You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
There are six of them: heroines, heroes, wise elders, mad scientists, servants and monsters. One of the most fascinating and also endearing aspects of horror films is how they use these six clearly defined character types to portray good and evil. This was particularly true of the classics of the genre, where actors often appeared in the same type of role in many different films. The development of the archetypal characters reflected the way the genre reacted to social changes of the time. As the Great Depression yielded to the uncertainty of World War II, flawed but noble mad scientists such as Henry Frankenstein gave way to Dr. Nieman (The Ghost of Frankenstein) with his dreams of revenge and world conquest. This work details the development of the six archetypes in horror films and how they were portrayed in the many classics of the 1930s and 1940s.
Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film traces the origins of the 1970s family horror subgenre to certain aspects of American culture and classical Hollywood cinema. Far from being an ephemeral and short-lived genre, horror actually relates to many facets of American history from its beginnings to the present day. Individual chapters examine aspects of the genre, its roots in the Universal horror films of the 1930s, the Val Lewton RKO unit of the 1940s, and the crucial role of Alfred Hitchcock as the father of the modern American horror film. Subsequent chapters investigate the key works of the 1970s by directors such as Larry Cohen, George A. Romero, Brian De Palma, Wes ...
They had more in common than just a scream, whether they faced Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, King Kong, the Wolf Man, or any of the other legendary Hollywood monsters. Some were even monsters themselves, such as Elsa Lanchester as the Bride, and Gloria Holden as Dracula's Daughter. And while evading the Strangler of the Swamp, former Miss America Rosemary La Planche is allowed to rescue her leading man. This book provides details about the lives and careers of 21 of these cinematic leading ladies, femmes fatales, monsters, and misfits, putting into perspective their contributions to the films and folklore of Hollywood terror--and also the sexual harassment, exploitation, and genuine danger they faced on the job. Veteran actress Virginia Christine recalls Universal burying her alive in a backlot swamp in full "mummy" makeup for the resurrection scene in The Mummy's Curse--and how the studio saved that scene for the last day in case she suffocated. Filled with anecdotes and recollections, many of the entries are based on original interviews, and there are numerous old photographs and movie stills.
Satan has figured in film since the very birth of cinema. The Satanic Screen documents all of Satan’s cinematic incarnations, covering not only the horror genre but also a whole range of sub-genres including hardcore porn, mondo and underground film. Heavily illustrated with rare still photographs, posters and arcana, the book investigates the perennial symbiotic interplay between Satanic cinema and leading occultists, making it essential reading for anyone interested in the Black Arts and their continuing representation in populist culture. Revised and updated since its first acclaimed publication in 2001, Schreck’s study of the diabolical in film has since become a widely referenced standard work on the subject, enriched by Schreck's own personal engagement with magic and spiritual practice, which provides cineastes and sorcerers alike a veritable Encyclopedia Satanica of one of the oldest and most culturally profound genres in motion picture history.
Ever since horror leapt from popular fiction to the silver screen in the late 1890s, viewers have experienced fear and pleasure in exquisite combination. A History of Horror, with rare stills from classic films, is the only book to offer a comprehensive survey of this ever-popular film genre. Chronologically examining over fifty horror films from key periods, this one-stop sourcebook unearths the historical origins of legendary characters and explores how the genre fits into the Hollywood studio system and how its enormous success in American and European culture expanded globally over time.
This book investigates the space between the two languages of modern-day Brittany through a series of close readings of literary texts that represent Brittany or Bretonness in the French language. This is the space that is negotiated by translation, be it a smooth translation of Breton scenes and themes into a French fit for the salons of the capital, or a foreignizing translation of Breton motifs into a French that writhes and struggles to accommodate them. It is also the space negotiated by the bilingual author who writes in the shadow of the other language: the literary conventions of one may litter his work in the other, or the idioms and syntax of one may make their ghostly presence felt in the other. But it can equally be a space of violence as in the case of the writer whose whole community has lost its mother tongue, and writes under protest in the language of the cultural oppressor or colonizer. As the first sustained analysis of the literature produced between French and Breton, this book shows us how literary language is affected by such inter-cultural tensions, and also what it can mean to be caught between cultures.
Melodrama is the foundation of American cinema. It is, however, a poorly understood term. While it is a pervasive and persuasive dramatic mode, it is not tied to any specific moral or ideological system. It is not a singular genre; rather, it operates as a "genre generating machine" capable of determining the aesthetics and structure of the drama within many genres. Melodrama centers the conflict around the clash between good and evil and provides a sense of poetic justice--but the specific values embedded in notions of good and evil are determined by the culture, and they shift from nation to nation, region to region, and period to period. This book explores the "populist" westerns of the 1930s, the propaganda films that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the popularity of Sax Rohmer's master villain Fu Manchu. "Melodramas of passion" and film noir also offer a challenge to melodrama with its seemingly alienated protagonists and downbeat endings. Yet, with few exceptions, Hollywood was able to assimilate these genres within its melodramatic imagination.
This is the authoritative biography of writer, poet, and beat generation icon Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), whose novel On the Road catapulted him to the forefront of the literary world and influenced budding writers for generations to come. A legendaryfigure in the landscape of American literature, Kerouac lived a turbulent life, one more intimately connected to his literary output than perhaps any other writer. Restless traveler, alcoholic, dissolute but devoted Catholic, and genius, Kerouac lived hard with his compatriots of the beat movement--William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady. With them, he created a new type of American literature as w...
Reveals how Christian colorblindness expanded white evangelicalism and excluded Black evangelicals In the decades after the civil rights movement, white Americans turned to an ideology of colorblindness. Personal kindness, not systemic reform, seemed to be the way to solve racial problems. In those same decades, a religious movement known as evangelicalism captured the nation’s attention and became a powerful political force. In The Myth of Colorblind Christians, Jesse Curtis shows how white evangelicals’ efforts to grow their own institutions created an evangelical form of whiteness, infusing the politics of colorblindness with sacred fervor. Curtis argues that white evangelicals deploy...
Correct Thinking Saves Marriage: Discovering the Way Forward When the "I's" Have It By: Dr. Peter Joseph “….. diagnostic and prescriptive for the health of marriage—just what the doctor ordered! These questions should be built into pre-marital counselling as well as marriage retreats….” --Danny R. Bowen, PhD, Adjunct Professor, South Western Baptist Theological Seminary “….careful and erudite treatment of the subject…” --Pastor Jansen Trotman, DD, MA, CFLE, CC Gloria Trotman, PhD, MA, CFLE, CC “This book would function well in small group setting.” --Jane Thayer, PhD Professor, Andrews University Author of Strategies for Transformational Learning: How to teach for Disci...