The Turn to Gruesomeness in American Horror Films, 1931-1936 PDF Download
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Author: Jon Towlson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476626391
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
Critics have traditionally characterized classic horror by its use of shadow and suggestion. Yet the graphic nature of early 1930s films only came to light in the home video/DVD era. Along with gangster movies and "sex pictures," horror films drew audiences during the Great Depression with sensational content. Exploiting a loophole in the Hays Code, which made no provision for on-screen "gruesomeness," studios produced remarkably explicit films that were recut when the Code was more rigidly enforced from 1934. This led to a modern misperception that classic horror was intended to be safe and reassuring to audiences. The author examines the 1931 to 1936 "happy ending" horror in relation to industry practices and censorship. Early works like Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) and The Raven (1935) may be more akin to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Hostel (2005) than many critics believe.
Author: Jon Towlson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476626391
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
Critics have traditionally characterized classic horror by its use of shadow and suggestion. Yet the graphic nature of early 1930s films only came to light in the home video/DVD era. Along with gangster movies and "sex pictures," horror films drew audiences during the Great Depression with sensational content. Exploiting a loophole in the Hays Code, which made no provision for on-screen "gruesomeness," studios produced remarkably explicit films that were recut when the Code was more rigidly enforced from 1934. This led to a modern misperception that classic horror was intended to be safe and reassuring to audiences. The author examines the 1931 to 1936 "happy ending" horror in relation to industry practices and censorship. Early works like Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) and The Raven (1935) may be more akin to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Hostel (2005) than many critics believe.
Author: Peter Hutchings
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810870509
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
Horror is one of the most enduring and controversial of all cinematic genres. Horror films range from the subtle and the poetic to the graphic and the gory but what links them all is their ability to frighten, disturb, shock, provoke, delight, irritate, amuse, and bemuse audiences. Horror's capacity to serve as an outlet to capture the changing patterns of our fears and anxieties has ensured not only its notoriety but also its long-term survival and its international popularity. Above all, however, it is the audience's continual desire to experience new frights and evermore-horrifying sights that continue to make films like The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, Ringu, and The Shining captivate viewers. The A to Z of Horror Cinema traces the development of horror cinema from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries. Entries cover all the major movie villains, including Frankenstein and his monster, the vampire, the werewolf, the mummy, the zombie, the ghost, and the serial killer; the film directors, producers, writers, actors, cinematographers, make-up artists, special effects technicians, and composers who have helped to shape horror history; significant production companies and the major films that have come to stand as milestones in the development of the horror genre; and the different national traditions in horror cinema as well as horror's most popular themes, formats, conventions, and cycles.
Author: Bernd Herzogenrath
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810867362
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 354
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Book Description
Considered the 'King of Poverty Row,' Edgar G. Ulmer (1904-1972) was an auteur of B productions. A filmmaker with an individual voice, Ulmer made independent movies before that category even existed. From his early productions like The Black Cat (1934) and Yiddish cinema of the late 1930s to his final films of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ulmer created enduring works within the confines of economic constraints. Almost forgotten, Ulmer was rediscovered first in the 1950s by the French critics of the Cahiers du Cinema and then in the early 1970s by young American directors, notably Peter Bogdanovich. But who was Edgar G. Ulmer? The essays in this anthology attempt to shed some light on the director and the films he created_films that are great possibly because of, rather than despite, the many restrictions Ulmer endured to make them. In The Films of Edgar G. Ulmer, Bernd Herzogenrath has assembled a collection of essays that pay tribute to Ulmer's work and focus not only on his well-known films, including Detour, but also on rare gems such as From Nine to Nine and Strange Illusion. In addition to in-depth analyses of Ulmer's work, this volume also features an interview with Ulmer's wife and an interview Ulmer gave in 1965, in which he comments on actors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, as well as fellow directors Tod Browning and James Whale.
Author: Steven Jay Schneider
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1838714030
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 282
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Book Description
From bloodsucking schoolgirls to flesh-eating zombies, and from psychopathic killers to beasts from hell, '100 European Horror Films' provides a lively and illuminating guide to a hundred key horror movies from the 1920s to the present day. Alongside films from countries particularly associated with horror production - notably Germany, Italy, and Spain and movies by key horror filmmakers such as Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Lucio Fulci, '100 European Horror Films' also includes films from countries as diverse as Denmark, Belgium, and the Soviet Union, and filmmakers such as Bergman, Polanski and Claire Denis, more commonly associated with art cinema. The book features entries representing key horror subgenres such as the Italian 'giallo' thrillers of the late 60s and 70s, psychological thrillers, and zombie, cannibal, and vampire movies. Each entry includes a plot synopsis, major credits, and a commentary on the film's significance, together with its production and exhibition history. Films covered in the book include early classics such as Paul Wegener's 'The Golem,' Robert Wiene's 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,' and 'Murnau's Nosferatu'; 70s horror favorites such as 'Daughters of Darkness, The Beast,' and 'Suspiria'; and notable recent releases such as 'The Devil's Backbone, Malefique,' and 'The Vanishing.'
Author: Robin R. Means Coleman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136942947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
From King Kong to Candyman, the boundary-pushing genre of the horror film has always been a site for provocative explorations of race in American popular culture. In Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890's to Present, Robin R. Means Coleman traces the history of notable characterizations of blackness in horror cinema, and examines key levels of black participation on screen and behind the camera. She argues that horror offers a representational space for black people to challenge the more negative, or racist, images seen in other media outlets, and to portray greater diversity within the concept of blackness itself. Horror Noire presents a unique social history of blacks in America through changing images in horror films. Throughout the text, the reader is encouraged to unpack the genre’s racialized imagery, as well as the narratives that make up popular culture’s commentary on race. Offering a comprehensive chronological survey of the genre, this book addresses a full range of black horror films, including mainstream Hollywood fare, as well as art-house films, Blaxploitation films, direct-to-DVD films, and the emerging U.S./hip-hop culture-inspired Nigerian "Nollywood" Black horror films. Horror Noire is, thus, essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how fears and anxieties about race and race relations are made manifest, and often challenged, on the silver screen.
Author: Mark Bould
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415458102
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Science Fiction explores the genre from 1895 to the present day, drawing on examples from over forty countries. It raises questions about the relationship between science fiction, science and technology, and examines the interrelationships between spectacle, narrative and self-reflexivity, paying particular attention to the role of special effects in creating meaning and affect. It explores science fiction's evocations of the sublime, the grotesque, and the camp, and charts the ways in which the genre reproduces and articulates discourses of colonialism, imperialism and neo-liberal globalization. At the same time, Science Fiction provides a thorough analysis of the genre's representation of race, class, gender and sexuality, making this text an essential guide for students, academics and film fans alike. Key films discussed include: Le voyage dans la lune (1902) 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1916) L'Atlantide (1921) King Kong (1933, 2005) Gojira (1954) La Jet e (1962) The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) Tetsuo (1989) Sleep Dealer (2008) Avatar (2009)
Author: Brad Weismann
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496833236
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
Two horror films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2018, and one of them—The Shape of Water—won. Since 1990, the production of horror films has risen exponentially worldwide, and in 2013, horror films earned an estimated $400 million in ticket sales. Horror has long been the most popular film genre, and more horror movies have been made than any other kind. We need them. We need to be scared, to test ourselves, laugh inappropriately, scream, and flinch. We need to get through them and come out, blinking, still in one piece. Lost in the Dark: A World History of Horror Film is a straightforward history written for the general reader and student that can serve as a comprehensive reference work. The volume provides a general introduction to the genre, serves as a guidebook to its film highlights, and celebrates its practitioners, trends, and stories. Starting with silent-era horror films and ending with 2020’s The Invisible Man, Lost in the Dark looks at decades of horror movies. Author Brad Weismann covers such topics as the roots of horror in literature and art, monster movies, B-movies, the destruction of the American censorship system, international horror, torture porn, zombies, horror comedies, horror in the new millennium, and critical reception of modern horror. A sweeping survey that doesn’t scrimp on details, Lost in the Dark is sure to satisfy both the curious and the completist.
Author: Robin L. Murray
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803294921
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 269
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Book Description
Godzilla, a traditional natural monster and representation of cinema’s subgenre of natural attack, also provides a cautionary symbol of the dangerous consequences of mistreating the natural world—monstrous nature on the attack. Horror films such as Godzilla invite an exploration of the complexities of a monstrous nature that humanity both creates and embodies. Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann demonstrate how the horror film and its offshoots can often be understood in relation to a monstrous nature that has evolved either deliberately or by accident and that generates fear in humanity as both character and audience. This connection between fear and the natural world opens up possibilities for ecocritical readings often missing from research on monstrous nature, the environment, and the horror film. Organized in relation to four recurring environmental themes in films that construct nature as a monster—anthropomorphism, human ecology, evolution, and gendered landscapes—the authors apply ecocritical perspectives to reveal the multiple ways nature is constructed as monstrous or in which the natural world itself constructs monsters. This interdisciplinary approach to film studies fuses cultural, theological, and scientific critiques to explore when and why nature becomes monstrous.
Author: Richard Nowell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1623569850
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
Even though horror has been a key component of media output for almost a century, the genre's industrial character remains under explored and poorly understood. Merchants of Menace: The Business of Horror Cinema responds to a major void in film history by shedding much-needed new light on the economic dimensions of one of the world's most enduring audiovisual forms. Given horror cuts across budgetary categories, industry sectors, national film cultures, and media, Merchants of Menace also promises to expand understandings of the economics of cinema generally. Covering 1930-present, this groundbreaking collection boasts fourteen original chapters from world-leading experts taking as their focus such diverse topics as early zombie pictures, post-WWII chillers, Civil Rights-Era marketing, Hollywood literary adaptations, Australian exploitation, "torture-porn" Auteurs, and twenty-first-century remakes.
Author: Peter Hutchings
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538102447
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 447
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Book Description
Horror is one of the most enduring and controversial of all cinematic genres. Horror films range from subtle and poetic to graphic and gory, but what links them together is their ability to frighten, disturb, shock, provoke, delight, irritate, and amuse audiences. Horror’s capacity to take the form of our evolving fears and anxieties has ensured not only its notoriety but also its long-term survival and international popularity. This second edition has been comprehensively updated to capture all that is important and exciting about the horror genre as it exists today. Its new entries feature the creative personalities who have developed innovative forms of horror, and recent major films and cycles of films that ensure horror’s continuing popularity and significance. In addition, many of the other entries have been expanded to include reference to the contemporary scene, giving a clear picture of how horror cinema is constantly renewing and transforming itself. The Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema traces the development of the genre from its beginnings to the present. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries. The entries cover all major movie villains, including Frankenstein and his monsters, the vampire, the werewolf, the mummy, the zombie, the ghost and the serial killer; film directors, producers, writers, actors, cinematographers, make-up artists, special-effects technicians, and composers who have helped shape horror history; significant production companies; major films that are milestones in the development of the horror genre; and different national traditions in horror cinema – as well as popular themes, formats, conventions, and cycles.
