The Psycho records / Laurence A. Rickels.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rickels, Laurence A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thrillers (Motion pictures)--History and criticism.

Thrillers (Motion pictures).

Slasher films--History and criticism.

Slasher films.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

x, 232 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Wallflower Press, 2016.

Summary:

"The Psycho Records follows the influence of the primal shower scene within subsequent slasher and splatter films. American soldiers returning from World War II were called "psychos" if they exhibited mental illness. Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock turned the term into a catch-all phrase for a range of psychotic and psychopathic symptoms or dispositions. They transferred a war disorder to the American heartland. Drawing on his experience with German film, Hitchcock packed inside his shower stall the essence of schauer, the German cognate meaning "horror." Later serial horror film production has post-traumatically flashed back to Hitchcock's shower scene. In the end, though, this book argues the effect is therapeutically finite. This extensive case study summons the genealogical readings of philosopher and psychoanalyst Laurence Rickels. The book opens not with another reading of Hitchcock's 1960 film but with an evaluation of various updates to vampirism over the years. It concludes with a close look at the rise of demonic and infernal tendencies in horror movies since the 1990s and the problem of the psycho as our most uncanny double in close quarters."--Publisher's website.

Contents:

Record 1 Playing Catch Up with the Vampire - But with True Blood 9

If at first only zombie movies succeed, then eight years later bring back vampirism, the return of hope

Integration of the vampire (Blade, Underworld)

Twilight and the pre-teen, post-Buffy media market

True bloodlines pitch Dracula against Jack the Ripper, by mourning's light we can begin to face our double, the psycho

Record 2 Schauer Scenes 22

Adorno on television

The withdrawal of sublimation and of the transitional object

The shower scene as altar of mass media culture

The public shower in Carrie

Cutting closer to the screen than Les Diaboliques

Disrespecting mother

Perfect TV in the sound mix

Hitchcock is dead (undead, undead): let the sequels begin

Record 3 Alternate History - 1960 46

Eyes Without a Face and the serial heterograft

Peeping Tom and the cinematic horror apparatus of sight unseen

Cryptology and The Cold Bug

Raising Coin

Frenzy of diagnosis

The psychotic and the psychopath are in it together [In Cold Blood)

Record 4 Epidemics of Mass Murder 62

Fido and zombie fathers as totem pets

Virulence of the taboos upon the dead

I Am Legend and a vampiric mourner in a world of zombie consumerism

Disrespecting the buried dad

The fruit cellar in Wight of the Living Dead and Fade to Black

Getting past Ben's murder by the protocols of terrorism (Down of the Dead, Day of the Dead)

Romero mixes his favorite Martin out of equal parts psycho and vampire

Roland Kuhn on psychopathic fetishism with human material

Record 5 Manuals 81

Hand-to-eye coordination in horror films (The Crawling Hand, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Hand)

Ernst Kapp and the hand-held progress of technology

Hershell Gordon Lewis and the Grand Guignol of special effects (Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs!, Color Me Blood Red)

Whose hands fulfill my death wishes? (Mad Love)

Dial M (by Fritz Lang) for serial murder

Record 6 Still Working on It 93

Arrest in Pieces

Grave top publishing in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Haunted Holmes and hotels (Motel Hell, Hell House)

Texas is only a few hours from the Coast or New York City (The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left)

Record 7 Phantoms 110

Séance on a Wet Afternoon and Family Plot

The double as mask in William Wilson

The tomb show of unmasking in Phantom of the Opera

Spiritualism, investigative reporting, and detective fiction

Envy in Phantom of the Paradise

Record 8 The Turning 124

Maniac and the POV-mask of the dead

Killer mascots in Halloween and Friday the 13th

Kuhn and Elias Canetti on both sides of the mask

The unmasking of Michael Myers and the transvaluation of Laurie's survival

Record 9 The Crowd and the Couple 140

Incest is best for werecats

Val Lewton and the horror of leaving it blank

Canetti on keeping in touch in groups

The American flirt meets the haunted commitment from Europe (Cot People)

The Fatal Attraction of group or groupie

Record 10 Getting Into B-Pictures 152

Schizoid, Don't Answer the Phone, and transference transgression

Do you like Hitchcock, Powell, and Romero? [Sisters]

The new Norman in Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, and Body Double

The feminist reproach in Slumber Party Massacre

Record 11 The Emperor's New Closure 169

War trauma besets the next generation (The Prowler)

On the rebound from the containment of the Psycho Effect (A Nightmare on Elm Street)

We're in the inoculation now (Freddy vs. Jason)

Freddy Krueger's 'cyberglove' as advance preview of new media falls short

Misplaced prospects in Shocker and Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Reckoning with Freud in the 1980s and 90s

Record 12 By Rule of Tomb 181

Just Before Dawn

The mirror mother between Lacan and Winnicott

The internal home movie made by psychos, the slasher movie on TV decoded by gadget-loving expertise, and the greater film of Sid's survival (Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3)

Treating the mother's depression in the child (Mother's Day and Baby)

Record 13 The Renewal of Psycho Horror by Compact with the Devil 194

Spoiler alert: occupational therapy for academics

The Sixth Sense and the ghost of the Psycho Effect

The Blair Witch Project and the house of leave-taking

Therapeutic closure under demonic attack (The Ring)

Turning up the contrast on testimony between Prom Night and I Know What You Did Last Summer

Who, what, how-but why? (CSI)

The purloined letter or underlying label (Manhunter)

Infernal projective identification; the old Saw of torture-teaching

Psychopathy's true self is the prize for passing the test of survival.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-224) and index.

ISBN:

0231181124

9780231181129

9780231181136

0231181132

OCLC:

947074761