Featuring a collection of images from the studios' own vaults, this book looks at the 'creature features' which continue to influence filmmakers today.

    Loved by fans and reviled by critics for its iconic psychopaths, gory special effects, brainless teenagers in peril, and more than a bit of soft-core sex, the slasher film secured its legacy as a cultural phenomenon and continues to be popular today. This work traces the evolution of the slasher film from 1978 when it was a fledgling genre, through the early 1980s when it was one of the most profitable and prolific genres in Hollywood, on to its decline in popularity around 1986. An introduction provides a brief history of the Grand Guignol, the pre-cinema forerunner of the slasher film, films such as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and cinematic trends that gave rise to the slasher film. Also explained are the slasher film's characteristics, conventions, and cinematic devices, such as the "final girl," the omnipotent killer, the relationship between sex and death, the significant date or setting, and the point-of-view of the killer. The chapters that follow are devoted to the years 1978 through 1986 and analyze significant films from each year. The Toolbox Murders, When a Stranger Calls, the Friday the 13th movies, My Bloody Valentine, The Slumber Party Massacre, Psycho II, and April Fool's Day are among those analyzed. The late 90s resurrection of slasher films, as seen in Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, is also explored, as well as the future direction of slasher films.

    Cinema is full of neurotic personalities, but few things are more transfixing than a woman losing her mind onscreen. Horror as a genre provides the most welcoming platform for these histrionics: crippling paranoia, desperate loneliness, masochistic death-wishes, dangerous obsessiveness, apocalyptic hysteria. Unlike her male counterpart - 'the eccentric' - the female neurotic lives a shamed existence, making these films those rare places where her destructive emotions get to play. Named after the U.S.-retitling of Carlos Aured's The Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, House of Psychotic Women is an examination of these characters through a daringly personal autobiographical lens. Anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, trivia and confrontational imagery to create a reflective personal history and an examination of female madness, both onscreen and off. This sharply-designed book with a 32-page full-colour section is packed with rare stills, posters, pressbooks and artwork that combine with family photos and artifacts to form a titillating sensory overload, with a filmography that traverses the acclaimed and the obscure in equal measure. Films covered include The Entity, The Corruption of Chris Miller, Singapore Sling, 3 Women, Toys Are Not for Children, Repulsion, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, The Haunting of Julia, Secret Ceremony, Cutting Moments, Out of the Blue, Mademoiselle, The Piano Teacher, Possession, Antichrist and hundreds more!

    It has been celebrated for its beauty and mystery, its realistic depiction of space travel and dazzling display of visual effects, the breathtaking scope of its story, which reaches across millions of years, and the thought-provoking depth of its meditation on evolution, technology and humanity's encounters with the unknown. 2001 has been described as the most expensive avant-garde movie ever made and as a psychedelic trip, a unique expression of the spirit of the 1960s and as a timeless masterpiece. Peter Krämer's insightful study explores the complex origins of the film, the unique shape it took and the extraordinary impact it made on contemporary audiences. Drawing on new research in the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London, Krämer challenges many of the widely-held assumptions about the film. He argues that 2001 was Kubrick's attempt to counter the deep pessimism of his previous film, Dr Strangelove (1964), which culminates in the explosion of a nuclear 'doomsday' device, with a more hopeful vision of humanity's future, facilitated by the intervention of mysterious extra-terrestrial artifacts. This study traces the project's development from the first letter Kubrick wrote to his future collaborator Arthur C. Clarke in March 1964 all the way to the dramatic changes Kubrick made to the film shortly before its release by MGM in April 1968. Krämer shows that, despite – or, perhaps, because of – Kubrick's daring last-minute decision to turn the film itself into a mysterious artifact, 2001 was an instant success with both critics and general audiences, and has exerted enormous influence over Hollywood's output of science fiction movies ever since. The book argues that 2001 invites us to enjoy and contemplate its sounds and images over and over again, and, if we are so inclined, to take away from it an important message of hope.

    Indeed, in this pioneering exploration of the cinema of fear, Barry Keith Grant and twenty other film critics posit that horror is always rooted in gender, particularly in anxieties about sexual difference and gender politics.The book opens with the influential theoretical works of Linda Williams, Carol J. Clover, and Barbara Creed. Subsequent essays explore the history of the genre, from classic horror such as King Kong and Bride of Frankenstein to the more recent Fatal Attraction and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Other topics covered include the work of horror auteurs David Cronenberg, Dario Argento, and George Romero; the Aliens trilogy; and the importance of gender in relation to horror marketing and reception.Other contributors include Vera Dika, Thomas Doherty, Lucy Fischer, Christopher Sharrett, Vivian Sobchack, Tony Williams, and Robin Wood. Writing across a full range of critical methods from classic psychoanalysis to feminism and postmodernism, they balance theoretical generalizations with close readings of films and discussions of figures associated with the genre.The Dread of Difference demonstrates that horror is hardly a uniformly masculine discourse. As these essays persuasively show, not only are horror movies about patriarchy and its fear of the feminine, but they also offer feminist critique and pleasure.

    It explores our fascination with space exploration, time travel, fantastical worlds and alternative futures. This guide explains how everything from the philosophy of Plato to classic Victorian tales and cult comic books have helped to create one of cinema''s most engaging genres. Discover the classics from Mexico, Russia and Japan, not forgetting the Anime science fiction tradition, along with everything else you need to know from Metropolis to Star Wars, via Blade Runner, 2001 and Alien. The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies is your essential guide to a galaxy of film unbounded by time or space.

    This fascinating collection of essays considers David Lynch's politics, the enigmatic musical score, and the show's cult status, treatment of family violence, obsession with doubling, and silencing of women. Also included are a director and writer list, a cast list, a Twin Peaks calendar, a complete scene breakdown for the entire series, and a comprehensive bibliography.

    Cunningham, Robert Englund, Adrienne King, Betsy Palmer and Tom Savini- iconography, including Jason, the hockey mask, and a body count in the hundreds

    For nearly forty years, the films of George A. Romero have presented viewers with hellish visions of our world overrun by flesh-eating ghouls. This study proves that Romero's films, like apocalyptic literature or Dante's Commedia, go beyond the surface experience of repulsion to probe deeper questions of human nature and purpose, often giving a chilling and darkly humorous critique of modern, secular America.

    It needs flannel in lengthy widths, and it's here that Harry and Alan come through like a whole warehouse full of pyjamas) to the 1976 Olympics ('Jenkins has a lot to do' was a new way of saying that our man, of whom we had such high hopes, was not going to pull out the big one). In between we have 'War and Peace' (Tolstoy makes television history), the Royal Wedding (Dimbling suavely, Tom Fleming introduced the scene), the Winter Olympics (unintelligibuhl), the Eurovision Song Contest (The Hook of their song lasted a long time in the mind, like a kick in the knee. You could practically hear the Koreans singing it. 'Waterloo . . .' ), and much more.

    The Brat Pack and their contemporaries have grown up, but celluloid has them flickering forever, angst-ridden, haunted, guileless, cocky, stripped to their briefs, and all dressed up pretty in pink. 25 photos, 8-page color insert.

    Under extreme pressure on a catastrophic location shoot, Universal's 27 year-old prodigy crafted a thriller so effective that for many years Jaws was the highest-grossing film of all time. It was also instrumental in establishing the concepts of the event movie and the summer blockbuster. Jaws exerts an extraordinary power over audiences. Apparently simplistic and manipulative, it is a film that has divided critics into two broad camps: those who dismiss it as infantile and sensational - and those who see the shark as freighted with complex political and psychosexual meaning. Antonia Quirke, in an impressionistic response, argues that both interpretations obscure the film's success simply as a work of art. In Jaws Spielberg's ability to blend genres combined with his precocious technical skill to create a genuine masterpiece, which is underrated by many, including its director. Indeed, Quirke claims, this may be Spielberg's finest work.

    The author, a distinguished film critic and friend of Hitchcock's, enjoyed his full cooperation. Based on numerous interviews, with photos from the private family albums, and an in-depth study of the making of his last film, this biography of the director is as intriguing, revealing, perverse, and entertaining as any Hitchcock classic.

    This completely revised and updated edition of the classic text describes and analyzes every movie made by master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.

    Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff starred in dozens of black-and-white horror films, and over the years managed to collaborate on and co-star in eight movies. Through dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, this greatly expanded new edition examines the Golden Age of Hollywood, the era in which both stars worked, recreates the shooting of Lugosi and Karloff's mutual films, examines their odd and moving personal relationship and analyzes their ongoing legacies. Features include a fully detailed filmography of the eight Karloff and Lugosi films, full summaries of both men's careers and more than 250 photographs, some in color.