Simon Brown
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325918
- eISBN:
- 9781800342477
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325918.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Released in cinemas in 1982, Creepshow is typically regarded as a minor entry in both the film output of George A. Romero and the history of adaptations of the works of Stephen King. Yet this lack of ...
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Released in cinemas in 1982, Creepshow is typically regarded as a minor entry in both the film output of George A. Romero and the history of adaptations of the works of Stephen King. Yet this lack of critical attention hides the fact that Creepshow is the only full collaboration between America's bestselling author of horror tales and one of the masters of modern American horror cinema. Long considered too mainstream for the director of Dawn of the Dead (1978), too comic for the author that gave audiences the film versions of Carrie (1976) and The Shining (1980), and too violent for a cinemagoing public turning away from gore cinema in the autumn of 1982, Creepshow is here reassessed. The book examines the making and release of the film and its legacy through a comic-book adaptation and two sequels. The book's analysis focuses on the key influences on the film, not just Romero and King, but also the anthology horrors of Amicus Productions, body horror cinema, and the special make-up effects of Tom Savini, the relationship between horror and humour, and most notably the tradition of EC horror comics of the 1950s, from which the film draws both its thematic preoccupations and its visual style. Ultimately the book argues that not only is Creepshow a major work in the canons of Romero and King, but also that it represents a significant example of the portmanteau horror film, of the blending of horror and comedy, and finally, decades before the career of Zack Snyder (Watchmen, Man of Steel), of attempting to recreate a comic book aesthetic on the big screen.Less
Released in cinemas in 1982, Creepshow is typically regarded as a minor entry in both the film output of George A. Romero and the history of adaptations of the works of Stephen King. Yet this lack of critical attention hides the fact that Creepshow is the only full collaboration between America's bestselling author of horror tales and one of the masters of modern American horror cinema. Long considered too mainstream for the director of Dawn of the Dead (1978), too comic for the author that gave audiences the film versions of Carrie (1976) and The Shining (1980), and too violent for a cinemagoing public turning away from gore cinema in the autumn of 1982, Creepshow is here reassessed. The book examines the making and release of the film and its legacy through a comic-book adaptation and two sequels. The book's analysis focuses on the key influences on the film, not just Romero and King, but also the anthology horrors of Amicus Productions, body horror cinema, and the special make-up effects of Tom Savini, the relationship between horror and humour, and most notably the tradition of EC horror comics of the 1950s, from which the film draws both its thematic preoccupations and its visual style. Ultimately the book argues that not only is Creepshow a major work in the canons of Romero and King, but also that it represents a significant example of the portmanteau horror film, of the blending of horror and comedy, and finally, decades before the career of Zack Snyder (Watchmen, Man of Steel), of attempting to recreate a comic book aesthetic on the big screen.
Benjamin Poole
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733568
- eISBN:
- 9781800342057
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733568.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter provides an overview of SAW (2004). SAW is a horror film that is entirely representative of the era that created it: the early twenty-first century witnessed a threatened ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of SAW (2004). SAW is a horror film that is entirely representative of the era that created it: the early twenty-first century witnessed a threatened America whose national confidence was shattered, and shady Middle Eastern wars played out in abject images of torture and suffering. Like the aeons of horror tales that precede it, the film is an essay in morality as well as mortality; its antagonist cleaves to a logical, if bloody moral code, while no victim is wholly without guilt. As with all of the best horror, SAW is interested in the spiritual and physical potential of the human body and soul. This aspect of gratification is abundantly evident in the gross extremities of SAW's survival horror. The particular focus is sadism and body trauma, which the film details with surgical precision.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of SAW (2004). SAW is a horror film that is entirely representative of the era that created it: the early twenty-first century witnessed a threatened America whose national confidence was shattered, and shady Middle Eastern wars played out in abject images of torture and suffering. Like the aeons of horror tales that precede it, the film is an essay in morality as well as mortality; its antagonist cleaves to a logical, if bloody moral code, while no victim is wholly without guilt. As with all of the best horror, SAW is interested in the spiritual and physical potential of the human body and soul. This aspect of gratification is abundantly evident in the gross extremities of SAW's survival horror. The particular focus is sadism and body trauma, which the film details with surgical precision.
