertaining, interesting.......2003-04-23
This book is good. It has a lot of interesting facts about the worlds greatest authors books. Things you might have missed when reading. It's worth the money.
Wonderful!.......2002-10-16
This book is a great resource. It has a vast amount of information on King's books that you won't find elsewhere in one collection. I found this little gem at a bookstore and spent about a half hour reading through it. I finally broke down and bought it on Amazon and I'm really glad I did.
I'm already a Stephen King fan and have read many of his books. But it was great to read synopsis's on his other works that I havn't gotten to yet. The author made a break-down of each book, gave the character's names, and a movie adaptation of the book if applicable.
If you are already a Stephen King fan, you will no doubt enjoy this book. You can see which books made which spots on his '100 list' and perhaps argue, but I found myself agreeing with the author on most of his choices.
If you arn't a Stephen King fan yet, but are thinking about reading a book of his and are not sure which one to pick first, this is a great choice for you to read, so you get an idea of what your headed for. :)
9.......2001-12-27
Spignesi is a great fan(atic) of King's and his enthusiasm shows in this listing of the top 101 King writings. He includes a wide variety of King's material from across his career. Anyone who is a fan will enjoy remembering the great stories already read and will be inspired to read ones Spignesi mentions that haven't yet been read.
Not all of Spignesi's opinions are correct, of course, but he is well-informed enough to make a strong case for each of his picks.
A Good Ranking, Even Better Writing.......2001-09-03
Spignesi is probably the biggest King fan out there. He knows every book, novella, short story and essay the man has written in and out. There isn't one work he isn't totally familiar with. I actually wonder if he knows more about King's writing than King does himself.
In The Essential Stephen King, Spignesi tries to rank the 101 best things king has ever written. And although every major King work is featured (all of the novels are there, so are the novellas), many of King's best short stories didn't make the cut (where are The Night Flyer and Lawnmower Man?). And I was disappointed when I saw some of my favorite King novels ranked so high up the list (Dolores Claiborne, The Dark Half, Needful Things and Storm Of the Century aren't even near the top 10!). Of course, this is a fan ranking his favourite works. No two fans will think alike.
The reason the book is so powerful is because of the author's writing skills. Spignesi writes with passion and dedication. Every sentence is like a love confession for the King of horror. And I also enjoyed the articles written by King fans/experts at the end of the book. This books makes you want to revisit King's best writings. It's a book every King fan will enjoy and will use time and time again as a reference manual.
Book Description
The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Tingler, the Mole People—they stalked and oozed into audiences’ minds during the era that followed Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein and preceded terrors like Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Chucky (Child’s Play). Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold pulls off the masks and wipes away the slime to reveal how the monsters that frightened audiences in the 1950s and 1960s—and the movies they crawled and staggered through—reflected fundamental changes in the film industry. Providing the first economic history of the horror film, Kevin Heffernan shows how the production, distribution, and exhibition of horror movies changed as the studio era gave way to the conglomeration of New Hollywood.
Heffernan argues that major cultural and economic shifts in the production and reception of horror films began at the time of the 3-d film cycle of 1953–54 and ended with the 1968 adoption of the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings system and the subsequent development of the adult horror movie—epitomized by Rosemary’s Baby. He describes how this period presented a number of daunting challenges for movie exhibitors: the high costs of technological upgrade, competition with television, declining movie attendance, and a diminishing number of annual releases from the major movie studios. He explains that the production and distribution branches of the movie industry responded to these trends by cultivating a youth audience, co-producing features with the film industries of Europe and Asia, selling films to television, and intensifying representations of sex and violence. Shining through Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold is the delight of the true horror movie buff, the fan thrilled to find The Brain that Wouldn’t Die on television at 3 am.
Customer Reviews:
Please, get a real film buff to edit your book.......2006-12-06
Could have been ****, but there are many errors about the things you know about. What is accurate about everything else? Do you like existential conjecture (presented as fact) about the subconscious "meaning" of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" compared to "House of Wax?" I don't. Why treat religion snidely? Why interject politics and sour grapes...much less in the same sentence, "right-wing faux film historian Michael Medved?" Cut the politics, cut the existentialism. Chuck your ego and get someone knowledgeable about film to check the facts. Michael Medved would have done a better job. Sorry for being so tough on this book, but this is the second one in a row that has had the same flaws.
Bait and Switch.......2006-10-18
"Ghouls, Gimmicks and Gold" would have been better off titled "Decline and Fall of the Neighborhood Cinema." That is because the real subject of this book is not the horror genre. Instead Heffernan uses the horror genre as a lens to show the increasing pressures on the neighborhood cinemas as the big studios retrenched after the Paramount decision and made fewer films at the same time that TV made more and more people stay home in front of the tube.
Yes, Heffernan has some interesting comments about "House of Wax" and "Curse of Frankenstein" but by and large he ignores the content of the films to focus on how the films let the theater owners stave off the end for a little bit longer.
I absolutely hit the wall with this book when I read the chapter that covered in detail which films were part of which TV syndication package. At that point, I realized that Heffernan had written a book for business historians and not for people interested in horror movies.
A must read for vintage horror film fans!.......2004-09-18
This book is a well-written piece dealing with the period of horror films that many people remember--That of the early 1950's-late 1960's(i.e. From the start of 3-D films to the release of Night of the Living Dead). It largely argues that the horror boom during this time was due to two things:
1. Theaters needed product for their screens
2. TV stations(UHF stations in particular) needing movies for their programming
In a good sub-argument, it also mentions about the rise of imported horror from Britain and Italy(largely due to tax and other economic issues and also as a reciprocal to the expansion of the US film industry overseas). Lots of good research and it is written in a way where you get plenty of information, but yet it does not feel like a dry read. The chapter on horror film TV syndication packages is a highlight for me(outside of a talk that the author did about 2 years prior to publication at a UC Berkeley conference on Trash Cinema, I had not seen anybody do any research on this before.)
I also recommend the work of Eric Schaefer(who has a sequel coming to his book Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!), when when combining these works would give you a well-grounded education on horror and exploitation film cultures.
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- Silent Stars
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- Implementing Electronic Card Payment Systems
- Trade and Environment: Conflict or Compatibility
Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film
Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film
The Horror Film (Inside Film)
The Horror Film (Rutgers Depth of Field Series)
The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (Texas Film and Media Studies Series)
