Horror is often dismissed as mass art or lowbrow entertainment that produces only short-term thrills. Horror films can be bloody, gory, and disturbing, so some people argue that they have bad moral effects, inciting viewers to imitate cinematic violence or desensitizing them to atrocities. In The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror, Cynthia A. Freeland seeks to counter both aesthetic disdain and moral condemnation by focusing on a select body of important and revealing films, demonstrating how the genre is capable of deep philosophical reflection about the existence and nature of evil?both human and cosmic. In exploring these films, the author argues against a purely psychoanalytic approach and opts for both feminist and philosophical understandings. She looks at what it is in these movies that serves to elicit specific reactions in viewers and why such responses as fear and disgust are ultimately pleasurable. The author is particularly interested in showing how gender figures into screen presentations of evil.The book is divided into three sections: Mad Scientists and Monstrous Mothers, which looks into the implications of male, rationalistic, scientific technology gone awry; The Vampire's Seduction, which explores the attraction of evil and the human ability (or inability) to distinguish active from passive, subject from object, and virtue from vice; and Sublime Spectacles of Disaster, which examines the human fascination with horror spectacle. This section concludes with a chapter on graphic horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Written for both students and film enthusiasts, the book examines a wide array of films including: The Silence of the Lambs, Repulsion, Frankenstein, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Alien, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Frenzy, The Shining, Eraserhead, Hellraiser, and many others.

The first systematic examination in English of Cronenberg's feature films, from Stereo (1969) to Crash (1996).

ReAction! Chemistry in the Movies gives a scientist's and artist's response to the dark and bright sides of chemistry found in 140 films, most of them contemporary Hollywood feature films but also from a few others. This book explores the two movie faces of this supposedly neutral science.

This truly global and visually stunning compendium showcases some of the most breath-taking pieces of street art and graffiti from around the world. Since its genesis on the East Coast of the United States in the late 1960s, street art has travelled to nearly every corner of the globe, morphing into highly ornate and vibrant new styles. This unique atlas is the first truly geographical survey of urban art, revised and updated in 2023 to include new voices, increased female representation and cities emerging as street art hubs. Featuring specially commissioned works from major graffiti and street art practitioners, it offers you an insider’s view of the urban landscape as the artists themselves experience it. Organized geographically, by continent and by city – from New York, Los Angeles and Montreal in North America, through Mexico City and Buenos Aires in Latin America, to London, Berlin and Madrid in Europe, Sydney and Auckland in the Pacific, as well as brand new chapters covering Africa and Asia – it profiles more than 100 of today’s most important artists and features over 700 astonishing artworks. This beautifully illustrated book, produced with the help of many of the artists it features, dispels the idea of such art as a thoughtless defacement of pristine surfaces, and instead celebrates it as a contemporary and highly creative inscription upon the skin of the built environment.

Now over twenty years old, the original edition ofNightmare Movies has retained its place as a true classic of cult filmcriticism. In this new edition, Kim Newman brings his seminal work completelyup to date, both reassessing his earlier evaluations and adding a second partthat analyses the last two decades of horror films with all the wit,intelligence and insight for which he is known. Since the publication of thefirst edition, horror has been on a gradual upswing and has gained a new andstronger hold over the film industry. Newman negotiates his way through a vastback catalogue of horror and charts the on-screen progress of our collectivefears and bogeymen, from the low-budget slasher movies of the 1960s, through tothe slick releases of the 2000s. Nightmare Movies is an invaluable companion that not onlyprovides a newly updated history of the darker side of film but also acts as atruly entertaining guide with which to explore the less well-trodden paths ofhorror and rediscover the classics with a newly instructed eye.

"Evil needs to be pondered just as much as good," according to Carl Jung, "for good and evil are ultimately nothing but ideal extensions and abstractions of doing, and both belong to the chiaroscuro of life." If we accept Jung's idea as valid, then a tangible representation can be found in the cinematic archvillain, the paradigm of evil. It is here that we see the negative, malevolent aspects of human behavior best portrayed. Such larger-than-life characters as The Joker (Batman), Lex Luthor (Superman), Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and Darth Vader (Star Wars) haunt our dreams and imaginations, giving us both chills and thrills at the same time. This book is an examination of the archvillain.

The darkly handsome man gazes deeply into her eyes. She finds him irresistible, wants to experience the passion of the moment. He grins--the movie audience can see his lengthened lateral incisors--and bends to her neck. The eroticism is horrible, and compelling. Audiences are drawn to horror cinema much as the surrendering victim. Afraid to watch, but more afraid something will be missed. Since the horror film is the most primal of all movie genres, seldom censored, these films tell us what we are about. From the silent era to the present day, Dark Romance explores horror cinema's preoccupation with sexuality: vampires, beauty and the beast, victimization of women, "slasher" films, and more. Separate chapters focus upon individuals, like Alfred Hitchcock and Barbara Steele. Entertaining, and thought-provoking on the sexual fears and phobias of our society.

Essays on the use of music and sound in films from Godzilla to Star Wars and beyond. In recent years, music and sound have been increasingly recognized as an important, if often neglected, aspect of film production and film studies. Off the Planet comprises a lively, stimulating, and diverse collection of essays on aspects of music, sound, and science fiction cinema. Following a detailed historical introduction to the development of sound and music in the genre, individual chapters analyze key films, film series, composers, and directors in the postwar era. The first part of the anthology profiles seminal 1950s productions such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, the first Godzilla film, and Forbidden Planet. Later chapters analyze the work of composer John Williams, the career of director David Cronenberg, the Mad Max series, James Cameron’s Terminators, and other notable SF films such as Space Is the Place, Blade Runner, Mars Attacks!, and The Matrix. Off the Planet is an important contribution to the emerging body of work in music and film, with contributors including leading film experts from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.