Shock Value - Jason Zinoman [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE - THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
CHAPTER TWO - THE PROBLEM WITH PSYCHO
CHAPTER THREE - BLOOD BROTHERS
CHAPTER FOUR - ASSAULTING THE AUDIENCE
CHAPTER FIVE - SHOCK OR AWE
CHAPTER SIX - THE MONSTER PROBLEM
CHAPTER SEVEN - THE DANCE OF DEATH
CHAPTER EIGHT - HE LIKES TO WATCH
CHAPTER NINE - THE THING IN-BETWEEN
CHAPTER TEN - STOMACHING IT
CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE FEAR SICKNESS
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgements
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
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First published in 2011 by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Jason Zinoman, 2011 All rights reserved
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following copyrighted works: “Desolation Row” by Bob Dylan. Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music. All rights reserved. The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael, edited by Sanford Schwartz. Used by permission of The Library of America.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Zinoman, Jason.
Shock value : how a few eccentric outsiders gave us nightmares, conquered Hollywood, and invented modern horror / Jason Zinoman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN : 978-1-101-51696-6
1. Horror films—United States—History and criticism. I. Title.
PN1995.9.H6Z
791.43’617—dc22
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For Agnès
INTRODUCTION
The first monster that an audience has to be scared of is the filmmaker. They have to feel in the presence of someone not confined by the normal rules of propriety and decency.
Wes Craven
THE MOANS of a woman in pain echoed down the hallways of an office building. Then came the lewd roar of a man enjoying himself. It was Times Square in the early seventies. High above the traffic of Broadway, inside a cramped editing room, a baby-faced director, Wes Craven, huddled over a television screen staring at his first feature film, The Last House on the Left. Sean Cunningham, his producer and friend, sat nearby, worrying. This is sick, Cunningham thought, but is it good sick?
Cunningham had worked backstage Off Broadway and shot soft-core pornography. He was not naive. After a few years making cheap movies peddling cheaper thrills, he developed a feel for exploitation, for tapping into the desires of sweaty men