Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film

Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film
Average customer rating:

No opinion either way.

Slumming academics

Good in spite of itself

One-sex theory? Anal birth?

She just does not get horror movies, that's all.

Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film
Carol J. Clover
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com

Before Men, Women, and Chain Saws, most film critics assumed that horror (especially slasher) films entail a male viewer sadistically watching the plight of a female victim. Carol Clover argues convincingly that both male and female viewers not only identify with the victim, but experience, through the actions of the "final girl," a climactic moment of female power. As the Boston Globe writes, Men, Women, and Chain Saws "challenges simplistic assumptions about the relationship between gender and culture... [Clover] suggests that the 'low tradition' in horror movies possesses positive subversive potential, a space to explore gender ambiguity and transgress traditional boundaries of masculinity and femininity." Be forewarned, though: Clover addresses an academic audience, so her language can be heavy going.

Related title: The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film by Barry Keith Grant

Book Description

Do the pleasures of horror movies really begin and end in sadism? So the public discussion of film assumes, and so film theory claims. Carol Clover argues, however, that these films work mainly to engage the viewer in the plight of the victim-hero, who suffers fright but rises to vanquish the forces of oppression.

Clover, a medievalist, had written extensively on the literature and culture of early northern Europe, especially the Old Norse sagas. From her expertise in formulaic narrative grew her interest in contemporary cinema, which is, after all, yet another form of oral storytelling. Men, Women, and Chain Saws investigated the appeal of horror cinema, in particular the phenomenal popularity of those "low" genres that feature female heroes and play to male audiences: slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films. Such genres seem to offer sadistic pleasure to their viewers, and not much else. Clover, however, argued the reverse: that these films are designed to align spectators not with the male tormentor, but with the female tormented--with the suffering, pain, and anguish that the "final girl," as Clover calls the victim-hero, endures before rising, finally, to vanquish her oppressor.

The book has found an avid readership from students of film theory to major Hollywood filmmakers, and the figure of the final girl has been taken up by a wide range of artists, inspiring not just filmmakers but also musicians and poets.

Customer Reviews:

No opinion either way........2005-04-04

The book is undeniably well written. Alot of the author's points are valid, and her(?)ideas about the role of gender in horror films are interesting. What really burns me is that I'm not too sure that she actually watched some of the films she mentions. Or if she did, she didn't really pay too much attention.

I think that if one were to write a book about character study, they should probably pay closer attention to the characters they study. Make sense to me.

Overall, reading this book was helpful in the way it describes a relativly small audience....not horror fans, but people who want to pick apart horror movies in order to make sense of horror fans. For the academics, who don't know how to shut their brains off in order to just kick back and enjoy a good old fashoined "Killin' Movie", this book could really come in handy. For those of us who need no help in enjoying the genre, this book might help you speak the language of people who don't. This new ability could be useful when you get dragged into either an argument or a sophist's conversation on the subject. (Sophist being different than sophisticate...sophists only pretend to know what they're talking about when they are around people whom they believe to not know any better.)

All things being equal though...its an allright book.

P.S.

I secretly wonder sometimes, when people talk about how its always women being beaten, tortured and killed in horror films.

99% of these slasher films are about slashers. Duh...ok with that out of the way, let's ask ourselves who these slashers are.
Maniacs, (Almost always male) with some sort of abhorrent social disfunction. Sounds alot like our real life serial killers.

As bad as Jason Voorhese is, he doesn't even compare to the Green River Killer, or Edmund Kemper. As witty and Terrifying Freddy Kruger might be, his evil genius pales in comparison to guys like Carl Panzram or H.H. Holmes. As ruthlessly deranged Michael Meyers seems to be, he can't hold a candle to guys like Richard Speck or Richard Ramierez. Now, what do all these fellas, (real or screen character) have in common? THEY ALL KILLED WOMEN. Point of fact, our onscreen killers are much more equal opportunity than our real life madmen. So, is it any wonder that women are victims in these movies? Also, the women in most of these films tend to get off with just a nasty death. In most instances, the real life killers would do some fairly terrible things to their victims before they killed them.

Slumming academics.......2005-01-01

It's amazing that horror films, of all the genres, have undergone such 'serious' analysis in the academic film studies arena. It tells you a lot--considered to be a kind of low art form, it attracts serious scholars who, rather than applying common sense or rational thinking, literally invent whole vocabularies to disguise their utter lack of knowledge and general cluelessness with regards to these staples of 'pop' culture for the 'little people'.

It's classic academic constructs. It's obvious that Clover, and she's not alone, is either incapable or unwilling to just say what she means. Instead, and in order for a university press to pick these things up, the ideas have to be draped in dense, unreadable, and often laughable language.

Are there interesting ideas here? Yes, certainly. Are they easy to understand? They can be, but not here. You may feel like a moron after reading about your favorite slasher, but don't worry--you haven't been exposed to the careerism and isolation of the cinematic ivory tower yet.

The book can be half as long if they tried to make it accessible to the people who actually WATCH horror films, but it is instead geared toward people who want to study the people who watch horror films, from a detached perspective, armed with a dictionary and a black turtleneck.

I would actually recommend this book for horror fans, but with reservations. It does try to get at what is happening in this genre, and why we watch these movies. But don't feel bad if you laugh at some of it--that's part of the real world.

Good in spite of itself.......2004-08-09

The author is obviously an academic, and seeks to dignify her pop-culture subject with ludicrous rhetorical tropes borrowed from the grad school version of pop psychoanalysis. She says "gender" when she means sex. She is capable of writing phrases like "the killer's phallic purpose. . ." and sentences like "What -is- clear is that where there is -Wiederholungszwang- there is historical suffering --- suffering that has been more or less sexualized as 'erotogenic masochism.'" Clarity, it seems, ain't what it used to be. Charlatans like Gilles Deleuze and hatemongers like Susan Brownmiller appear in the bibliography, and the book is obviously addressed to an audience that has not yet learned to laugh at them.

Still, the central thesis of the book is in fact a cogent analysis of the ritual of the 1980s variety "slasher" film, and if you overlook the bogus jargon she gets it mostly right. The book convincingly goes through the rituals involved in this highly stereotypical variety of film. Even the vaguely radical academic version of sexual politics has some purpose in this: these slasher films, like all accepted exercises in gore and the temporary suspension of tabooed subjects, attempt to justify their existence by claiming in some obscure way to reinforce social norms. It would be a much better book if it were written in workaday English, but it is nevertheless an interesting read, and insightful almost despite itself.

One-sex theory? Anal birth?.......2004-01-02

Really doesn't sound like the beginnings of a discussion of horror films. The language used in this book is so far over my head that I begin to feel stupid, and that what I thought I knew about movies (which is more than most people I know) must certainly not be enough to even be allowed to watch them. What's disappointing is that I want to agree with the theories in the book. Clover's premise is that watching horror movies is not a sadistic act, and that the young men who watch them are really identifying with the female victim-hero, instead of just gawking at boobies. I like the idea that the viewer identifies with the monster and the victim. But I don't think the author can really identify with... humanity! The word 'psychobabble' does come to mind. It makes me wonder what she's hiding from, or who she's trying to impress. I don't think she has any grasp at all of these films or why I watch so many of them.

It just seems to me like this woman has put every word she knows into a theory I think I can sum up in less than fifty pages. Sentences don't need to be that long to get a point across.

To sum up, if you are a horror film fan with an IQ of 160 or less, do not read this book! It was written for high-brow, academic types who are fascinated by the rituals and habits of us lower creatures, but wouldn't be caught dead in a theatre with less than eighteen screens. However, if you are a high-brow, academic type who is fascinated by the rituals and habits of us lower creatures, but wouldn't be caught dead in a theatre with less than eighteen screens, you might like it.

She just does not get horror movies, that's all........2001-02-26

I bought this book hoping to read a balanced and insightful analysis of gender in horror. What I got was the same trite "analysis" that seems so fashionable today. This book is profoundly feminist, in a very offensive sort of way. I am terribly sorry, but the author really needs more than a few months' worth of watching horror (see her own admission on p.19) and more than rudemintary understanding of pop psychology, to make a compelling case.

Briefly, her "analysis" of the female in modern horror slasher movies goes like this. Clover begins with the observation that most of these (American) films concentrate on the abuse, victimization, and triumph of a woman. The author then asks (i) why a woman and (ii) why do mostly male viewers watch these films. Her interpretation is that the "Final Girl" in these movies is really a male! It seems that in Clover's world, most males are homosexual, or at least bisexual, and they seem to have some bizarre beating fantasies. Because showing a male in this position would be uncomfortable for the male viewers (it would expose their forbidden fantasies too close for comfort), an unfemale female is substituted.

Clover simply misses several very simple things, which leads her to the mental acrobatics necessary to account for the phenomenon. Why does she dismiss the directors when they say that having a woman suffer is essential to horror? I don't know, but it is obvious that (i) out culture regards men as active, that is, when men are victimized, there's little sympathy for them---we expect them to react, strike back, and die in the attempt---which means that if you want emotions in the audience, you better go after a girl; (ii) our society focuses on female beauty much more than male beauty---from an aesthetical perspective, destroying something beautiful is much more painful; (iii) the reason why The Final Girl is not too feminine is because these horror films are American---one characteristic trait of this culture is the belief that the outcast, the underdog, can succeed through his/her own efforts---that's why the main character is seen as an outcast; (iv) the basic plot of these films is a variation on the ancient myths of the hero---someone who goes through incredible ordeals, and wins against all odds---this sort of story, however, is mostly attractive to males, which is why you don't tend to see many women at these films. This is a brief synopsis of a larger argument where every step is substantiated, but it illustrates why Clover's view is plain wrong.

It would have been helpful if she had viewed some European or Japanese horror films: she would have found out that many of the features characteristic of US films are simply missing. It would have been helpful if she did not regard horror as low art (she does, her posturing to the contrary notwithstanding). It would have been better if she avoided the turgid prose common to texts where the author either has little to say or tries to disguise wrong ideas.

Finally, Clover completely misses an important consequence of horror being made idependently of Hollywood. It's not just that it can cater shamelessly to the most exploitative taste (which some do), but low-budget cinema is a more accurate reflection of trends in contemporary society. While Hollywood produces slick and ultimately empty movies, B-flicks incorporate things the way the authors see them---the Final Girl in horror is nothing less than an acknowledgment of the achievements of gender equality. There are now female heroines (much more resourceful than the bungling males in these movies) and they triumph over adversity, and against the onslaught of maniacal males. This seems like a good statement of the fact that our society has come to accept women in roles that traditionally were not available to them.

Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror
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Best intro to the horror genre that I've read.

Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror
James B. Twitchell
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Dreadful Pleasures takes a lively look at the stories that make our hair stand on end. James Twitchell examines the appeal of horror through the centuries--its persistence in our culture, its manifestations in art, literature, and cinema, and our need for the frisson it provides. From the cave paintings at Lascaux to the "slasher" movies of today, Twitchell traces our fascination with horror stories and explores why certain myths and images--vampires and transformational monsters like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--have had special resonance in our culture, and why others have faded. Whether discussing the engravings of William Hogarth or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Twitchell is consistently insightful and entertaining. Film buffs and scholars, literary critics and Gothic novel devotees will all welcome this study of the horror genre and the immense appeal it has had throughout the centuries.

Customer Reviews:

Best intro to the horror genre that I've read........1999-01-11

There's a lot of horror criticism and commentary floating around out there these days, but Twitchell's book is still one of the best I've read. In fact, I wish he'd update it since it's pretty old--I think it ends with the late seventies.

Not everyone will agree with his approach which is unapologetically Freudian. He sees horror as a morality tale, instructing readers and viewers (too book looks at both films and fiction) in what sexual behavior is appropirate. While this approach may put people off, I'd urge them to keep reading. Even where you may not agree with Twitchell, his arguments are very interesting and worth considering. What's more, this is a pretty readable book, and that's refreshing in these days of "culture studies" where academics can't seen to write books without spouting jargon like "poststructuralist feminist hegemonic non-essentialism."

Amazon.com

The words "mad scientist" inevitably summon up the picture of a deranged, obsessive individual with a lab coat and bad hair, working on some grandiose project that probably means trouble for humanity at large. Behind this cartoonish figure, however, lurks a complex series of ideas, emotions, stereotypes, and archetypes. In Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture, David J. Skal investigates the whole issue of "our multilevel cultural waltz with the maniac in the lab coat" over the last two centuries.

The first few chapters focus on the origins of the mad-science mentality in the early 19th century. The age of Darwin and the Industrial Revolution saw the birth of many of the stock figures and themes of horror and science fiction: Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Dr. Moreau; creation of new life forms, contravention of natural law, science out of control. Then, in the early 20th century, the new medium of film helped make all of these into staples of popular culture. Succeeding chapters deal with types and trends in the mad-science phenomenon, touching on a variety of subjects, such as the classic horror movies of the 1930s, nuclear-age mutation and invasion fantasies, medical horror, the union of man and machine, apocalyptic entertainment, and "Alien Chic."

Movies certainly play a significant role in the whole mad-science phenomenon; Screams, however, is much more than a catalog of the classic horror and sci-fi entries. Skal's insightful, eloquent history gets at the psychological and social roots of our uneasy relationship with science and technology, and our attempts to master the fear of them.

Screams includes abundant notes, many black-and-white illustrations, and an appendix listing dozens of mad scientists from popular culture. Highly recommended. --M.V. Burke

Book Description

From the author of Hollywood Gothic and The Monster Show, the definitive book on the men in white coats who haunt our technological dreams and nightmares. From Frankenstein to Jurassic Park, the mad scientist is one of the modern world's most instantly recognizable cultural icons. Now, David Skal explores popular culture's perennial fascination with demented doctors, crazed clinicians, and technologically obsessed fiends. A prototype outsider, shunted off to the sidelines of serious discourse--to B-movies, pulp novels, and comic books--the mad scientist, the author argues, serves as a necessary lightning rod for otherwise unbearable anxieties about the consequences of modern science and technology. Employing a witty, highly readable style, Skal lovingly chronicles the mad scientist's quest for world domination, from nineteenth-century literature to the snap-crackle-scream apotheosis of 1930s Hollywood to the mad-science mystique that colors the cult of the computer, UFO abduction folklore, and the demonization of contemporary medicine.

Customer Reviews:

Skal's Treatise on Mad Scientists a Winner.......2004-08-07

Mad scientists have been a stape of US and world horror cinema since the very beginning; at no time has the stereotype left us abd today it's stronger than ever. David Skal, the esteemed historian of B movies, has tried to trace this slippery trail from Lon Chaney all the way to the present. As he points out, Hannibal Lecter is today's version of this old, satisfying trope, and Lecter's experiments with moths and menstrual blood can be seen as modern-day versions of the bizarre dreams of Dr. Frankenstein.

Standing slightly outside of society, although given cultural equity in the name of university educations, the mad doctors and scientists who people our movies are always judging us, until the time comes when they get judged themselves (see Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE).

What's all this heckling from other reviewers about Skal's scattershot approach? Cut him some slack, he's trying to entertain and educate us at the same time, that calls for a bit of digression here and there.

Amusing but sloppy.......2004-05-19

This is a light, unfocused book. It's supposed to be about mad scientist movies, but the author is all over the place. He starts off by re-telling chunks of his other book, The Monster Show. Then he writes about Mary Shelley and horror literature. He's off to a bad start, repeating himself and having trouble sticking to movies.

By chapter four, he gets to World War II and the post-war period, when mad scientists had become a significant part of popular entertainment. He tries to write about how the public reacts to the Manhattan Project and scientists like Einstein, but his analysis seems to be part of a different book. Is he writing about Mary Shelley, horror movies, science, or what?

Chapter five is all about alien visitations and flying saucers. Chapter six is about mad medical doctors like Mengele, doctor Frankenstein, Robin Cook's book 'Coma' (and the film), Dead Ringers, and AIDS. Chapter seven has something to do with flesh and cyborgs --- I think. It's not clear what that chapter was supposed to be about. The author wraps it all up with a list of famous mad scientists. The list is filler, but I enjoyed reading the "mad ambition/achievement" for each one.

This is good bathroom reading. The subject matter is fun because it's about popular culture and mad scientists, two topics that are never dull. But it's poorly-edited, with the feel of an enthusiastic rough first draft. My guess is that after the success of The Monster Show, Skal sent the idea for this book to his publisher, they loved the proposal, and he hammered it out quickly for fun. That's no crime, but I was really disappointed with it..

Some Things We Are NOT Meant To Understand!!!.......2002-08-18

True, Herr Doktor Skal?

Just from its title alone I was delighted to discover
this book. Mad science, scientists and 19th-20th
century Scientism is a remarkably important and overlooked
aspect of our culture and its progress.
And Professor Skal gets closer to providing
a history and understanding of this cultural
iconography than anyone has ever been able to do.
Much credit is due him!
However, as fascinating and stimulating and just plain right
as most of his thesis proves to be, equal parts suffer from
that most dread of all contemporary ills - ACADEMIC HUBRIS!
(And yes, I know he is not an academician. But a rose by
any other name...)

The last three chapters and the conclusion suffered from too much
specious overreaching; an attempt to somehow hyper-link his
way through the tangle of ideas/imagery/opinions that he was brave enough to try and decipher in the first place.
Obfuscation
rather than clarification was usually the result of all those

cross-references. Perhaps a separate volume would have been
more appropriate, giving the Professor a chance to stretch out
his line of reasoning.

Do not get me wrong! A VITAL ADDITION to any cinema/science-fiction/horror or popular culture student or just plain fan's library. As in his excellent Monster Show, the chapter on B Movies is worth owning this book for -- terrific insight!

Excellent quality hardcover, readable font, nice paper, some well
chosen pictures along the way.

(BUT, definitely overdue for a less expensive softcover edition!)

One last criticism, though:

The chapter on Alien Chic seques from a UFO sighting the
author recalls from his college years. I found it depressingly
typical - and illustrative of this otherwise wonderful book's
flaws - that his personal experience did not inspire a better understanding of such an important subject.
It always saddens me to find an excellent mind such as Mr. Skal's more or less shuttering itself off from reality in favor of "academic objectivity", or the pristine pursuit of
a cultural theory. The fact that his repression of
the facts associated with UFOs needs to find justification from Maven-dom, as well as movie release dates,
actually only serves to reveal his own monomania, and
therfore the book's primary thesis.

Just what the doktor ordered?

A wonderful history of Dr. Frankenstein and his ilk.......2000-06-02

After publishing books on horror films in American culture, the career of filmmaker Tod Browning, and the history of Dracula from Bram Stoker onward, David J. Skal has chosen to explore the role of the mad scientist in literature and film during the last two centuries. His book, "Screams of Reason: Mad Science in Modern Culture," begins with Mary Shelley's conception of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, touches on Drs. Jekyll and Moreau, and finally moves on to the twentieth century and its attendant griefs - including, but not limited to, the threat of nuclear war and the career of writer Robin Cook. Skal's main thesis - and it's a good one - is that the public's fear and distrust of scientists and technological innovation has been reflected primarily in the arena of popular entertainment. Skal writes well about the uneasy relationship most people have with science (ie, fearful and antagonistic on the one hand, but unable to live without cars, phones, and computers on the other). The best part of this book is the first half, which mostly deals with Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. From the life of Mary Shelley to the theatrical and film adaptations of her famous novel, the first half of "Screams of Reason" is fascinating and compelling reading. The second half is also interesting, but is sometimes so fragmented and tangential that Skal's main points are lost. Also, he seems unable throughout the second half to draw very many definite conclusions, allowing quotes and examples to simply stand on their own. "Screams of Reason" is most valuable as a sourcebook on Dr. Frankenstein and his ilk, and as a very enjoyable book about popular culture. A wealth of deep insights into the role of the mad scientist in films of the twentieth century will have to be provided by the reader, however.

The best overview of mad science's greatest names!.......1999-01-20

A mad scientist's dream book! There are more lunatics, would-be world conquerers, brilliant but misguided vivisectionists, and downright frightening personalities than in the last *three* Danielle Steel novels! (Not that I read them, of course...) Any mad scientist worth his salt needs to pick up this book...even the maddest of us could use the examples within of Doctors Frankenstein, Jekyll and Moreau as epitomes to strive for...and the extensive overview of movies gives me plenty of ideas of cinema to inflict upon my latest test subject. With this book, I WILL RULE THE WORLD! BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Final Destination II: The Movie (Final Destination)

Average customer rating:

Better than the first

Final Destination II: The Movie (Final Destination)
Nancy A. Collins , and Natasha Rhodes
Manufacturer: Black Flame
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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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.

American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film

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American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film

Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
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Suggestive study of an endlessly fascinating masterwork.
Lynches Classic Under the Microscope
It's A Strange World
Atkinson's "Blue Velvet" study a must for Lynch fanatics

Blue Velvet (Bfi Modern Classics)
Michael Atkinson
Manufacturer: British Film Institute
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Book Description

For many, Blue Velvet is David Lynch's masterpiece. It crystallises many of his chief preoccupations: the evil and violence underlying the surface of suburbia, the seedy by-ways of sexuality, the frightening appearance of the adult world to a child's eyes. In this intricate and layered reading of the film, Michael Atkinson analyses Blue Velvet as the definitive expression of the traumatized innocence which characterizes Lynch's work.

Customer Reviews:

Suggestive study of an endlessly fascinating masterwork........2002-01-09

In the decade and a half between his pioneering 'Blue Velvet' and recent renaissance with 'Mulholland Drive', David Lynch's reputation had seriously plummeted, his name a synonym for kitschy, affectless weirdness. It's good to be reminded what a major filmmaker he could be, and Michael Atkinson claims 'Velvet' as the most important and influential film of the 80s. Although the film deals with areas of human behaviour, psychology and sexuality we'd prefer not to think about, and is full of reeling violence and disorienting cinematic procedures, Atkinson argues that Lynch is ultimately a conservative artist, affirming a childlike, pre-Oedipal innocence by vividly portraying its dark, disjunctive opposite.

This thesis is arguable to say the least, and Atkinson himself isn't always very convinced by it. Using a loose psychoanalytic framework, he discusses 'Velvet' as a psychodrama, a narrative unleashing of the Id, with Jeffrey as a kind of Alice or fairy-tale figure undergoing the harrowing, identity-threatening psychic journey to maturity. You may disagree with Atkinson's wider conclusions, but his attentive, close reading of the film pays justice to its full, ambiguous complexity, singling out Lynch's idiosyncratic use of colour, composition and the widescreen frame; his manipulation of physical space in psychic space; the equal importance of his 'aural design' to his visuals; his unexpected sensitivity to class and gender politics; his use of performance (Atkinson brilliantly recuperates the famously vicious Frank (Dennis Hopper)). Each passing insight adds layers to the film's suggestibility, without ever hoping to tie it up, so bound up is Lynch's aesthetic to his own impenetrable demons.

Atkinson has an annoying habit of repeating alienating buzzwords like 'interface' and 'topoi', where clearer words will do; his contention that 'Velvet' is a 'pure' movie, untainted by cinema history, is simply wrong (Douglas Sirk and Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' are obvious precedents for a start), and his interpretation of Lynch's Dennis Potter-like use of song is way off the mark. But if you want to tease out some of the stranger mysteries of Lynch's beautiful and enigmatic film, this is the book to get.

Lynches Classic Under the Microscope.......1999-12-05

Assuming you have seen the movie, one might be fascinated to read a book on it. Atkinsons book might be the one to check out. Carefully detailed, this book discusses the major plots in the film, in relation to all its subplots as well as all the inuendoes that are so common in Lynch films. Not to mention the quirkiness of the characters. Overall, this book was well told and making some plausible ideas about the strangeness of Lynches world. Yet, I found it does not help me appreciate the film any better than I did the first time, or the next time I will see it.

It's A Strange World.......1999-06-27

Michael Atkinson does a great job of analyzing and pointing out all the weird little touches that "Blue Velvet" contains. It is helpful to fans and is sure to tell you something about the film, even if you were sure you knew everything about it. Atkinson does get a little long-winded in some places but it is otherwise a good book for anyone interested in this film.

Atkinson's "Blue Velvet" study a must for Lynch fanatics.......1998-03-23

Film writer Michael Atkinson delivers an exceptional short reading of one of the most influential and compelling films of the 1980s. Working with the efficiency of a Johns Hopkins-trained neurosurgeon, the author's recent addition to the BFI Modern Film Classics series irrefutably cements "Blue Velvet's" position in the canon and would undoubtedly turn the stomach of professed Lynch-hater Roger Ebert.

Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film (Film and Culture Series)

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Not an easy read, but very well written

Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film (Film and Culture Series)
Adam Lowenstein
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0231132476

Book Description

In this imaginative new work, Adam Lowenstein explores the ways in which a group of groundbreaking horror films engaged the haunting social conflicts left in the wake of World War II, Hiroshima, and the Vietnam War. Lowenstein centers Shocking Representation around readings of films by Georges Franju, Michael Powell, Shindo Kaneto, Wes Craven, and David Cronenberg. He shows that through allegorical representations these directors' films confronted and challenged comforting historical narratives and notions of national identity intended to soothe public anxieties in the aftermath of national traumas.

Borrowing elements from art cinema and the horror genre, these directors disrupted the boundaries between high and low cinema. Lowenstein contrasts their works, often dismissed by contemporary critics, with the films of acclaimed "New Wave" directors in France, England, Japan, and the United States. He argues that these "New Wave" films, which were embraced as both art and national cinema, often upheld conventional ideas of nation, history, gender, and class questioned by the horror films. By fusing film studies with the emerging field of trauma studies, and drawing on the work of Walter Benjamin, Adam Lowenstein offers a bold reassessment of the modern horror film and the idea of national cinema.

Customer Reviews:

Not an easy read, but very well written.......2006-03-15

Adam Lowenstein, associate professor of English and film studies at the University of Pittsburgh, has written a book where he analyses different horror movies by different directors from different countries, for example Wes Craven's Last House on the Left. However, Shocking Representation isn't a book made for the everyday horror fan (which obviously doesn't mean a horror fan will be unable to appreciate the book). No, this is a book that first and foremost other devotees of film studies will enjoy.

Because what Lowenstein does is that he analyses different movies from different eras and countries, and bases his analysis on how the construction of the movies, their themes, advertisement, script, and so on are characterized by and reflects upon such immense social conflicts and traumas as the end of World War II, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, and the Vietnam War. Using movies from countries such as France, England, Japan, and the U.S. Lowenstein shows how the directors design their movies in ways based on the traumatic experiences the movie crowd in one way or another has experienced.

Complicated? Yeah, pretty much so. Especially when Lowenstein uses old black and white movies I've never even heard of, much less seen myself. Fact is that I've not seen or heard of the majority of the movies analyzed in the book - except Deliverance and Last House on the Left - and due to this it was really very little of the book I could truly understand and appreciate.

Because, after all, movies (including the horror genre, even though some movie critics refuse to see the horror genre as anything but brainless entertainment of the worst quality imaginable) often deliver sharp social critique and/or reflections of the particular society where the movie is made; but this is often missed by the general viewer.

Which both sucks and is too bad, because it's often very clever critique. But this also means that it can be great fun learning from someone highly skilled in film studies. And this I did from time to time. For instance, I've seen Deliverance before, but I'll have to do it again, soon, and this time think about all the references to the Vietnam War I'll see on the screen.

Shocking Representation isn't an easy book to read, and you really do have to know your film history in order to fully appreciate what Lowenstein says, but at the same time, even though you only know a few titles - like I did - you can still find some interesting facts.

Average customer rating:

Gives horror films the legitimacy they deserve!

The Modern Horror Film
John McCarty
Manufacturer: Carol Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0806511648

Customer Reviews:

Gives horror films the legitimacy they deserve!.......2000-07-06

Never before (or probably ever again) will there ever be such a comprehensive book on horror films! This is quite an accomplishment...I defy any one of you to make a case against any one of these 50 titles being included here (of course, I can think of some McCarty left out, but nobody's perfect!) A must read for anyone interested in great movies, horror or otherwise!

Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy (Film and Culture)

Average customer rating:

More Analysis than Lexicon - Only a few Pictures
A Masterpiece of Film Criticism

Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy (Film and Culture)
William Paul
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Essential Monster Movie Guide: A Century of Creature Features on Film, TV, and Video

ASIN: 0231084641

Book Description

An engrossing examination of a popular box office genre--the gross-out movie-- Laughing Screaming is the first study to take this lowbrow product seriously.

Customer Reviews:

More Analysis than Lexicon - Only a few Pictures.......2000-09-29

Certainly an excellent Analysis about modern (80ties) Teencomedies and Teenhorrorfilms But if you are rather looking for a fullcolor Book with many pictures - more the lexica-type where you can look up single films - you won't be perfectly happy with it.

German: Sicherlich eine excellente Analyse der Achtzigerjahre Teeni-Komödien und Teenislasherfilme. Stehen Sie jedoch eher auf farbig bebilderte Nachschlagewerke, wo man mal rasch was zu einem einzelen Film nachlesen kann, ist dies leider nicht das richtige Buch

A Masterpiece of Film Criticism.......2000-03-28

An amazing analysis of the modern grossout film - written looking back at the the films of the late 70's and early 80's (Carrie, Animal House, etc). For a Film Professor, Paul actually appears to appreciate some of the films - at least, he doesn't lump them all together to condemn them. This is surprising. He examines them critically using Rabelais. I especially appreciated his analysis of HEAVEN HELP US - a fantastic movie that has long gone unnoticed. Many film critics talk about the collapse between "high" and "low" culture, but Paul actually takes this collapse seriously and engages critically with films that most of the elite wouldn't give a second thought. Bravo for that.

One can also appreciate how prescient Paul's book is - he anticipates both the revival of the grossout comedy (American Pie, There's Something About Mary) and the return of the horror/slasher film (Scream, I Know What You did Last Summer) written at a time when most film critics were considering these genres dead.

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