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The Thing
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 109

The Thing

Consigned to the deep freeze of critical and commercial reception upon its release in 1982, The Thing has bounced back spectacularly to become one of the most highly regarded productions from the 1980s 'Body Horror' cycle of films, experiencing a wholesale and detailed reappraisal that has secured its place in the pantheon of modern cinematic horror. Thirty years on, and with a recent prequel reigniting interest, Jez Conolly looks back to the film's antecedents and to the changing nature of its reception and the work that it has influenced. The themes discussed include the significance of The Thing's subversive antipodal environment, the role that the film has played in the corruption of the onscreen monstrous form, the qualities that make it an exemplar of the director's work and the relevance of its legendary visual effects despite the advent of CGI. Topped and tailed by a full plot breakdown and an appreciation of its notoriously downbeat ending, this exploration of the events at US Outpost 31 in the winter of 1982 captures The Thing's sub-zero terror in all its gory glory.

Dead of Night
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 121

Dead of Night

The Ealing Studios horror anthology film Dead of Night featured contributions from some of the finest directors, writers and technicians ever to work in British film; this is the first time a single book has been dedicated to its analysis

M
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 108

M

Fritz Lang’s first sound feature, M (1931), is one of the earliest serial killer films in cinema history and laid the foundation for future horror movies and thrillers, particularly those with a disturbed killer as protagonist. Peter Lorre’s child killer, Hans Beckert, is presented as monstrous, yet sympathetic, building on themes presented in the earlier German Expressionist horror films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Hands of Orlac. Lang eerily foreshadowed the rising fascist horrors in German society, and transforms his cinematic Berlin into a place of urban terror and paranoia. Samm Deighan explores the way Lang uses horror and thriller tropes in M, particularly in terms of how it functions as a bridge between German Expressionism and Hollywood’s growing fixation on sympathetic killers in the ‘40s. The book also examines how Lang made use of developments within in forensic science and the criminal justice system to portray a somewhat realistic serial killer on screen for the first time, at once capturing how society in the ‘30s and ‘40s viewed such individuals and their crimes and shaping how they would be portrayed on screen in the horror films to come.

Don't Look Now
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 90

Don't Look Now

Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973) has been called "a ghost story for adults." This book argues for it as a particular kind of horror film that depends on the narrative of trauma. Jessica Gildersleeve positions Don't Look Now within a discourse of midcentury anxiety narratives and identifies it as a hinge between literature and film of the 1970s.

The Curse of Frankenstein
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 103

The Curse of Frankenstein

Critics abhorred it, audiences loved it, and Hammer executives where thrilled with the box office returns: The Curse of Frankenstein was big business. The 1957 film is the first to bring together in a horror movie the 'unholy two', Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, together with the Hammer company, and director Terence Fisher, combinations now legendary among horror fans. In his Devil's Advocate, Marcus Harmes goes back to where the Hammer horror production started, looking at the film from a variety of perspectives: as a loose literaryadaptation of Mary Shelley's novel; as a film that had, for legal reasons, to avoid adapting from James Whale's 1931 film for Universal Pictures; and as one ...

Black Sunday
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 101

Black Sunday

Despite its reputation as one of the greatest and most influential of all horror films, there is surprisingly little literature dedicated to Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960), and this contribution to the Devil's Advocates series is the first single book dedicated to it. Martyn Conterio places the film in the historical context of being one of the first sound Italian horror films and how its success kick-started the Italian horror boom. The author considers the particularly Italian perspective on the gothic that the film pioneered and its fresh and pioneering approach to horror tropes such as the vampire and the witch and considers how the casting of British 'Scream Queen' Barbara Steele was crucial to the film's effectiveness and success.

Nosferatu
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 129

Nosferatu

Unravels the never-ending fascination exercised by the film and provides a clear guide to the film's contexts, cinematography, and possible interpretations, covering the political and social contexts.

Prevenge
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 105

Prevenge

Prevenge (2016) is an entertainingly dark 21st-century horror movie detailing the serial killing journey of heavily pregnant Ruth. It’s a cleverly crafted narrative full of stark social commentary, traversing the delicate line between comedy and tragedy by fusing together a kitchen sink approach with a supernatural revenge plot. This book, as part of the Devil’s Advocates series, examines how the film deconstructs the slasher mythology and the sexism therein, and upends stereotypical representations of the ‘weak’ woman and ‘delicate’ mother. With new exclusive input from writer, director and star Alice Lowe, the text also looks at the production’s inception and development, assesses its debts to cult British cinema, and inspects its umbilical connections to Rosemary’s Baby, Alien, Village of the Damned and many other ‘Monstrous Child’ silver screen features.

The Witch
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 109

The Witch

Robert Eggers' The Witch (2015) is one of the most critically acclaimed horror films of recent years, praised as a genre film of unusual depth which eschews jump scares in favour of a gradually and steadily building tension. Set in newly colonized New England in the early seventeenth century, the film’s deep historical and mythological background, as well as its complicated and interlocking character arcs, make for a film whose viewers will be well served by this Devil’s Advocate, the first stand-alone critical study of the film. As well as providing the historical and religious background necessary for a fuller appreciation, including an insight into the Puritan movement in New England Brandon Grafius situates the film within a number of horror sub-genres (such as folk horror) as well as its other literary and folkloric influences.

Daughters of Darkness
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 100

Daughters of Darkness

Harry Kümel's cult classic Daughters of Darkness (1971) is a vampire film like no other. Kat Ellinger explores the film's association with fairy tales, the Gothic and fantastic tradition, as well as delving into aspects of the legend of Countess Bathory, traditional vampire lore, and much more. The book also contains new and exclusive interviews.