Calum Waddell – författare

The first academic study on the work of Wes Craven16 chapters offering a wide discussion of the director's careerEssential addition to horror film studies curriculumIncludes all facets of the filmmaker's work, including his TV contributions and his melodrama Music of the HeartThis edited collection provides an insightful look at the career and output of American horror director Wes Craven, whose most famous films such as The Last House on the Left (1972), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Scream (1996) came to define the form in the later decades of the 20th century. Also paying attention to Craven's more underrated work, from Deadly Friend (1986) through to his melodrama Music of the Heart (1999), this academic study argues that the filmmaker's influence can still be felt on cinema today, many years after his passing. Featuring 16 chapters and an extensive introduction, this addition to the ReFocus line will prove to be essential reading for scary movie connoisseurs and brings a valuable contribution to the growing field of horror film studies.

This edited collection provides an insightful look at the career and output of American horror director Wes Craven, whose most famous films such as The Last House on the Left (1972), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Scream (1996) came to define the form in the later decades of the 20th century. Also paying attention to Craven's more underrated work, from Deadly Friend (1986) through to his melodrama Music of the Heart (1999), this academic study argues that the filmmaker's influence can still be felt on cinema today, many years after his passing. Featuring 16 chapters and an extensive introduction, this addition to the ReFocus line will prove to be essential reading for scary movie connoisseurs and brings a valuable contribution to the growing field of horror film studies.

Dubbed The Godfather of Gore, no other exploitation filmmaker made the most of scant budgets, short shooting schedules and amateur special effects like the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis. Making his mark with Blood Feast in 1963 and helming such notorious splatter-shockers as Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), The Gruesome Twosome (1967) and The Gore Gore Girls (1972), the director provoked generations of indebted genre stylists from John Waters and Frank Henenlotter to Eli Roth and Damien Leone, with his hit Terrifier franchise. This is the first academic study into the work of Lewis, covering not just his bloodstained celluloid, but also his background in sexploitation and infomercials. In doing so, this entry in the ReFocus series takes one of cinema's most influential low budget craftsmen out of the grindhouse and considers him as an Avant Garde auteur in his own right.

Examines the American exploitation film blaxploitation, exploitation-horror and sexploitation between 1959-1977What is an exploitation film? 'The Style of Sleaze' reasons that the aesthetic and thematic approach of the key texts within three distinct exploitation demarcations blaxploitation, horror and sexploitation indicate a concurrent evolution of filmmaking that could be seen as an identifiable cinematic movement. Offering a fresh perspective on studies of marginal cinema, 'The Style of Sleaze' maintains that defining exploitation cinema as a vaguely attributed 'excess' is unhelpful, and instead concludes that this period in American film history produced a number of the most transgressive, and yet morally complex, motion pictures ever made.

What is an exploitation film? The Style of Sleaze reasons that the aesthetic and thematic approach of the key texts within three distinct exploitation demarcations – blaxploitation, horror and sexploitation – indicate a concurrent evolution of filmmaking that could be seen as an identifiable cinematic movement. Offering a fresh perspective on studies of marginal cinema, The Style of Sleaze maintains that defining exploitation cinema as a vaguely attributed 'excess' is unhelpful, and instead concludes that this period in American film history produced a number of the most transgressive, and yet morally complex, motion pictures ever made.

Images of Apartheid: Filmmaking on the Fringe in the Old South Africa is an exploration of the low budget, black-action cinema that emerged in South Africa during the 1970s and led to subsequent gangster and race-conflict films that defined an era of prolific genre activity, from Joe Bullet (1973) to American Ninja 4 (1990). Contextualising and documenting the cheap, government-funded 'B-Scheme' films, largely unseen since the fall of the National Party, but also acknowledging the impact of international co-productions such as The Wild Geese (1978) and locally made provocation, including the classic Mapantsula (1988), this study is an exhaustive tour of race-representation and state-subsidised subversion. Also discussing the political turbulence of the era, Images of Apartheid argues that so-called 'ZAxploitation' should be considered within both localised and wider international paracinematic networks of genre adaptation, resulting in the identification of a uniquely South African form of trash and treasure, and schlock and awe.

Provides the first study of South Africa's B-Scheme cinemaIdentifies a South African cinema of low-budget blaxploitationFeatures many interviews with South African filmmakers, conducted as part of the researchProvided audiences of the time with unique, apartheid-era adaptations of popular blaxploitation films such as Shaft (1971) and Super Fly(1972)Images of Apartheid: Filmmaking on the Fringe in the Old South Africa is an exploration of the low budget, black-action cinema that emerged in South Africa during the 1970s and led to subsequent gangster and race-conflict films that defined an era of prolific genre activity, from Joe Bullet (1973) to American Ninja 4 (1990). Contextualising and documenting the cheap, government-funded 'B-Scheme' films, largely unseen since the fall of the National Party, but also acknowledging the impact of international co-productions such as The Wild Geese (1978) and locally made provocation, including the classic Mapantsula (1988), this study is an exhaustive tour of race-representation and state-subsidised subversion. Also discussing the political turbulence of the era, Images of Apartheid argues that so-called 'ZAxploitation' should be considered within both localised and wider international paracinematic networks of genre adaptation, resulting in the identification of a uniquely South African form of trash and treasure, and schlock and awe.

This is the first study to explore South Africa both in horror cinema and as a formidable producer of celluloid scares. From framing the notorious apartheid system as a mental asylum in the ground-breaking and criminally underseen Jannie Totsiens (Jans Rautenbach, 1970) to such seventies exploitation shockers as The Demon (Percival Rubens, 1979) through to the blockbuster hit District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009) and beyond, this book suggests that South Africa should finally obtain its rightful place in the canon of wider genre studies and horror cinema fandom.Taking in the 80s nightmares of Darrell Roodt and concluding with an analysis of the recent boom-period in South African fright-films, including discussion of such contemporary efforts as The Tokoloshe (Jerome Pikwane, 2018) and the Troma-esque leanings of Fried Barry (Ryan Kruger, 2020), South African Horror Cinema focuses on ever-changing identities and perspectives, and embraces the frequently carnivalesque and grotesque elements of a most unique lineage in macabre motion pictures.

This is the first study to explore South Africa both in horror cinema and as a formidable producer of celluloid scares. From framing the notorious apartheid system as a mental asylum in the ground-breaking and criminally underseen Jannie Totsiens (Jans Rautenbach, 1970) to such seventies exploitation shockers as The Demon (Percival Rubens, 1979) through to the blockbuster hit District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009) and beyond, this book suggests that South Africa should finally obtain its rightful place in the canon of wider genre studies and horror cinema fandom.Taking in the 80s nightmares of Darrell Roodt and concluding with an analysis of the recent boom-period in South African fright-films, including discussion of such contemporary efforts as The Tokoloshe (Jerome Pikwane, 2018) and the Troma-esque leanings of Fried Barry (Ryan Kruger, 2020), South African Horror Cinema focuses on ever-changing identities and perspectives, and embraces the frequently carnivalesque and grotesque elements of a most unique lineage in macabre motion pictures.

Cannibal Holocaust is one of the most controversial horror films ever made. Despite not achieving huge success when it was first released, the Italian production found an audience on home video in the 1980s and became a 'must-see' for connoisseurs of extreme cinema. Indeed, Cannibal Holocaust's foremost legacy is in the United Kingdom, where it obtained its reputation as one of the most harrowing and offensive 'video nasties' – a term used to refer to a group of films deemed to be 'obscene' by the Department of Public Prosecutions. However, as the years have progressed, Cannibal Holocaust has been re-evaluated, mainly as the forefather of the 'found footage' film, and recent home video re-releases have added some valuable perspective to the onscreen violence with extensive cast and crew interviews. What is missing from this contemporary activity is contextualization of Cannibal Holocaust's style, affirmation and discussion of its locations and any extensive discourse about its representation of third world inhabitants (i.e. as 'primitives'). In addition, and also amiss from previous dialogue on the production, is that Cannibal Holocaust can be seen as one of the key post-Vietnam films. It is the spectre of war – and an explicit warning about Western involvement in civil conflict – which progresses Deodato's story of jungle adventurers in peril. By approaching the film from a more formalist position, this Devil's Advocate provides an insightful discussion of this groundbreaking film.