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"An invaluable collection for anyone researching or teaching cult cinema ... The Cult Film Reader is an authoritative text that should be of value to any student or researcher interested in challenging and transgressive cinema that pushes the boundaries of conventional cinema and film studies." Science Fiction Film and Television "A really impressive and comprehensive collection of the key writings in the field. The editors have done a terrific job in drawing together the various traditions and providing a clear sense of this rich and rewarding scholarly terrain. This collection is as wild and diverse as the films that it covers. Fascinating." Mark Jancovich, Professor of Film and Television...
Whether defined by the carnivalesque excesses of Troma studios (The Toxic Avenger), the arthouse erotica of Radley Metzger and Doris Wishman, or the narrative experimentations of Abel Ferrara, Melvin Van Peebles, Jack Smith, or Harmony Korine, underground cinema has achieved an important position within American film culture. Often defined as "cult" and "exploitation" or "alternative" and "independent," the American underground retains separate strategies of production and exhibition from the cinematic mainstream, while its sexual and cinematic representations differ from the traditionally conservative structures of the Hollywood system. Underground U.S.A. offers a fascinating overview of this area of maverick moviemaking by considering the links between the experimental and exploitative traditions of the American underground.
The Necronomicon Shocking Cinema of the Seventies continues the acclaimed journal's exploration of film culture with a special edition devoted to film from this special era. In a series of innovative articles, leading critics and scholars consider the social and cinematic issues which shaped the films of the decade. Covering genres such as horror, the disaster movie, blaxploitation, and kung fu, the authors discover the truth behind one of the most prolific, turbulent, and challenging periods of cinema history.
This collection focuses on 1970s films from a variety of countries, and from the marginal to the mainstream, which, by tackling various 'difficult' subjects, have proved to be controversial in one way or another. It is not an uncritical celebration of the shocking and the subversive but an attempt to understand why this decade produced films which many found shocking, and what it was that made them shocking to certain audiences. To this end it includes not only films that shocked the conventionally minded, such as hard core pornography, but also those that outraged liberal opinion – for example, Death Wish and Dirty Harry. The book does not simply cast a critical light on a series of controversial films which have been variously maligned, misinterpreted or just plain ignored, but also assesses how their production values, narrative features and critical receptions can be linked to the wider historical and social forces that were dominant during this decade. Furthermore, it explores how these films resonate in our own historical moment – replete as it is with shocks of all kinds.
Some films should never have been made. They are too unsettling, too dangerous, too challenging, too outrageous and even too badly made to be let loose on unsuspecting audiences. Yet these films, from the shocking Cannibal Holocaust to the apocalyptic Donnie Darko, from the destructive Tetsuo to the awfully bad The Room, from the hilarious This Is Spinal Tap to the campy Showgirls, from the asylum of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari to the circus of Freaks, from the gangs of The Warriors to the gangsters of In Bruges and from the flamboyant Rocky Horror Picture Show to the ultimate cool of The Big Lebowski, have all garnered passionate fan followings. Cult cinema has made tragic misfits, monster...
Zombies, werewolves and chainsaw-wielding maniacs are tried-and-true staples of horror films. But none can match the visceral dread evoked by a child with an innocent face and a diabolical stare. Cinema's evil children attack our cherished ideas of innocence and our innocent bystander status as the audience. A good horror film is a scary ride--a "devil child" movie is a guilt trip. This book examines 24 international films--with discussions of another 100--that in effect "indict" viewers for crimes of child abuse and abandonment, greed, social and ecological negligence, and political and war crimes, and for persistent denial of responsibility for them all. For 75 years evil children have ritually rebuked audiences and, in playing on our guilt, established a horror subgenre that might be described as a blood-spattered rampage on an ethical mission.
Whether defined by comic excesses, cult horrors, or surreal vampire experimentations, trash and exploitation cinema represents the alternative face of European film. Although extremely popular with post-war audiences, these historically significant traditions of 'Eurotrash' have often been ridiculed or ignored by an established film criticism eager to define 'legitimate' European cinema as either avant-garde or socially realist. Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945 investigates these previously under-explored national traditions of film culture, with essays and festival reports uncovering the social and cultural trends and tensions within a wide range of European exploitation movies. The volume considers such engaging and challenging topics as Russian, Belgian and Italian horror cinema, Gothic musclemen movies, Nazi 'sexploitation' cycles, German erotic cinema and 1970s European 'rogue cop' thrillers. Alternative Europe also includes interviews with trash directors and icons such as Brian Yuzna, J'rg Buttgereit and Giovanni Lombardo Radice.
In recent years, there has been an explosion of critical interest in the icons, genres and traditions of 1970s Italian cult film. Thanks to the international success of directors such as Dario Argento and Sergio Martino, and the influential giallo (thriller) cycle in which they worked, these unconventional and often controversial films are now impacting on new generations of filmmakers, scholars and moviegoers alike. Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema 1970–1985 considers the current interest in specific Italian directors and cult genres, exploring the social, political and cultural factors that spawned a decade of cinema dominated by extreme, yet...
Films from the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg have long been regarded as isolated texts. The Cinema of the Low Countries points to the interconnectedness between these national cinemas from the point of view of genre, language and format, and their local and international importance by explicitly focusing on 24 key feature films and documentaries from the region. Building on each film's relationship with its particular cultural context, this volume presents twenty-four specially commissioned essays that explore the particular significance and influence of a wide range of exemplary films. Covering the work of internationally acclaimed directors such as Joris Ivens, Henri Stock, Paul Verhoeven and the Dardenne Brothers and featuring the films Turkish Delight, The Vanishing, Daughters of Darkness, Rosetta, Soldiers of Orange and Man Bites Dog, this collection offers an original approach to the appreciation of a diverse and increasingly important regional cinema.
Cult Cinema: an Introduction presents the first in-depth academic examination of all aspects of the field of cult cinema, including audiences, genres, and theoretical perspectives. Represents the first exhaustive introduction to cult cinema Offers a scholarly treatment of a hotly contested topic at the center of current academic debate Covers audience reactions, aesthetics, genres, theories of cult cinema, as well as historical insights into the topic