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Post by dem bones on Jan 26, 2009 19:35:13 GMT
David J. Hogan - Dark Romance: Sex And Death In The Horror Film (Equation, 1988) Nosferatu the Vampyr (The Ronald Grant Archive) Acknowledgments Preface
Keeping It in the Family Just the Two of Us: The Horror of Duality Dangerous Curves: The Perils of Sexuality Beauty and the Beast Turgid Teens Lugosi, Lee, and the Vampire Lovers High Priestess of Horror: Barbara Steele Hitch The Ironic Universe of Roger Corman Prince of Perversity: Edward D. Wood, Jr. The Spawn of Herschell Gordon Lewis The Shape of Sex to Come
Filmography Bibliography IndexBlurb: The horror film's two great preoccupations, sex and death, have allowed this commercially successful but critically despised genre to chronicle, in unique fashion, the evolution of contemporary sexual attitudes and the progression of our deepest sexual fears.
In Dark Romance, David J Hogan has compiled the first examination of international horror - cinema's preoccupation with sexuality as expressed through its major recurring themes — Beauty and the Beast, the explicit eroticism of the vampire, the horror of duality, the hidden sexual criminal and their infinite variations.
Dark Romance examines the whole range and history of the horror film, from the silent era to the-present day, and describes over 500 films — from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and The Phantom of the Opera to such science-horror hybrids as Alien and Not of this Earth. Individual chapters focus on the masters and mistresses of the genre — including directors Alfred Hitchcock, Roger Corman, Edward D Wood Jnr, and cult, icon Barbara Steele. This unique book also includes lively plot summaries, fascinating production. details, and some eighty-five previously unpublished photographs and film stills.
Dark Romance is entertaining, witty, and thought-provoking — but definitely not late-night reading! Equation was a subsidiary of Thornston's and during it's short lifespan, was responsible for the superb Chillers series - a forerunner to the Wordsworth editions in many ways - and this, David J. Hogan's massively entertaining study of sex and death in horror cinema, a book i've returned to on countless occasions, usually for the chapters on the big three: Ed Wood, Roger Corman and the Wizard of Gore himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis. Hogan is a fan of Wood almost despite himself and astutely points out that, while it is virtually impossible to keep a straight face during such trash masterpieces as Glen or Glenda aka I Changed My Sex , Bride Of The Monster, Orgy Of The Dead and "the worst film ever" (bollocks is it!) Plan Nine From Outer Space, Ed meant it, maaan. His early work was deeply personal, the admittedly barking transvestite 'documentary' Glen or Glenda being a particularly anguished plea for tolerance. As he put it so eloquently in Orgy Of The Dead Ed's was a world of "the threshold people ... monsters to be pitied, monsters to be despised!" and Hogan, while refusing to turn a blind eye to the director's several failings - these films are never going to be anything other than wrong on so many levels which is, of course, what makes them so lovable - commendably avoids the super-smug Medved Brothers lamentable approach to 'bad' films and at least tries to understand what Wood was getting at. "Contemporary audiences hoot when Glen's fiancee dutifully hands him the angora sweater he has longed to wear, but Wood wasn't kidding, folks. That silly sweater was his liberation, and his cloak against the dark forces he perceived to be in the world."
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Post by pulphack on Jan 27, 2009 12:15:05 GMT
this is a really splendid book. takes just the right line between trashing what is, after all, an essentially commercial and not 'artistic' form and genre, and not taking it too seriously as 'art' and 'meaningful'. after all, any form such as commercial publishing and movies walks a line between the financial requirements of the company financing, and the intentions of the 'content provider' be it director or writer. the quote about 'glen or glenda' sums up his attitude throughout.
the medveds were reprehensible in many ways, and yet... without the turkey books and the channel 4 season back in '83 (?) would i have stumbled on the kind of crap that now makes up most of my viewing? richard gordon (whose brother alex worked for aip and roomed with ed wood, just to tie it all up) hated them for their sneering attitude, and rightly - but i did feel obliged to point out that they made have actually had the opposite effect to that which they intended! which, i think, he found poetic. still loathed them, though. fair enough.
the other good thing about this book is the mix of well-known and obscure movies discussed within the context of the topic - which gave me a whole load of movies to seek out at the time.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 28, 2009 16:32:03 GMT
You're doubtless right that the Medved's were in many ways a necessary evil, pulps, but it doesn't make them any less 'kin irritating in a very, super-smug Kim Newman & Neil Gaiman Ghastly Beyond Belief kind of way. It's great that here Mr. Hogan redresses the balance - yes, the films are funny, but reading the chapter on Wood (or 'Rudolph Grey's Nightmare Of Ecstasy puts Glen Or Glenda? in an altogether different perspective and commendably while sympathetic, Hogan doesn't make the mistake of patronising him to death. He does a similar job on Herschell Gordon Lewis: far from uncritical but astute and funny. Did he write any more film books? Let's have a Glen Or Glenda? interlude. She's thinking about it .... .... it's coming off .... .... here, Glen. Take it!
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