The Cultural Politics of Horror Film Criticism

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-47
Author(s):  
Joe Tompkins
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Film Criticism ◽  
Horror Film

Authorship and the Cultural Politics of Film Criticism

1990 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Naremore
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Film Criticism

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Rose
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Economic Hardship ◽  
Film Criticism ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Functional Family ◽  
The Uk

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, this book 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’. The book also situates the film in the context of horror film criticism (the ‘Final Girl’ character) and discusses its influence and subsequent sequels and remakes.

The Cultural Politics of Remaking Spanish Horror Films in the Twenty-first Century: Quarantine and Come Out and Play

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Willis
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
21St Century ◽  
North American ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
First Century ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Film Production ◽  
The North ◽  
The Us ◽  
Transnational Film

The 21st century revival in Spanish horror film production has seen both a resurgence of interest in the genre’s Iberian past and an interest in transnational film remakes for North American audiences. This chapter will consider the cultural politics of remaking Spanish horror through two case studies - Quarantine (2008), the US remake of [REC] (2007), and Come Out and Play (2012), the Mexican remake of Who Can Kill a Child? (1976). The chapter argues that Who Can Kill a Child? might profitably be read as an engagement with the legacy of Francoist Spain, and that [REC] could be productively understood in relation to Spain’s recent tensions surrounding immigration. Through a discussion of the potential political readings of these films, the chapter argues that the North American remakes are divested of the most urgent political aspects of their Spanish counterparts in an endeavour to create globally marketable horror films.

The Descent

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Marriott
Keyword(s):  
Horror Films ◽  
Film Criticism ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Time Out ◽  
Rolling Stone ◽  
Object Lesson

The story of an all-female caving expedition gone horribly wrong, The Descent (2005) is arguably the best of the mid-2000s horror entries to return verve and intensity to the genre. Unlike its peers (Saw [2004], Hostel [2011], etc.), The Descent was both commercially and critically popular, providing a genuine version of what other films could only produce as pastiche. For Mark Kermode, writing in the Observer, it was “one of the best British horror films of recent years,” and Derek Elley in Variety described it as “an object lesson in making a tightly-budgeted, no-star horror pic.” Time Out's critic praised “this fiercely entertaining British horror movie;” while Rolling Stone's Peter Travers warned prospective viewers to “prepare to be scared senseless.” Emphasizing female characters and camaraderie, The Descent is an ideal springboard for discussing underexplored horror themes: the genre's engagement with the lure of the archaic; the idea of birth as the foundational human trauma and its implications for horror film criticism; and the use of provisional worldviews, or “rubber realities,” in horror.

Mysteries of Cinema

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Martin
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Film Criticism ◽  
Personal Essays ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
Genre Criticism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Broad Understanding ◽  
Film Critic

The major essays of the distinguished and prolific Australian-born film critic Adrian Martin have long been difficult to access, so this anthology, which collects highlights of his work in one volume, will be welcomed throughout film studies. Martin offers indepth analysis of many genres of films while providing a broad understanding of the history of cinema and the history of film criticism and culture. These vibrant, highly personal essays, written between 1982 and 2016, balance breadth across cinema theory with almost encyclopedic detail, ranging between aesthetics, cinephilia, film genre, criticism, philosophy, and cultural politics. Mysteries of Cinema circumscribes a special cultural period that began with the dream of critique as a form of poetic writing, and today arrives at collaborative experiments in audiovisual essays. Throughout these essays, Martin pursues a particular vision of what cinema has been, what it is, and what it still could be.

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