Deze serie duikt in de duistere hoeken van het horrorgenre, met inzichtelijke analyses en scherpe kritieken op iconische en minder bekende horrorfilms. Elk deel onderzoekt verschillende facetten van deze onheilspellende werken, van hun culturele impact tot de psychologische drijfveren van de personages. Fans van horror en filmliefhebbers vinden hier een rijke bron van kennis en prikkelende reflecties over wat horror werkelijk angstaanjagend maakt.
David Lynch's prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me has received renewed appreciation with the broadcast of Twin Peaks: The Return. Lindsay Hallam argues that what Lynch created was not a parody of soap opera and detective television but a horror movie. She examines initial reaction to and subsequent reevaluation of the film.
Despite its reputation as one of the greatest and most influential of all horror films, there is surprisingly little literature dedicated to Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960), and this contribution to the Devil's Advocates series is the first single book dedicated to it. Martyn Conterio places the film in the historical context of being one of the first sound Italian horror films and how its success kick-started the Italian horror boom. The author considers the particularly Italian perspective on the gothic that the film pioneered and its fresh and pioneering approach to horror tropes such as the vampire and the witch and considers how the casting of British 'Scream Queen' Barbara Steele was crucial to the film's effectiveness and success.
No-one who has ever seen the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is ever likely to forget the experience. An intense fever dream (or nightmare), it is remarkable for its sense of sustained threat and depiction of an insane but nonetheless (dys)functional family on the furthest reaches of society who have regressed to cannibalism in the face of economic hardship. As well as providing a summary of the making of the film, James Rose discusses the extraordinary censorship history of the film in the UK (essentially banned for two decades) and provides a detailed textual analysis of the film with particular reference to the concept of 'the Uncanny'. He also situates the film in the context of horror film criticism (the 'Final Girl' character) and discusses its influence and subsequent sequels and remakes.
This book demonstrates how Roman Polanski's Macbeth (1971) can be read as part of the British Folk tradition, strengthening the reading of the film as a horror movie in its own right through its links to The Wicker Man (1973), Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), and Witchfinder General (1968).
The 1970s represented an unusually productive and innovative period for the horror film, and John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) is the film that capped that golden age – and some say ruined it, by ushering in the era of the slasher film. Considered a paradigm of low-budget ingenuity, its story of a seemingly unremarkable middle-American town becoming the site of violence on October 31 struck a chord within audiences. The film became a surprise hit that gave rise to a lucrative franchise, and it remains a perennial favourite. Much of its success stems from the simple but strong constructions of its three central characters: brainy, introverted teenager Laurie Strode, a late bloomer compared to her more outgoing friends, Dr. Loomis, the driven, obsessive psychiatrist, and Michael Myers, the inexplicable, ghostlike masked killer. Film scholar Murray Leeder offers a bold and provocative study of Carpenter’s film, which hopes to expose qualities that are sometime effaced by its sequels and remakes. It explores Halloween as an unexpected ghost film, and examines such subjects as its construction of the teenager, and the relationship of Halloween the film to Halloween the holiday, and Michael Myers’s brand of “pure evil.” It is a fascinating read for scholars and fans alike.
Amid a recent resurgence in horror films, It Follows stands out. David Robert Mitchell reinvents genre bromides while simultaneously embracing and challenging tropes that audiences and filmmakers rely on too heavily. Joshua Grimm shows how this film helped reinvent the rules of horror, particularly along the lines of genre, style, sex, and gender.
Harry K mel's cult classic Daughters of Darkness (1971) is a vampire film like no other. Kat Ellinger explores the film's association with fairy tales, the Gothic and fantastic tradition, as well as delving into aspects of the legend of Countess Bathory, traditional vampire lore, and much more. The book also contains new and exclusive interviews.
Witchfinder General (1968), known as The Conqueror Worm in America, was directed by Michael Reeves and occupies a unique place in British cinema. Equally praised and vilified, the film fictionalizes the exploits of Matthew Hopkins, a prolific, real-life "witch hunter," during the English Civil War. For critic Mark Kermode, the release proved to be "the single most significant horror film produced in the United Kingdom in the 1960s," while playwright Alan Bennett called the work "the most persistently sadistic and rotten film I've ever seen." Steadily gaining a cult reputation, unimpeded by the director's death just months after the film's release, the film is now treated as a landmark, though problematic, accomplishment, as it exists in a number of recut, retitled, and rescored versions. This in-depth study positions the film within the history of horror and discusses its importance as a British and heritage film. It also considers the inheritance of Hopkins, the script's relationship to the novel by Ronald Bassett, and the iconic persona of the film's star, Vincent Price. Ian Cooper conducts close textual readings of specific scenes and explores the film's various contexts, from the creation of the X certificate and the tradition of Hammer gothic, to the influence on Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) and the "torture porn" of twenty-first-century horror.
Coinciding with the release of several other classic werewolf films, The Company of Wolves stands apart with its overtly literary roots, feminist stance and art-house leanings. The film's narrative is a puzzle box, unfolding as dreams within dreams and stories within stories, which lead us into the dark woods of the protagonist's psyche. In this book, the author explores these aspects and places the film within the context of the careers of its creators, the history of fairy tales, the representation of the werewolf in literature and cinema and Neil Jordan and Angela Carter's representation of the female Gothic style.
The Ealing Studios horror anthology film Dead of Night featured contributions from some of the finest directors, writers and technicians ever to work in British film; this is the first time a single book has been dedicated to its analysis
Jon Towlson considers how Candyman might be read both as a "return of the repressed" and as an example of nineties neoconservative horror. He traces the film's origins as a Clive Barker short story; discusses the importance of its real-life Cabrini-Green setting; and analyzes its appropriation and interrogation of urban myth.
Wes Craven's "Scream" (1996) emerged at the point where the early eighties American slasher cycle had effectively morphed into the post-"Fatal Attraction" (1987) trend for Hollywood thrillers constructed around slasher movie tropes. It was a spiritual successor to Craven's unpopular but critically praised Wes Craven's "New Nightmare" (1994), a revisionist sequel reviving his most lucrative creation in a postmodern story about the filmmaker's own loss of creative control over the "Elm Street" franchise. "Scream" appropriates the multiple layers and extensive genre referencing of "New Nightmare," albeit in a much more commercial form carefully crafted to avoid alienating teen audiences who were not around for the original slasher cycle. its deconstruction of a seemingly moribund sub-genre was hailed as original, despite echoing the approaches of several fin-de-siècle eighties horror films. This book offers a detailed exploration of the "Scream" phenomenon, including its position in Craven's filmography, the script's prominent use of earlier genre films (particularly "Halloween" [1978]), the studio marketing campaign and the film's place in late twentieth-century horror cinema.
Unravels the never-ending fascination exercised by the film and provides a clear guide to the film's contexts, cinematography, and possible interpretations, covering the political and social contexts.
This book teases out the DNA of David Cronenberg's "reimagining" of The Fly (1986). Drawing from interviews with cast, crew, commentators, and other filmmakers, Emma Westwood interlaces the "making of" travails of The Fly with why it is one of the most important works ever committed to screen.
Based on best selling Stephen King novel about the ultimate revenge fantasy of a young teenage girl.
Critics abhorred it, audiences loved it, and Hammer executives where thrilled with the box office returns: The Curse of Frankenstein was big business. The 1957 film is the first to bring together in a horror movie the 'unholy two', Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, together with the Hammer company, and director Terence Fisher, combinations now legendary among horror fans. In his Devil's Advocate, Marcus Harmes goes back to where the Hammer horror production started, looking at the film from a variety of perspectives: as a loose literaryadaptation of Mary Shelley's novel; as a film that had, for legal reasons, to avoid adapting from James Whale's 1931 film for Universal Pictures; and as one which found immediate sources of inspiration in the Gainsborough bodice rippers of the 1940s and the poverty row horrors of the 1950s. Later Hammer horrors may have consolidated the reputation of the company and the stars, but these works had their starting point in the creative and commercial choices made by the team behind The Curse of Frankenstein. In the film sparks fly, new life is created and horrors unleashed but the film itself was a jolt to 1950s cinema going that has never been entirely surpassed.
Like all game changers within the horror genre, SAW was an independent success, a low-budget champion that flourished without the patronage of a big studio. Not bad for the most successful horror franchise ever, which has spawned subsidiary media and masses of merchandise, including a theme park rollercoaster ride. What is it about SAW that attracted such a following? In his contribution to the "Devil's Advocates" series, Ben Poole considers the SAW phenomenon from all aspects of film and media studies - from its generic pedigree in both literature and film, to the visceral audience pleasures ("what would I do?") of the text, to the contrasting representations of men and women and the film's implicit criticism of masculinity.
Written and directed by Lars von Trier, one of the most influential and provocative filmmakers working today, " Antichrist" (2009), tells a story of parental loss, mourning and despair that result from the tragic death of a child. When the film screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, it split audiences down the middle. Some attacked von Trier for misogyny (amongst other things), while others defended him for creating a daring and poetic portrait of grief and separation. Dense, shocking, and thought-provoking, Antichrist is a film which calls for careful analysis and in her Devil's Advocate on the film Amy Simmons follows an account of the film's making with an in-depth consideration of the themes and issues arising from it - the ambiguous depiction of the natural world, the shifting gender power relations, its reflections on Christianity and the limitations of rationality. At the film's heart, says the author, is a heartbreaking depiction of grief-stricken parents, a confounding interplay between psychology and psychosis, misogyny, and empowerment.
Consigned to the deep freeze of critical and commercial reception upon its release in 1982, The Thing has bounced back spectacularly to become one of the most highly regarded productions from the 1980s 'Body Horror' cycle of films, experiencing a wholesale and detailed reappraisal that has secured its place in the pantheon of modern cinematic horror. Thirty years on, and with a recent prequel reigniting interest, Jez Conolly looks back to the film's antecedents and to the changing nature of its reception and the work that it has influenced. The themes discussed include the significance of The Thing's subversive antipodal environment, the role that the film has played in the corruption of the onscreen monstrous form, the qualities that make it an exemplar of the director's work and the relevance of its legendary visual effects despite the advent of CGI. Topped and tailed by a full plot breakdown and an appreciation of its notoriously downbeat ending, this exploration of the events at US Outpost 31 in the winter of 1982 captures The Thing's sub-zero terror in all its gory glory.
As one of the most globally recognisable instances of 20th century Eurohorror, Dario Argento's Suspiria (1976) is poetic, chaotic, and intriguing. The cult reputation of Argento's baroque nightmare is reflected in the critical praise it continues to receive almost 40 years after its original release, and it appears regularly on lists of the greatest horror films ever. For fans and critics alike, Suspiria is as mesmerising as it is the impact of Argento's notorious disinterest in matters of plot and characterisation combines with Suspiria's aggressive stylistic hyperactivity to render it a movie that needs to be experienced through the body as much as through emotion or the intellect. For its many fans, Suspiria is synonymous with European horror more broadly, and Argento himself is by far the most famous of all the Italian horror directors. If there was any doubt of his status as one of the great horror auteurs, Argento's international reputation was solidified wellbeyond the realms of cult fandom in the 1990s with retrospectives at both the American Museum of the Moving Image and the British Film Institute. This book considers the complex ways that Argento weaves together light, sound and cinema history to construct one of the most breathtaking horror movies of all time, a film as fascinating as it is ultimately unfathomable.
A discussion of director Takashi Shimuzu's 2002 horror/ghost film Ju-on, the film's sequels, and its cultural influence.
Few films have had the influence and impact of The Blair Witch Project (1999). Its arrival was a horror cinema palette cleanser after a decade of serial killers and postmodern intertextuality, a bare bones 'found footage' trend setter. In this Devil's Advocate, Peter Turner tells the story of the film from his conception and production then provides a unique analysis of the techniques used, their appeal to audiences and the themes that helped make the film such an international hit, including the pionerring internet marketing.