The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film


Michael J. Weldon - 1983
    He is now unfit for conventional employment. Because of the addictive nature of these films, we the publishers cannot guarantee that your sanity won't be endangered by reading this book.

Killing for Culture: Death Film from Mondo to Snuff


David Kerekes - 1996
    Including: Feature film, Mondo film, Death film, and a comprehensive filmography and index. Illustrated by rare and stunning photographs from cinema, documentary and real life, Killing for Culture is a necessary book which examines and questions the human obsession with images of violence, dismemberment and death, and the way our society is coping with an increased profusion of these disturbing yet compelling images from all quarters.

Sleazoid Express: A Mind-Twisting Tour Through the Grindhouse Cinema of Times Square


Bill Landis - 2002
    If the gore epics, women-in-prison films, and shockumentaries showcased within their mildewed walls didn't live up to their outrageous billing, the audience shouted, threw food, and even vandalized the theaters. For dedicated lovers of extreme cinema, buying a movie ticket on the Deuce meant putting your life on the line. Authors Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford came to know those grindhouses better than anyone else, and although the theaters were gone by the mid-1980s, the films remained. In Sleazoid Express, Landis and Clifford reproduce what no home video can -- the experience of watching an exploitation film in its original fight-for-your-life Deuce setting. Both a travelogue of the infamous grindhouses of yore and a comprehensive overview of the sleaze canon, Sleazoid Express offers detailed reviews of landmark exploitation classics and paints intimate portraits of directors whose notorious creations played the back end of triple bills for years on end. With wit, intelligence, and an unflinching eye, Landis and Clifford offer the definitive document of cinema's most intense and shocking moments as they came to life at a legendary place.

Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents


Stephen Thrower - 2007
    That's because, between 1970 and 1985, American Exploitation movies went berserk. With censorship relaxed, and the gate to excess wide open, horror - the Exploitation genre par excellence - offered a vibrant alternative to the mainstream of American cinema. Luridly titled wonders like The Headless Eyes, Scream Bloody Murder and Hitch Hike to Hell were everywhere, from the drive-ins of Texas to the grindhouses of New York, touting a combination of mind-bruising violence, weird sex and drug-soaked delirium. Massively popular around the world, American exploitation movies added immensely to the richness of the nation's cinema, but they have remained persona non grata in most serious studies of American film. Until now... Built on five years of research, Nightmare USA explores the development of America's subterranean horror film industry, spotlighting some of the wildest films imaginable from an era unchecked by censorship or 'good taste.' Ranging from cult favourites like I Drink Your Blood to stylish mind-benders like Messiah of Evil and ultra-violent shockers like Don't Go in the House, Nightmare USA goes where no other in-depth study has gone before, revealing the fascinating true stories behind classics and obscurities alike. Stephen Thrower, author of Beyond Terror, the definitive book on Italian gore maestro Lucio Fulci, has explored the attics and cellars of American cinema, delved beneath the floorboards, peered between the walls, searching for the strangest, most exotic cine-lifeforms... Nightmare USA is the reader's guide to what lies beyond the mainstream of American horror, dispelling the shadows to meet the men and women behind fifteen years of screen terror: the Exploitation Independents! This massive overview of the Horror genre's development through the 1970s and 1980s features: -- In-depth EXCLUSIVE interviews with twenty-five grindhouse movie makers, many of whom are discussing their work for the first time ever in print. -- Over 175 individual films reviewed, with full cast and crew credits compiled by world-renowned cinema archivist Julian Grainger. -- Vast quantities of previously unpublished stills, posters, press-books, plus behind-the-scenes photographs from the filmmakers' own collections.

Film as a Subversive Art


Amos Vogel - 1974
    According to Vogel--founder of Cinema 16, North America's legendary film society--the book details the "accelerating worldwide trend toward a more liberated cinema, in which subjects and forms hitherto considered unthinkable or forbidden are boldly explored." So ahead of his time was Vogel that the ideas that he penned some 30 years ago are still relevant today, and readily accessible in this classic volume. Accompanied by over 300 rare film stills, "Film as a Subversive Art" analyzes how aesthetic, sexual and ideological subversives use one of the most powerful art forms of our day to exchange or manipulate our conscious and unconscious, demystify visual taboos, destroy dated cinematic forms, and undermine existing value systems and institutions. This subversion of form, as well as of content, is placed within the context of the contemporary world view of science, philosophy, and modern art, and is illuminated by a detailed examination of over 500 films, including many banned, rarely seen, or never released works.

Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood


Rudolph Grey - 1992
    The author recalls the '50s, when the invasion of movie houses by monsters became a national youth craze. 140 photos.

Videohound's Cult Flicks and Trash Pics


Carol A. Schwartz - 1995
    Cult diva and connoisseur of mongrel video Carol Schwartz and her stellar cast of notable critics and scribbling outpatients, deliver 1,300 irreverent reviews of masterpieces and misfits, many of them rewritten and expanded. More than 250 are new to this edition, like 'Cannibal Holocaust', 'Switchblade Sisters' and Ed Wood's 'I Woke Up Early The Day I Died'. Carol adds anime, underground and Hong Kong flicks to the weird, wild and wonderful mix. This much fun ought to be illegal. Cult fans will appreciate the increased number of cinematographers, writers and cast members in the entries; DVD availability; a Cult Connections resource guide to help further fanatic pursuits; and more, yes more movie taglines and quotes.

Immoral Tales: European Sex and Horror Movies, 1956-1984


Cathal Tohill - 1994
    When continental moviemakers combined horror with sex, they unleashed a tidal wave of celluloid strangeness that lasted nearly thirty years. From sexy thrillers to pulp surrealism, from decadent erotica to blood-soaked vampire epics, nothing could go too far. Immoral Tales tells the fascinating story of this unique period, peeking into the kaleidoscope of visceral horror, maverick directors, and erotic invention.

Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema


Jamie Russell - 2005
    Covering hundreds of movies from America, Europe and Asia, this history chronicles the zombie's on-screen evolution from Caribbean bogeyman to flesh-eating corpse.

Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture


Kendall R. Phillips - 2000
    Partly because horror continues to evolve radically--every time the genre is deemed dead, it seems to come up with another twist--it has been one of the most often-dissected genres. Here, author Kendall Phillips selects ten of the most popular and influential horror films--including Dracula, Night of the Living Dead, Halloween, The Silence of the Lambs, and Scream, each of which has become a film landmark and spawned countless imitators, and all having implications that transcend their cinematic influence and achievement. By tracing the production history, contemporary audience response, and lasting cultural influence of each picture, Phillips offers a unique new approach to thinking about the popular attraction to horror films, and the ways in which they reflect both cultural and individual fears. Though stylistically and thematically very different, all of these movies have scared millions of eager moviegoers. This book tries to figure out why.

Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave Cinema


David Desser - 1988
    The films of the New Wave in Japan have, until now, been largely overlooked. Eros plus Massacre (taking its title from a 1969 Yoshida Yoshishige film) is the first major study devoted to the examination and explanation of Japanese New Wave film.Desser organizes his volume around the defining motifs of the New Wave. Chapters examine in depth such themes as youth, identity, sexuality, and women, as they are revealed in the Japanese film of the sixties. Desser's research in Japanese film archives, his interviews with major figures of the movement, and his keen insight into Japanese culture combine to offer a solid and balanced analysis of films by Oshima, Shinoda, Imamura, Yoshida, Suzuki, and others.

Sculpting in Time


Andrei Tarkovsky - 1984
    In Sculpting in Time, he has left his artistic testament, a remarkable revelation of both his life and work. Since Ivan's Childhood won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1962, the visionary quality and totally original and haunting imagery of Tarkovsky's films have captivated serious movie audiences all over the world, who see in his work a continuation of the great literary traditions of nineteenth-century Russia. Many critics have tried to interpret his intensely personal vision, but he himself always remained inaccessible.In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky sets down his thoughts and his memories, revealing for the first time the original inspirations for his extraordinary films--Ivan's Childhood, Andrey Rublyov, Solaris, The Mirror, Stalker, Nostalgia, and The Sacrifice. He discusses their history and his methods of work, he explores the many problems of visual creativity, and he sets forth the deeply autobiographical content of part of his oeuvre--most fascinatingly in The Mirror and Nostalgia. The closing chapter on The Sacrifice, dictated in the last weeks of Tarkovsky's life, makes the book essential reading for those who already know or who are just discovering his magnificent work.

Silent Movies: The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture


Peter Kobel - 2007
    Drawing on the extraordinary collection of The Library of Congress, one of the greatest repositories for silent film and memorabilia, Peter Kobel has created the definitive visual history of silent film. From its birth in the 1890s, with the earliest narrative shorts, through the brilliant full-length features of the 1920s, SILENT MOVIES captures the greatest directors and actors and their immortal films. SILENT MOVIES also looks at the technology of early film, the use of color photography, and the restoration work being spearheaded by some of Hollywood's most important directors, such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Richly illustrated from the Library of Congress's extensive collection of posters, paper prints, film stills, and memorabilia-most of which have never been in print-SILENT MOVIES is an important work of history that will also be a sought-after gift book for all lovers of film.

Midnight Movies


J. Hoberman - 1982
    Here is the complete history of cult films, their makers, and their audience; an examination of how films become "midnight movies," and what keeps audiences coming back to see them over and over; an exploration of the connections between subversive film and the subcultures from which it emerges. Supplemented with a new afterward detailing the accommodation of midnight movies into the mainstream and speculating on the future of the genre, Midnight Movies is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and future of American cinema.

Cinema Sewer, Vol. 1


Robin Bougie - 2007
    A mind-melting compilation of gonzo writing, illustration and comics about the most insane, sexy, awkward, cheesy, hilarious, upsetting and jaw-dropping movies in the history of film, Cinema Sewer joyously celebrates the sleaziest aspects of the moviegoing experience, while delving deep into bizarre cinematic history. Bougie's distinctive writing style has made him famous among a loyal following of cult film fans. Includes: •Graphic illustrations by Bougie and associates • Bizarre film trivia • 100 pages of never-before-seen interviews, rants, comics • Rare genre film ads • DIY 'zine aesthetic