Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Drive-in movie theaters and the horror films shown at them during the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s may be somewhat outdated, but they continue to enthrall movie buffs today. More than just fodder for the satirical cannons of Joe Bob Briggs and Mystery Science Theatre 3000, they appeal to knowledgeable fans and film scholars who understand their influence on American popular culture. This book is a collection of eighteen essays by various scholars on the classic drive-in horror film experience. Those in Section One emphasize the roles of the drive-in theater in the United States--and its cultural cousin, Australia. Section Two examines how horror operated at the drive-in, the rhetoric used in coming attraction trailers, horror film premieres at drive-ins, double features, and the preproduction, production, and marketing of Last House on the Left. Section Three addresses the effects of the Vietnam War and counter-culture on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the Cold War on Cat Women of the Moon. Section Four explores gender issues and sexuality, two of the most common and most important subjects of horror film analysis. Section Five covers drive-in culture via Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, 2000 Maniacs, and the films of Mario Bava. Section Six investigates a variety of issues, such as the drive-in horror film's embrace of DNA, the use of cinematic form to create a non-Hollywood look in Wizard of Gore, and the many different prints and running times of I Drink Your Blood.
Table of Contents
Who's afraid of the virgin wolf man? Or, the other meaning of auto-eroticism / Eric Mark Kramer -- Drive-in horror across the outback : surf, sand and Sisters in 1970s Australia / Graeme Harper -- Naked! Screaming! Terror! The rhetoric of hype and drive-in movie trailers / J. Rocky Colavito -- A drive-in horror by default, or, The premiere of The hideous sun demon / Gary D. Rhodes -- Ideology and style in the double feature I married a monster from outer space and Curse of the demon / Michael Lee -- The legacy of Last house on the left / Steven Jay Schneider -- Apocalypse here and now : making sense of The Texas chain saw massacre / Mark Bould -- In the science fiction name of national security : Cat women of the moon / Tony Williams -- "Horror has its ultimate, and I am that" : severing the bonds of identity in The head and The brain that wouldn't die / David Annandale -- Ed Wood, Glen or Glenda and the limits of Foucauldian discourse / Chris Cooling -- Daughter of horror : low-budget filmmaking, generic instability and sexual politics / John Parris Springer -- "Evil, beautiful, deadly" : publicity posters of drive-in horror's monstrous women! / Chrystine Berzsenyi -- Unmasking patriarchy's savior : gender politics in Samson versus the vampire women / Michael Lee -- Monsters and mayhem below the Mason-Dixon / Stephen Budney -- Italian cinema goes to the drive-in : the intercultural horrors of Mario Bava / Karola -- The threat of materialism in the age of genetics : DNA at the drive-in / David A. Kirby -- Wizards of gore, dances of life and hidden dimensions / Gary D. Rhodes -- Drinking blood with Walter Benjamin and David Durston / Karola.