An anthology of short stories in loving homage to those wonderful gorefest movies and books of the 1980's, that golden age when horror well and truly came kicking, screaming and spraying blood, gore & body parts out from the shadows...It was the decade that brought us everything in the cinema and VHS, from the Italian 'nasties' to Elm Street, The Lost Boys, Hellraiser, The Thing, Day of the Dead, Reanimator, Return of the Living Dead, My Bloody Valentine, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Cannibal Holocaust¿.and superlative directors such as David Cronenburg, John Waters, Roger Corman and - of course - Clive Barker. This exemplary 80's themed/inspired tales of terror has been adjudicated and compiled by one Mr Bret McCormick, himself a writer, producer and director of many a schlock classic, including Bio-Tech Warrior, Time Tracers, The Abomination, Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants and the inimitable Replicator. Todd Sullivan, Timothy C Hobbs, Mark Thomas, Andrew Post, James B. Pepe, Thomas Vaughn, Edward Karpp, Jaap Boekestein, Lisa Alfano, L.C.Holt, John Adam Gosham, Brandonn Cracraft, M. Earl Smith, Sarah Cannavo, James Gardner, Bret McCormick, James H Longmore

Opening up the warm body of American Horror – through literature, film, TV, music, video games, and a host of other mediums – this book gathers the leading scholars in the field to dissect the gruesome histories and shocking forms of American life. Through a series of accessible and informed essays, moving from the seventeenth century to the present day, The Cambridge Companion to American Horror explores one of the liveliest and most progressive areas of contemporary culture. From slavery to censorship, from occult forces to monstrous beings, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in America's most terrifying cultural expressions.

TEXAS SCHLOCK is an essential guide to a fascinating, overlooked region of cult cinema. Author Bret McCormick knows this territory inside and out, writing not only as a fan but as a filmmaker himself. McCormick perfectly captures the crackpot appeal of low-budget classics like ZONTAR the Thing from Venus and rounds up an amazing rogue's gallery of schlockmeisters to tell their behind-the-scenes tales. If you love B-movies, you need this book right now! -David Szulkin, author LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT: THE MAKING OF A CULT CLASSIC

Zombies, werewolves and chainsaw-wielding maniacs are tried-and-true staples of horror films. But none can match the visceral dread evoked by a child with an innocent face and a diabolical stare. Cinema's evil children attack our cherished ideas of innocence and our innocent bystander status as the audience. A good horror film is a scary ride--a "devil child" movie is a guilt trip. This book examines 24 international films--with discussions of another 100--that in effect "indict" viewers for crimes of child abuse and abandonment, greed, social and ecological negligence, and political and war crimes, and for persistent denial of responsibility for them all. For 75 years evil children have ritually rebuked audiences and, in playing on our guilt, established a horror subgenre that might be described as a blood-spattered rampage on an ethical mission.

Following the 1996 treaty ending decades of civil war, how are Guatemalans reckoning with genocide, especially since almost everyone contributed in some way to the violence? Meaning “to count, figure up” and “to settle rewards and punishments,” reckoning promises accounting and accountability. Yet as Diane M. Nelson shows, the means by which the war was waged, especially as they related to race and gender, unsettled the very premises of knowing and being. Symptomatic are the stories of duplicity pervasive in postwar Guatemala, as the left, the Mayan people, and the state were each said to have “two faces.” Drawing on more than twenty years of research in Guatemala, Nelson explores how postwar struggles to reckon with traumatic experience illuminate the assumptions of identity more generally. Nelson brings together stories of human rights activism, Mayan identity struggles, coerced participation in massacres, and popular entertainment—including traditional dances, horror films, and carnivals—with analyses of mass-grave exhumations, official apologies, and reparations. She discusses the stereotype of the Two-Faced Indian as colonial discourse revivified by anti-guerrilla counterinsurgency and by the claims of duplicity leveled against the Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchú, and she explores how duplicity may in turn function as a survival strategy for some. Nelson examines suspicions that state power is also two-faced, from the left’s fears of a clandestine para-state behind the democratic façade, to the right’s conviction that NGOs threaten Guatemalan sovereignty. Her comparison of antimalaria and antisubversive campaigns suggests biopolitical ways that the state is two-faced, simultaneously giving and taking life. Reckoning is a view from the ground up of how Guatemalans are finding creative ways forward, turning ledger books, technoscience, and even gory horror movies into tools for making sense of violence, loss, and the future.

Available in paperback for the first time, this is a full-length study of the films of François Ozon, director of such diverse films as 8 femmes, Swimming Pool, 5x2 and Les amants criminels. Andrew Asibong’s passionate and critical analysis focuses on the extent to which Ozon’s seemingly light touch never ceases to engage with the fundamentally weighty issue of existential transformation, a transformation that affects both his protagonists and his audiences. A central question emerges: what is at stake, cinematically, ethically and politically, in Ozon’s alternatively utopian and cynical flirtation with the construction and deconstruction of contemporary social relations. Revealing Ozon as a highly adept ‘fan’ of a whole range of thought, literature and cinema, Asibong places the precocious French auteur in an intellectual yet highly accessible critical framework, allowing Ozon’s importance for a thoroughly postmodern filmgoing generation to be given the attention it deserves.

With more than 130 films and a career spanning four decades, Klaus Kinski (1926-1991) was one of the most controversial actors of his generation. Known for his wild tantrums on set and his legendary collaborations with auteur Werner Herzog--Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)--Kinski's intense performances made him the darling of European arthouse and exploitation/horror cinema. A genius in front of the camera, he was capable of lighting up the most risible films. Yet behind his public persona lurked a depraved man who took his art to the darkest extremes. This first ever collection of essays focusing on Kinski examines his work in exploitation and art house films and spaghetti westerns, along with his performances in such cult classics as Doctor Zhivago (1965), Crawlspace (1986), Venus in Furs (1965), The Great Silence (1968), Android (1982) and his only directorial credit, Paganini (1989). More than 50 reviews of Kinski's films are included, along with exclusive interviews with filmmakers and actors who worked with him.

With social networking and reality television, self–help columns and daytime talk shows, there's an infinite array of platforms to both expose our deepest thoughts and examine the thoughts of others. In this age of non–stop communication, one's privacy is subject to unrelenting examination, intrusion, and attack from the media, the government, friends, family, and complete strangers. So what are we trying to hide? And what are we trying to find out about others? Practicing psychoanalyst and professor of literature Josh Cohen tackles those questions in his study of privacy and personality, the "most vulnerable and indestructible region of your self." Using Sigmund Freud's theories on identity and the ego as a foundation, Cohen weaves through time and place to study an extensive variety of people who unearthed and revealed the rawest form of their selves. From Adam and Eve to the ballerinas in the hit 2010 film Black Swan, from Hester Prynne to British celebrity Katie Price, Cohen finds Freud's ideas in both fiction and reality alike. Yet even with all the times that we've exposed the inner workings of our psyches, Cohen is sure to emphasize that some part of every individual will always remain hidden. Like Freud once wrote, "The ego is not master in its own house." In a culture that floods our lives with light, how is it that we remain so helplessly in the dark?

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GOTHIC “Well written and interesting [it is] a testament to the breadth and depth of knowledge about its central subject among the more than 130 contributing writers, and also among the three editors, each of whom is a significant figure in the field of gothic studies … A reference work that’s firmly rooted in and actively devoted to expressing the current state of academic scholarship about its area.” New York Journal of Books “A substantial achievement.” Reference Reviews Comprehensive and wide-ranging, The Encyclopedia of the Gothic brings together over 200 newly-commissioned essays by leading scholars writing on all aspects of the Gothic as it is currently taught and researched, along with challenging insights into the development of the genre and its impact on contemporary culture. The A-Z entries provide comprehensive coverage of relevant authors, national traditions, critical developments, and notable texts that continue to define, shape, and inform the genre. The volume’s approach is truly interdisciplinary, with essays by specialist international contributors whose expertise extends beyond Gothic literature to film, music, drama, art, and architecture. From Angels and American Gothic to Wilde and Witchcraft, The Encyclopedia of the Gothic is the definitive reference guide to all aspects of this strange and wondrous genre. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature is a comprehensive, scholarly, authoritative, and critical overview of literature and theory comprising individual titles covering key literary genres, periods, and sub-disciplines. Available both in print and online, this groundbreaking resource provides students, teachers, and researchers with cutting-edge scholarship in literature and literary studies.

A last judgment on the genre from science fiction's foremost critic