Dark directions : Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the modern horror film / Kendall R. Phillips.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Phillips, Kendall R.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Carpenter, John, 1948-.

Craven, Wes.

Romero, George A.

Horror films--United States--History and criticism.

Horror films.

Criticism and interpretation.

United States.

Romero, George A--Criticism and interpretation.

Craven, Wes--Criticism and interpretation.

Carpenter, John, 1948---Criticism and interpretation.

Carpenter, John.

Physical Description:

xi, 215 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, [2012]

Summary:

A Nightmare on Elm Street. Halloween. Night of the Living Dead. These films have been indelibly stamped on moviegoers' psyches and are now considered seminal works of horror. Guiding readers along the twisted paths between audience, auteur, and cultural history, author Kendall R. Phillips reveals the macabre visions of these films' directors in Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film.

The first volume ever to address these three artists together, Dark Directions is a spine-tingling and thought-provoking study of the horror genre and the continued impact of these directors on American cinema. In analyzing the individual works of Romero, Craven, and Carpenter, Phillips illuminates some of the darkest minds in horror cinema. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: auteur, genre, and the rhetorics of horror

Unconstrained bodies in the films of George Romero. The body as contrast: Romero's Living dead

The body as site of struggle: The crazies, Monkey shines, The dark half, Bruiser

Romero's mythic bodies: Martin and Knightriders

Gothic dimensions in the films of Wes Craven. Craven's gothic form: nightmares, screams, and monsters

Gothic technologies: Serpent and the rainbow, Deadly friend, Swamp thing, Red eye, Shocker

Gothic families: The people under the stairs, The hills have eyes, Last house on the left

Desolate frontiers in the films of John Carpenter. Sites under siege: Dark star, Assault on Precinct 13, The thing, Village of the damned

Forbidden thresholds: The fog, Ghosts of Mars, Halloween, Prince of darkness, In the mouth of madness

Drifters in desolation: Big trouble in Little China, Vampires, They live, Escape from New York, Escape from L.A.

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes filmography.

ISBN:

9780809330959

0809330954

9780809330973

0809330970

OCLC:

724662740