Author: Matt Hills
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826458872
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Pleasures of Horror is a stimulating and insightful exploration of horror fictions—literary, cinematic and televisual—and the emotions they engender in their audiences. The text is divided into three sections. The first examines how horror is valued and devalued in different cultural fields; the second investigates the cultural politics of the contemporary horror film; while the final part considers horror fandom in relation to its embodied practices (film festivals), its "reading formations" (commercial fan magazines and fanzines) and the role of special effects. Pleasures of Horror combines a wide range of media and textual examples with highly detailed and closely focused exposition of theory. It is a fascinating and engaging look at responses to a hugely popular genre and an invaluable resource for students of media, cultural and film studies and fans of horror.
The Pleasures of Horror
Author: Matt Hills
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826458872
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Pleasures of Horror is a stimulating and insightful exploration of horror fictions—literary, cinematic and televisual—and the emotions they engender in their audiences. The text is divided into three sections. The first examines how horror is valued and devalued in different cultural fields; the second investigates the cultural politics of the contemporary horror film; while the final part considers horror fandom in relation to its embodied practices (film festivals), its "reading formations" (commercial fan magazines and fanzines) and the role of special effects. Pleasures of Horror combines a wide range of media and textual examples with highly detailed and closely focused exposition of theory. It is a fascinating and engaging look at responses to a hugely popular genre and an invaluable resource for students of media, cultural and film studies and fans of horror.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826458872
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Pleasures of Horror is a stimulating and insightful exploration of horror fictions—literary, cinematic and televisual—and the emotions they engender in their audiences. The text is divided into three sections. The first examines how horror is valued and devalued in different cultural fields; the second investigates the cultural politics of the contemporary horror film; while the final part considers horror fandom in relation to its embodied practices (film festivals), its "reading formations" (commercial fan magazines and fanzines) and the role of special effects. Pleasures of Horror combines a wide range of media and textual examples with highly detailed and closely focused exposition of theory. It is a fascinating and engaging look at responses to a hugely popular genre and an invaluable resource for students of media, cultural and film studies and fans of horror.
Recreational Terror
Author: Isabel Cristina Pinedo
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438416164
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
In Recreational Terror, Isabel Cristina Pinedo analyzes how the contemporary horror film produces recreational terror as a pleasurable encounter with violence and danger for female spectators. She challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence, and contends instead that the contemporary horror film speaks to the cultural need to express rage and terror in the midst of social upheaval.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438416164
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
In Recreational Terror, Isabel Cristina Pinedo analyzes how the contemporary horror film produces recreational terror as a pleasurable encounter with violence and danger for female spectators. She challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence, and contends instead that the contemporary horror film speaks to the cultural need to express rage and terror in the midst of social upheaval.
Theatricality in the Horror Film
Author: André Loiselle
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 178527130X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 167
Book Description
The horror film generally presents a situation where normality is threatened by a monster. From this premise, Theatricality in the Horror Film argues that scary movies often create their terrifying effects stylistically and structurally through a radical break with the realism of normality in the form of monstrous theatricality. Theatricality in the horror fi lm expresses itself in many ways. For example, it comes across in the physical performance of monstrosity: the overthe-top performance of a chainsaw-wielding serial killer whose nefarious gestures terrify both his victims within the film and the audience in the cinema. Theatrical artifice can also appear as a stagy cemetery with broken-down tombstones and twisted, gnarly trees, or through the use of violently aberrant filmic techniques, or in the oppressive claustrophobia of a single-room setting reminiscent of classical drama. Any performative element of a film that flaunts its difference from what is deemed realistic or normal on screen might qualify as an instance of theatrical artifice, creating an intense affect in the audience. This book argues that the artificiality of the frightening spectacle is at the heart of the dark pleasures of horror.
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 178527130X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 167
Book Description
The horror film generally presents a situation where normality is threatened by a monster. From this premise, Theatricality in the Horror Film argues that scary movies often create their terrifying effects stylistically and structurally through a radical break with the realism of normality in the form of monstrous theatricality. Theatricality in the horror fi lm expresses itself in many ways. For example, it comes across in the physical performance of monstrosity: the overthe-top performance of a chainsaw-wielding serial killer whose nefarious gestures terrify both his victims within the film and the audience in the cinema. Theatrical artifice can also appear as a stagy cemetery with broken-down tombstones and twisted, gnarly trees, or through the use of violently aberrant filmic techniques, or in the oppressive claustrophobia of a single-room setting reminiscent of classical drama. Any performative element of a film that flaunts its difference from what is deemed realistic or normal on screen might qualify as an instance of theatrical artifice, creating an intense affect in the audience. This book argues that the artificiality of the frightening spectacle is at the heart of the dark pleasures of horror.
Dreadful Pleasures
Author: James B. Twitchell
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Book Description
Dreadful Pleasures offers a lively look at those stories that make our hair stand on end--their persistence in our culture, their manifestations in art, and our need for the frissons they provide. James Twitchell traces our fascination with horror from the cave paintings at Lascaux to the "slasher" movies today. Twitchell finds that three particular stories have had a special resonance in our culture: the bloodsucker (Dracula), the deformed creature (Frankenstein), and the transformation monster (The Wolfman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Why have these stories persisted to the point of becoming mythic and to the exclusion of others? Whatever happened to the Phantom of the Opera or the Hunchback of Notre Dame or the Creature from the Black Lagoon? Using a psychoanalytic approach, Twitchell argues that the stories we seek out and preserve are th ones that carry certain information as well as horror. These myths, he contends, warn their adolescent audiences of the dangers of careless sexual behavior: they seem to say--subliminally--that sex itself is not horrible, but sex with certain people is. Whether discussing the engravings of William Hogarth or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Twitchell is consistently insightful, provocative, and entertaining. Film buffs and scholars literary critics and devotees of the Gothic novel will all welcome this study. About the Author: James B. Twitchell is Professor of English at the University of Florida, Gainesville. His previous books include GThe Living Dead: The Vampire in Romantic Literature and Romantic Horizons: Aspects of the Sublime in English Poetry and Painting.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Book Description
Dreadful Pleasures offers a lively look at those stories that make our hair stand on end--their persistence in our culture, their manifestations in art, and our need for the frissons they provide. James Twitchell traces our fascination with horror from the cave paintings at Lascaux to the "slasher" movies today. Twitchell finds that three particular stories have had a special resonance in our culture: the bloodsucker (Dracula), the deformed creature (Frankenstein), and the transformation monster (The Wolfman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Why have these stories persisted to the point of becoming mythic and to the exclusion of others? Whatever happened to the Phantom of the Opera or the Hunchback of Notre Dame or the Creature from the Black Lagoon? Using a psychoanalytic approach, Twitchell argues that the stories we seek out and preserve are th ones that carry certain information as well as horror. These myths, he contends, warn their adolescent audiences of the dangers of careless sexual behavior: they seem to say--subliminally--that sex itself is not horrible, but sex with certain people is. Whether discussing the engravings of William Hogarth or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Twitchell is consistently insightful, provocative, and entertaining. Film buffs and scholars literary critics and devotees of the Gothic novel will all welcome this study. About the Author: James B. Twitchell is Professor of English at the University of Florida, Gainesville. His previous books include GThe Living Dead: The Vampire in Romantic Literature and Romantic Horizons: Aspects of the Sublime in English Poetry and Painting.
The Pleasures and Horrors of Eating
Author: Marion Gymnich
Publisher: V&R unipress GmbH
ISBN: 3899717759
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 466
Book Description
Browsing through books and TV channels we find people pre-occupied with eating, cooking and competing with chefs. Eating and food in today's media have become a form of entertainment and art. A survey of literary history and culture shows to what extent eating used to be closely related to all areas of human life, to religion, eroticism and even to death. In this volume, early modern ideas of feasting, banqueting and culinary pleasures are juxtaposed with post-18th- and 19th-century concepts in which the intake of food is increasingly subjected to moral, theological and economic reservations. In a wide range of essays, various images, rhetorics and poetics of plenty are not only contrasted with the horrors of gluttony, they are also seen in the context of modern phenomena such as the anorexic body or the gourmandizing bête humaine. It is this vexing binary approach to eating and food which this volume traces within a wide chronological framework and which is at the core not only of literature, art and film, but also of a flourishing popular culture. --
Publisher: V&R unipress GmbH
ISBN: 3899717759
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 466
Book Description
Browsing through books and TV channels we find people pre-occupied with eating, cooking and competing with chefs. Eating and food in today's media have become a form of entertainment and art. A survey of literary history and culture shows to what extent eating used to be closely related to all areas of human life, to religion, eroticism and even to death. In this volume, early modern ideas of feasting, banqueting and culinary pleasures are juxtaposed with post-18th- and 19th-century concepts in which the intake of food is increasingly subjected to moral, theological and economic reservations. In a wide range of essays, various images, rhetorics and poetics of plenty are not only contrasted with the horrors of gluttony, they are also seen in the context of modern phenomena such as the anorexic body or the gourmandizing bête humaine. It is this vexing binary approach to eating and food which this volume traces within a wide chronological framework and which is at the core not only of literature, art and film, but also of a flourishing popular culture. --
Guilty Pleasures
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101146389
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 405
Book Description
Meet Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, in the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that “blends the genres of romance, horror and adventure with stunning panache”(Diana Gabaldon). Laurell K. Hamilton’s bestselling series has captured readers’ wildest imaginations and addicted them to a seductive world where supernatural hungers collide with the desires of the human heart, starring a heroine like no other... Anita Blake is small, dark, and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St. Louis. Her job: re-animating the dead and killing the undead who take things too far. But when the city’s most powerful vampire asks her to solve a series of vicious slayings, Anita must confront her greatest fear—her undeniable attraction to master vampire Jean-Claude, one of the creatures she is sworn to destroy... “What The Da Vinci Code did for the religious thriller, the Anita Blake series has done for the vampire novel.”—USA Today
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101146389
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 405
Book Description
Meet Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, in the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that “blends the genres of romance, horror and adventure with stunning panache”(Diana Gabaldon). Laurell K. Hamilton’s bestselling series has captured readers’ wildest imaginations and addicted them to a seductive world where supernatural hungers collide with the desires of the human heart, starring a heroine like no other... Anita Blake is small, dark, and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St. Louis. Her job: re-animating the dead and killing the undead who take things too far. But when the city’s most powerful vampire asks her to solve a series of vicious slayings, Anita must confront her greatest fear—her undeniable attraction to master vampire Jean-Claude, one of the creatures she is sworn to destroy... “What The Da Vinci Code did for the religious thriller, the Anita Blake series has done for the vampire novel.”—USA Today
Men, Women, and Chain Saws
Author: Carol J. Clover
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691166293
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Examining the popularity of low-budget cinema, particularly slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films, the author argues that, while such films have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasure to their mostly male audiences, in actuality they align spectators not with the male tormentor but with the females being tormented--particularly the slasher movie's "final girls"--Who endure fear and degradation before rising to save themselves.--Adapted from publisher description.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691166293
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Examining the popularity of low-budget cinema, particularly slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films, the author argues that, while such films have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasure to their mostly male audiences, in actuality they align spectators not with the male tormentor but with the females being tormented--particularly the slasher movie's "final girls"--Who endure fear and degradation before rising to save themselves.--Adapted from publisher description.
Why Horror Seduces
Author: Mathias F. Clasen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019066651X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Why do humans feel the need to scream at horror films? In Why Horror Seduces, author Matthias Clasen looks to evolutionary social science to show how the horror genre is a product of human nature.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019066651X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Why do humans feel the need to scream at horror films? In Why Horror Seduces, author Matthias Clasen looks to evolutionary social science to show how the horror genre is a product of human nature.
Endangered Pleasures
Author: Barbara Holland
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006095647X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Here is a refreshing look at life as it ought to be. Bare feet, gardening, dawdling over the newspaper, oversleeping, and idle summer vacations are infinitely more satisfying than counting fat grams, eating only vegetables, and sitting behind that desk every day. So toss out the guilt and rebel. Don't just stop and smell the flowers--call in sick and lie among them, preferably with a good friend, a bottle of wine, and a handful of chocolates. Endangered Pleasures is a delightful reminder that rest and relaxation are more rewarding than a job performance review. After all, life's too short. Why not have some fun while you're supposed to be living it?
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006095647X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Here is a refreshing look at life as it ought to be. Bare feet, gardening, dawdling over the newspaper, oversleeping, and idle summer vacations are infinitely more satisfying than counting fat grams, eating only vegetables, and sitting behind that desk every day. So toss out the guilt and rebel. Don't just stop and smell the flowers--call in sick and lie among them, preferably with a good friend, a bottle of wine, and a handful of chocolates. Endangered Pleasures is a delightful reminder that rest and relaxation are more rewarding than a job performance review. After all, life's too short. Why not have some fun while you're supposed to be living it?
Horror
Author: Brigid Cherry
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134049390
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
In this Routledge Film Guidebook, audience researcher and film scholar Brigid Cherry provides a comprehensive overview of the horror film and explores how the genre works. Examining the way horror films create images of gore and the uncanny through film technology and effects, Cherry provides an account of the way cinematic and stylistic devices create responses of terror and disgust in the viewer.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134049390
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
In this Routledge Film Guidebook, audience researcher and film scholar Brigid Cherry provides a comprehensive overview of the horror film and explores how the genre works. Examining the way horror films create images of gore and the uncanny through film technology and effects, Cherry provides an account of the way cinematic and stylistic devices create responses of terror and disgust in the viewer.