Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
The Cult Film Reader
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
22 posts | 1 read | 1 to read
"An invaluable collection for anyone researching or teaching cult cinema ... The Cult Film Reader is an authoritative text that should be of value to any student or researcher interested in challenging and transgressive cinema that pushes the boundaries of conventional cinema and film studies." Science Fiction Film and Television "A really impressive and comprehensive collection of the key writings in the field. The editors have done a terrific job in drawing together the various traditions and providing a clear sense of this rich and rewarding scholarly terrain. This collection is as wild and diverse as the films that it covers. Fascinating." Mark Jancovich, Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of East Anglia, UK "It's about time the lunatic fans and loyal theorists of cult movies were treated to a book they can call their own. The effort and knowledge contained in The Cult Film Reader will satisfy even the most ravenous zombie's desire for detail and insight. This book will gnaw, scratch and infect you just like the cult films themselves." Brett Sullivan, Director of Ginger Snaps Unleashed and The Chair "The Cult Film Reader is a great film text book and a fun read." John Landis, Director of The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London and Michael Jackson's Thriller "Excellent overview of the subject, and a comprehensive collection of significant scholarship in the field of cult film. Very impressive and long overdue." Steven Rawle, York St John University, UK Whether defined by horror, kung-fu, sci-fi, sexploitation, kitsch musical or weird world cinema, cult movies and their global followings are emerging as a distinct subject of film and media theory, dedicated to dissecting the worlds unruliest images. This book is the worlds first reader on cult film. It brings together key works in the field on the structure, form, status, and reception of cult cinema traditions. Including work from key established scholars in the field such as Umberto Eco, Janet Staiger, Jeffrey Sconce, Henry Jenkins, and Barry Keith Grant, as well as new perspectives on the gradually developing canon of cult cinema, the book not only presents an overview of ways in which cult cinema can be approached, it also re-assesses the methods used to study the cult text and its audiences. With editors introductions to the volume and to each section, the book is divided into four clear thematic areas of study The Conceptions of Cult; Cult Case Studies; National and International Cults; and Cult Consumption to provide an accessible overview of the topic. It also contains an extensive bibliography for further related readings. Written in a lively and accessible style, The Cult Film Reader dissects some of biggest trends, icons, auteurs and periods of global cult film production. Films discussed include Casablanca, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Eraserhead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Showgirls and Ginger Snaps. Essays by: Jinsoo An; Jane Arthurs; Bruce Austin; Martin Barker; Walter Benjamin; Harry Benshoff; Pierre Bourdieu; Noel Carroll; Steve Chibnall; Umberto Eco; Nezih Erdogan; Welch Everman; John Fiske; Barry Keith Grant ; Joan Hawkins; Gary Hentzi; Matt Hills; Ramaswami Harindranath; J.Hoberman; Leon Hunt; I.Q. Hunter; Mark Jancovich; Henry Jenkins; Anne Jerslev; Siegfried Kracauer; Gina Marchetti; Tom Mes; Gary Needham; Sheila J. Nayar; Annalee Newitz; Lawrence OToole; Harry Allan Potamkin; Jonathan Rosenbaum; Andrew Ross; David Sanjek; Eric Schaefer; Steven Jay Schneider; Jeffrey Sconce; Janet Staiger; J.P. Telotte; Parker Tyler; Jean Vigo; Harmony Wu
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
review
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image
Pickpick

A nice selection of essays on themes related to cult films. Definitely more on the academic side (so might be dry for some readers), but pretty accessible overall. Definitely added some films to my watch list!

blurb
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

Took my little Sunday walk and now enjoying my Sunday coffee (iced mocha, extra shot) and snack (red velvet cake bites)

blurb
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

Got my Covid vaccine this morning 💉 Treating myself after to a pumpkin sweet cream cold brew and an egg, cheddar, and hash brown on an English muffin.

blurb
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

Killing some time with a mango smoothie and a pumpkin cake bite before my haircut 💇‍♀️

Chrissyreadit checking to see if your falling for fall swap arrived. 13mo
shortsarahrose @Chrissyreadit yes it did - I think I posted about it, but I‘ll check 13mo
Chrissyreadit it‘s ok- i missed marking a few down and am triple checking. 13mo
27 likes3 comments
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“The denial of lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile-in a word, natural-enjoyment, which constitutes the sacred sphere of culture, implies an affirmation of the superiority of those who can be satisfied with the sublimated, refined, disinterested, gratuitous, distinguished pleasures forever closed to the profane.”

shortsarahrose From the essay “Introduction to Distinction” by Pierre Bourdieu in the tagged book 13mo
21 likes1 comment
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“But the movie theaters are faced with more urgent tasks than refining applied art. They will not fulfill their vocation-which is an aesthetic vocation only to the extent that it is in tune with its social vocation-until they cease to flirt with the theater and renounce their anxious efforts to restore a bygone culture. Rather, they should rid their offerings of all trappings that deprive film of its rights . . .”

shortsarahrose From the essay “Cult of distraction: On Berlin‘s picture palaces” by Siegfried Kracauer in the tagged book 14mo
23 likes1 comment
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“However, I would not want to end here, without acknowledging that there are implications to the ideology of anime which go beyond national interests. In fact, the product and consumption of anime within Japan are dramatized in Otaku no video, the partly-fictionalized anime story of Gainex corporation, a huge anime producer in Japan. Otaku no video is the tale of two college student otaku who form a lucrative company . . .”

shortsarahrose From the essay “Magical girls and atomic bomb sperm: Japanese animation in America” by Annalee Newitz in the tagged book 14mo
20 likes1 comment
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“I‘m not trying to resurrect the auteur here, but authorship does complicate the idea of western co-opting as well as suggesting that a more international production does seem to have opened a limited space for such material (even if it took twenty five years for the scene to find a Western audience). The scene has other implications, because it gives Lee a dual narrative function . . .”

shortsarahrose From the essay “Han‘s Island revisited: Enter the Dragon as transnational cult film” by Leon Hunt in the tagged book 14mo
22 likes1 comment
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“The giallo is quite difficult to pin down as a body of films. Criticism tends to gather around auteur directors or singular examples. However, if we can understand the giallo discursively, we may begin to make interesting connections between its textual, industrial and cultural features. Such a strategy would allow us to open the giallo up rather than close it down. . .”

shortsarahrose From the essay “Playing with genre: An introduction to the Italian giallo” by Gary Needham in the tagged book 14mo
28 likes1 comment
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“The official Urban Legend (1998) and Deep Blue Sea (1999) sites provide a slightly higher level of information. The former, against a black-and-gold background, lists showtimes, offers credits and ‘behind the scenes‘ images, provides a library of contemporary urban legends, and invites visitors to participate in a sweepstakes contest. The latter, against a black-and-green background, offers images, text, and interviews . . .”

shortsarahrose From the essay “The Blair Witch Project: Film and the internet” by J.P. Telotte in the tagged book 14mo
24 likes1 comment
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“There can be no denying the fact that Eraserhead is a complex and challenging film. The extent to which Lynch here renders plot and narrative subservient to what we have called ‘the primacy of the audio-visual image‘ has been amply demonstrated. But it is an overstatement to claim that ‘the uncanny in Eraserhead is what literally exceeds the limits of representation‘ (Freeland 2000: 234) . . .”

shortsarahrose From the essay “The essential evil in/of Eraserhead (or, Lynch to the contrary) by Steven Jay Schneider in the tagged book 14mo
23 likes1 comment
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“I do not suppose that everyone laughing during The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is laughing for the reason that I have just suggested. The operations of the economies of the comic and the joke, particularly in the face of blood and gore, are quite complex. However, I would conclude by noting that scholars have produced substantial work on the types of intertextuality.”

shortsarahrose From the essay “Hitchcock in Texas: Intertextuality in the face of blood and gore” by Janet Staiger in the tagged 14mo
27 likes1 comment
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“It was the not-so-secret daydream of many a cinéphile to run away from school and join Corman - to make the old genres dance to new themes, topical and metaphysical, and to lard them with personal touches like the ones people were always finding in Ford, Hawks, Lang, and company. Everyone wanted to make a film rather than to write the Great American Novel; those with auteurist leanings wanted to be directors . . .”

shortsarahrose From the essay “The future of allusion: Hollywood in the seventies (and beyond)” by Noel Carroll in the tagged book 14mo
34 likes1 comment
blurb
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

Enjoying an iced carmeliscious (with an extra shot, of course) and a cake bite while reading about blaxploitation horror films 🎥

quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“Any particular horror movie can be offering a number of mixed and contradictory messages-for example, that women ought to be helpless, but if they are, they deserve whatever happens to them, or that nuclear weapons are really bad and can create monsters, but when we use them against the monsters they created, then these weapons are really good.”

shortsarahrose From the essay “What is a cult horror film?” by Welch Everman in the tagged book 1y
AnnCrystal 🧐🤔 oh, the so called “logic“ of such stories...baffling..! (edited) 1y
25 likes2 comments
blurb
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

Need to stop at Petsmart and Target, but since there is no rush today, I am enjoying some reading time first with a pumpkin espresso shaker (with an extra shot) and an Asiago bagel with garden veggie cream cheese.

5feet.of.fury Is the cover from “They call her One Eye” 1y
shortsarahrose @5feet.of.fury it is! I haven‘t seen that one yet, but it‘s on my “to watch” list. 1y
5feet.of.fury @shortsarahrose it‘s so good! 1y
43 likes3 comments
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“A dialect is a special form of communication, a language set apart for special uses.”

First line from the essay “Orson Welles and the big experimental film cult” by Parker Tyler in the tagged book

blurb
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

Making it a perfect three out of three days for enjoying coffee (an iced carmeliscious with an extra shot), food (egg and cheddar biscuit sandwich), and my cult film book. Actually on an essay now that I didn‘t previously read for undergrad!

Bklover Scooters!❤️❤️❤️❤️ “Scoot around, please!” 1y
37 likes1 comment
blurb
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

Another weekend day with no plans means another excuse to go to a cafe to read my book 📖 On the menu today - a dirty horchata and and egg sandwich.

ElizaMarie I love this! Weekend days with no plans sound like amazing days for you! Enjoy! (ooo, also, What's in a Dirty Horchata?) 1y
shortsarahrose @ElizaMarie I love having no plans 😁 The dirty horchata is horchata (rice milk, cinnamon) with some regular milk and a shot of espresso (the espresso makes it “dirty”). It‘s delicious! 1y
ElizaMarie @shortsarahrose Ooo, I like Horchata; I just never had heard of the “dirty“ kind :) But that does sound delicious! 1y
ElizaMarie @shortsarahrose Ooo, I like Horchata, I just never had heard of the “dirty“ kind :) But that does sound delicious! 1y
43 likes4 comments
blurb
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

Time for one of my favorite weekend activities - coffee (an iced pumpkin crafted press), food (bagel and cream cheese 🥯), and my book 📖

Leftcoastzen Looks like an interesting read ! 1y
43 likes1 comment
quote
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

“It seems cult is everywhere.”

First line from the editorial introduction. #FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

blurb
shortsarahrose
The Cult Film Reader | Mathijs, Ernest, Mendik, Xavier
post image

Took a short, hot walk for an iced mocha (with an extra shot) and an egg and cheddar biscuit sandwich. Starting a new book! My toxic trait is definitely starting a new book when I have many other books that I am still reading 😆

Bklover Always an extra shot!🩵 1y
34 likes1 comment