Download or read book Poverty Row Horrors written by Tom Weaver and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poverty row horror films were usually inexpensively (some would say cheaply) produced with writing that ranged from bad to atrocious. Yet these movies with their all-star horror casts (Carradine, Lugosi, Karloff, et al.) and their ape men, mad monsters, devil bats and white zombies still have a loyal audience 50 years after their release.Essays contain full filmographic data on the 31 horror chillers made by the three studios from 1940 through 1946 and are arranged by year of release. Each entry includes the date of release, length, production credits, cast credits, interview quotes, and a plot synopsis with critical commentary. Filmographies for prominent horror actors and actresses, from John Abbott to George Zucco, are provided in the appendices.
Download or read book Poverty Row Studios 1929 1940 written by Michael R. Pitts and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-17 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beginning of the sound era until the end of the 1930s, independent movie-making thrived. Many of the independent studios were headquartered in a section of Hollywood called "Poverty Row." Here the independents made movies on the cheap, usually at rented facilities where shooting was limited to only a few days. From Allied Pictures Corporation to Willis Kent Production, 55 Poverty Row Studios are given histories in this book. Some of the studios, such as Diversion Pictures and Cresent Pictures, came into existence for the sole purpose of releasing movies by established stars. Others, for example J.D. Kendis, were early exploitation filmmakers under the guise of sex education. The histories include critical commentary on the studio's output and a filmography of all titles released from 1929 through 1940.
Download or read book Edgar G Ulmer written by Gary D. Rhodes and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edgar G. Ulmer: Detour on Poverty Row examines the full scope of the career of this often overlooked film auteur, with essays exploring individual films, groups of films (such as his important work in film noir), repetitive themes appearing across the spectrum of his work, and a case study of three essays analyzing The Black Cat (1934).
Download or read book Recovering 1940s Horror Cinema written by Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-12-11 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1940s is a lost decade in horror cinema, undervalued and written out of most horror scholarship. This collection revises, reframes, and deconstructs persistent critical binaries that have been put in place by scholarly discourse to label 1940s horror as somehow inferior to a “classical” period or “canonical” mode of horror in the 1930s, especially as represented by the monster films of Universal Studios. The book's four sections re-evaluate the historical, political, economic, and cultural factors informing 1940s horror cinema to introduce new theoretical frameworks and to open up space for scholarly discussion of 1940s horror genre hybridity, periodization, and aesthetics. Chapters focused on Gothic and Grand Guignol traditions operating in forties horror cinema, 1940s proto-slasher films, the independent horrors of the Poverty Row studios, and critical reevaluations of neglected hybrid films such as The Vampire’s Ghost (1945) and “slippery” auteurs such as Robert Siodmak and Sam Neufield, work to recover a decade of horror that has been framed as having fallen victim to repetition, exhaustion, and decline.
Download or read book Horror Unmasked written by Brad Weismann and published by Epic Ink. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the silent-film era to the blockbusters of today, Horror Unmasked is a fun-filled, highly illustrated dive into the past influences and present popularity of the horror film genre. The horror film’s pop-culture importance is undeniable, from its early influences to today’s most significant and exciting developments in the genre. Since 1990, the production of horror films has risen exponentially worldwide, and in 2021, horror films earned an estimated $580 million in ticket sales, not to mention how the genre has expanded into books, fashion, music, and other media throughout the world. Horror has long been the most popular film genre, and more horror movies have been made than any other kind. We need them. We need to be scared, to test ourselves, laugh inappropriately, scream, and flinch. We need to get through them and come out, blinking, still in one piece. This comprehensive guide features: A thorough discussion on monster movies and B-movies (The Thing; It Came from Outer Space; The Blob) The destruction of the American censorship system (Blood Feast; The Night of the Living Dead; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) International horror, zombies, horror comedies, and horror in the new millennium (Matango; Suspiria; Ghostbusters) A dissection of the critical reception of modern horror (Neon Demon; Pan’s Labyrinth; Funny Games) Stunning movie posters and film stills, plus fan-made tributes to some of the most lauded horror franchises in the world (Aliens; the Evil Dead; The Hills Have Eyes; Scream) A perfect reference and informational book for horror fans and those interested in its cultural influence worldwide, Horror Unmasked provides a general introduction to the genre, serves as a guidebook to its film highlights, and celebrates its practitioners, trends, and stories.
Download or read book The Creature Chronicles written by Tom Weaver and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-02-06 with total page 1603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was the final addition to Universal's "royal family" of movie monsters: the Creature from the Black Lagoon. With his scaly armor, razor claws and a face only a mother octopus could love, this Amazon denizen was perhaps the most fearsome beast in the history of Hollywood's Studio of Horrors. But he also possessed a sympathetic quality which elevated him fathoms above the many aquatic monsters who swam in his wake. Everything you ever wanted to know about the Gill Man and his mid-1950s film career (Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, The Creature Walks Among Us) is collected in this book, packed to the gills with hour-by-hour production histories, cast bios, analyses, explorations of the music, script-to-screen comparisons, in-depth interviews and an ocean of fin-tastic photos.
Download or read book What Ought to Scare You written by H. Marshall Leicester and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2024-07-09 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the Hollywood studio system (1931-1960) as a historical center, this book performs close readings of classic horror films (such as Frankenstein and Cat People) while asking the following three questions: What about this movie is weird? What does this movie think ought to scare you? If there weren't monsters in this movie, what would be wrong with these people's lives? These questions guide readers toward the uniqueness of horror films in relation to the way they are classified and the feeling of "horror" that they offer. The horror genre is a collection of culturally-shared elements--words, images, or themes used to signify or evoke horror, because they have been used that way before. Instead of treating movies as examples of the horror genre through how they evoke feelings from viewers, this book locates the meaning of horror within individual films and shows how movies make their own genealogies and complicate their own scares in an evolution of the genre. It argues that classic horror movies are forms of reception of--and resistance to--the ideas of horror that were current in their historical period. Working historically, the author traces movies' interactions with their precursors and co-conspirators to show how they are the agents of historical changes in the genre and in what we take to be horror.
Download or read book White Zombie written by Gary D. Rhodes and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1932 horror film White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi has received controversial attention from film reviewers and scholars--but it is unarguably a cult classic worthy of study. This book analyzes the film text from nearly every possible viewpoint, using both academic and popular film theories. Also supplied is an extensive intellectual history of the predecessor works to White Zombie, as well as information on the significance it carried for subsequent books and films, its theatrical release around the country, its modern cultural influence, and the attempts to restore the film to its original state. Other noteworthy features of this work include an in-depth biography of White Zombie director Victor Halperin, the first complete study of his life and career, and 244 images and photographs.
Download or read book The Horror Reader written by Ken Gelder and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Horror Reader brings together 29 key articles to explore the enduring resonance of horror in popular culture.
Download or read book I Was a Monster Movie Maker written by Tom Weaver and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-06-21 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phil Brown, who played Luke Skywalker's uncle in Star Wars, said, "In my long life in films, there are ones I'm proud of and those I'm not proud of. The Jungle Captive and Weird Woman fall into the latter category." House of Wax co-star Paul Picerni was fired by the film's director when he refused to put his head in a working guillotine during a climactic fight scene. Packed with wonderful tidbits, this volume collects 22 interviews with the moviemakers responsible for bringing such films as This Island Earth, The Haunting, Carnival of Souls, Pit and the Pendulum, House of Wax, Tarzan the Ape Man, The Black Cat, Them! and Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the movie screen. Faith Domergue, Michael Forest, Anne Helm, Candace Hilligoss, Suzanna Leigh, Norman Lloyd, Maureen O'Sullivan, Shirley Ulmer, Dana Wynter and many more are interviewed.
Download or read book Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes written by Tom Weaver and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2000 with total page 900 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The people who directed, produced, and starred in the scary and fantastic movies of the genre heyday over thirty years ago created memorable experiences as well as memorable movies. This McFarland Classic brings together over fifty interviews with the directors, producers, actors, and make-up artists of science fiction and horror films of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. From B movies to classics, Samuel Z. Arkoff to Acquanetta, these veteran vampire baits, swamp monsters, and flying saucers attackees share their memories. This classic volume represents the union of two previous volumes: Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers ("more fun than the lovably cheap movies that inspired it"--Booklist/RBB); and Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes ("candid...a must" --ARBA). Together at last, this combined collection of interviews offers a candid and delightful perspective on the movies that still make audiences squeal with fear, and occasionally, howl with laughter.
Download or read book The Curse of Frankenstein written by Marcus Harmes and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 which found immediate sources of inspiration in the Gainsborough bodice rippers of the 1940s and the poverty row horrors of the 1950s. Later Hammer horrors may have consolidated the reputation of the company and the stars, but these works had their starting point in the creative and commercial choices made by the team behind The Curse of Frankenstein. In the film sparks fly, new life is created and horrors unleashed but the film itself was a jolt to 1950s cinema going that has never been entirely surpassed.
Download or read book Women in Horror Films 1940s written by Gregory William Mank and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They had more in common than just a scream, whether they faced Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, King Kong, the Wolf Man, or any of the other legendary Hollywood monsters. Some were even monsters themselves, such as Elsa Lanchester as the Bride, and Gloria Holden as Dracula's Daughter. And while evading the Strangler of the Swamp, former Miss America Rosemary La Planche is allowed to rescue her leading man. This book provides details about the lives and careers of 21 of these cinematic leading ladies, femmes fatales, monsters, and misfits, putting into perspective their contributions to the films and folklore of Hollywood terror--and also the sexual harassment, exploitation, and genuine danger they faced on the job. Veteran actress Virginia Christine recalls Universal burying her alive in a backlot swamp in full "mummy" makeup for the resurrection scene in The Mummy's Curse--and how the studio saved that scene for the last day in case she suffocated. Filled with anecdotes and recollections, many of the entries are based on original interviews, and there are numerous old photographs and movie stills.
Download or read book Universal Horrors written by Tom Weaver and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-12-20 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revised and updated since its first publication in 1990, this acclaimed critical survey covers the classic chillers produced by Universal Studios during the golden age of hollywood horror, 1931 through 1946. Trekking boldly through haunts and horrors from The Frankenstein Monster, The Wolf Man, Count Dracula, and The Invisible Man, to The Mummy, Paula the Ape Woman, The Creeper, and The Inner Sanctum, the authors offer a definitive study of the 86 films produced during this era and present a general overview of the period. Coverage of the films includes complete cast lists, credits, storyline, behind-the-scenes information, production history, critical analysis, and commentary from the cast and crew (much of it drawn from interviews by Tom Weaver, whom USA Today calls "the king of the monster hunters"). Unique to this edition are a new selection of photographs and poster reproductions and an appendix listing additional films of interest.
Download or read book The Pleasure and Pain of Cult Horror Films written by Bartłomiej Paszylk and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2009-06-08 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The horror genre harbors a number of films too bold or bizarre to succeed with mainstream audiences, but offering unique, startling and often groundbreaking qualities that have won them an enduring following. Beginning with Victor Sjostrom's The Phantom Carriage in 1921, this book tracks the evolution and influence of underground cult horror over the ensuing decades, closing with William Winckler's Frankenstein vs. the Creature from Blood Cove in 2005. It discusses the features that define a cult film, trends and recurring symbols, and changing iconography within the genre through insightful analysis of 88 movies. Included are works by popular directors who got their start with cult horror films, including Oliver Stone, David Cronenberg and Peter Jackson.
Download or read book Film Study written by Frank Manchel and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 988 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The four volumes of Film Study include a fresh approach to each of the basic categories in the original edition. Volume one examines the film as film; volume two focuses on the thematic approach to film; volume three draws on the history of film; and volume four contains extensive appendices listing film distributors, sources, and historical information as well as an index of authors, titles, and film personalities.
Download or read book The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry written by Anthony Slide and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry is a completely revised and updated edition of Anthony Slide's The American Film Industry, originally published in 1986 and recipient of the American Library Association's Outstanding Reference Book award for that year. More than 200 new entries have been added, and all original entries have been updated; each entry is followed by a short bibliography. As its predecessor, the new dictionary is unique in that it is not a who's who of the industry, but rather a what's what: a dictionary of producing and releasing companies, technical innovations, industry terms, studios, genres, color systems, institutions and organizations, etc. More than 800 entries include everything from Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to Zoom Lens, from Astoria Studios to Zoetrope. Outstanding Reference Source - American Library Association
