Hearths of Darkness

Hearths of Darkness
Author: Tony Williams
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2014-11-27
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1626743517

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 Craven, and Tobe Hooper, revealing the distinctive nature of films such as Bone, It's Alive, God Told Me To, Carrie, The Exorcist, Exorcist 2, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as the contributions of such writers as Stephen King. Williams also studies the slasher films of the 1980s and 1990s, such as the Friday the 13th series, Halloween, the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Nightmare on Elm Street, exploring their failure to improve on the radical achievements of the films of the 1970s. After covering some post-1970s films, such as The Shining, the book concludes with a new postscript examining neglected films of the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Despite the overall decline in the American horror film, Williams determines that, far from being dead, the family horror film is still with us. Elements of family horror even appear in modern television series such as The Sopranos. This updated edition also includes a new introduction.

Hearths of Darkness

Hearths of Darkness
Author: Tony Williams
Publisher: Associated University Presse
Total Pages: 328
Release: 1996
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780838635643

Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film is the first major book-length study of the family horror film. Far from being a marginal or nonexistent element in the horror genre, as some critics argue, author Tony Williams states that it is really one of the genre's most important features.

New Blood

New Blood
Author: Eddie Falvey
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2021-01-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1786836351

The taste for horror is arguably as great today as it has ever been. Since the turn of the millennium, the horror genre has seen various developments emerging out of a range of contexts, from new industry paradigms and distribution practices to the advancement of subgenres that reflect new and evolving fears. New Blood builds upon preceding horror scholarship to offer a series of critical perspectives on the genre since the year 2000, presenting a collection of case studies on topics as diverse as the emergence of new critical categories (such as the contentiously named ‘prestige horror’), new subgenres (including ‘digital folk horror’ and ‘desktop horror’) and horror on-demand (‘Netflix horror’), and including analyses of key films such as The Witch and Raw and TV shows like Stranger Things and Channel Zero. Never losing sight of the horror genre’s ongoing political economy, New Blood is an exciting contribution to film and horror scholarship that will prove to be an essential addition to the shelves of researchers, students and fans alike.

Michael Mann

Michael Mann
Author: Steven Rybin
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2013-04-04
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0810890844

Michael Mann first made his mark as a writer for such television programs as Starsky and Hutch, Police Story, and Vegas. In 1981 he made his feature film directing debut with the James Caan thriller Thief, and in the 1980s he served as a writer and executive producer for the groundbreaking programs Miami Vice and Crime Story. Though he has delved into other genres, Mann’s career as a writer, producer, and director has consistently focused on criminal activity, from small-time hoods and professional thieves to corporate manipulators and serial killers. In Michael Mann: Crime Auteur, Steven Rybin looks at the television programs and films that Mann has stamped with his personal signature. This book closely examines the themes and techniques used in films such as Manhunter, Heat, The Insider, and Collateral and connects these elements to his work on the non-genre films The Last of the Mohicans and Ali. A revised and significantly expanded edition of The Cinema of Michael Mann (2007), this book includes new chapters on Public Enemies and the big screen version of Miami Vice, as well as Mann’s work on the shows Crime Story and Luck. Covering Mann’s entire career, this book will be of interest to fans of the writer/director’s body of work as well as to scholars of both film and television.

Dark Directions

Dark Directions
Author: Kendall R. Phillips
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2012-02-28
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0809330970

A Nightmare on Elm Street. Halloween. Night of the Living Dead. These films have been indelibly stamped on moviegoers’ psyches and are now considered seminal works of horror. Guiding readers along the twisted paths between audience, auteur, and cultural history, author Kendall R. Phillips reveals the macabre visions of these films’ directors in Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film. Phillips begins by analyzing the works of George Romero, focusing on how the body is used cinematically to reflect the duality between society and chaos, concluding that the unconstrained bodies of the Living Dead films act as a critical intervention into social norms. Phillips then explores the shadowy worlds of director Wes Craven. In his study of the films The Serpent and the Rainbow, Deadly Friend, Swamp Thing, Red Eye, and Shocker, Phillips reveals Craven’s vision of technology as inherently dangerous in its ability to cross the gossamer thresholds of the gothic. Finally, the volume traverses the desolate frontiers of iconic director John Carpenter. Through an exploration of such works as Halloween, The Fog, and In the Mouth of Madness, Phillips delves into the director’s representations of boundaries—and the haunting consequences for those who cross them. The first volume ever to address these three artists together, Dark Directions is a spine-tingling and thought-provoking study of the horror genre. In analyzing the individual works of Romero, Craven, and Carpenter, Phillips illuminates some of the darkest minds in horror cinema.

The Horror Film

The Horror Film
Author: Rick Worland
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2024-08-08
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1119715342

A lively and reliable narrative account of the horror genre, featuring new and revised material throughout The Horror Film: An Introduction surveys the history, development, and social impact of the genre. Covering American horror cinema from its earliest period to the present, this reader-friendly volume explores the many ways horror movies have been received by filmmakers, critics, and general audiences throughout the decades. Concise, easily accessible chapters describe historical instances of the genre's social reception based on primary research, analyze landmark films such as Frankenstein, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and more. Incorporating recent scholarship on the genre, the second edition of The Horror Film contains new discussion and context for Hollywood horror films in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as notable developments in the genre such as “torture porn,” found-footage horror, remakes and reboots of past horror films, zombies, and the “elevated horror” debate. This edition explores the rise of new filmmakers such as Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, and Jordan Peele, surveys horror films made by women and African American filmmakers, and investigates contemporary issues in the production and consumption of horror films. Combining historical narrative with close readings of significant works, The Horror Film: Covers major works in the genre such as Cat People, Halloween, and Bram Stoker's Dracula Examines important antecedents including gothic literature and the Grand Guignol Theater Offers thorough analyses of the style, context, and themes of specific horror milestones Provides examples of close analysis that can be applied to a wide range of other horror films Discusses important representative titles across the genre's evolution, including more recent films such as 2017's Get Out The Horror Film: An Introduction, Second Edition, is an ideal textbook for undergraduate surveys of the horror genre and other courses in American film history, and an invaluable resource for scholars, lecturers, and general readers with an interest in the subject.

Horror Comes Home

Horror Comes Home
Author: Cynthia J. Miller
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2019-07-04
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476679673

Home, we are taught from childhood, is safe. Home is a refuge that keeps the monsters out--until it isn't. This collection of new essays focuses on genre horror movies in which the home is central to the narrative, whether as refuge, prison, menace or supernatural battleground. The contributors explore the shifting role of the home as both a source and a mitigator of the terrors of this world, and the next. Well known films are covered--including Psycho, Get Out, Insidious: The Last Key and Winchester House--along with films produced outside the U.S. by directors such as Alejandro Amenabar (The Others), Hideo Nakata (Ringu) and Guillermo Del Toro (The Orphanage), and often overlooked classics like Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger.

The Cinema of Michael Mann

The Cinema of Michael Mann
Author: Steven Rybin
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2007
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780739120439

Examines the work of Michael Mann, Hollywood director through a critical study of his film style and its relationship to genre, film criticism, auteurism, and historical context. This book covers Mann's filmography, from his beginning in television to his film adaptation of the television series "Miami Vice".

Misfit Sisters

Misfit Sisters
Author: S. Short
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2006-10-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0230287379

This timely study breaks new ground in exploring how recent film and television horror texts articulate a female rite of passage, updating the cautionary concerns found in fairy tales of the past, particularly in warning against predatory men, treacherous females and unhappy family situations.

Women and Death in Film, Television, and News

Women and Death in Film, Television, and News
Author: Joanne Clarke Dillman
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2014-11-26
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1137452285

Dead women litter the visual landscape of the 2000s. In this book, Clarke Dillman explains the contextual environment from which these images have arisen, how the images relate to (and sometimes contradict) the narratives they help to constitute, and the cultural work that dead women perform in visual texts.