Selling the Splat Pack
The DVD Revolution and the American Horror Film
Published on 17. June 2014
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-0-7486-8549-3 (ISBN)
Description
Were brutal American horror movies like the Saw and Hostel films a reaction to the trauma of 9/11? Or was something else responsible for the rise of these violent and gory films during the first decade of the twenty-first century? This study reveals the history of how the emergence of the DVD market changed cultural and industrial attitudes about horror movies and film ratings. These changes made way for increasingly violent horror films, like those produced by the 'Splat Pack', a group of filmmakers who were heralded in the press as subversive outsiders. Taking a different tack, this study proposes that the films of the Splat Pack were products of, rather than reactions against, film industry policy. In doing so, the monograph blends film industry study with an analysis of the films themselves, revealing the films of the Splat Pack as commercial products rather than political manifestos.
Reviews / Votes
Bernard's criticism of the "Splat Pack" (and their imported peers, French director Alexandre Aja and Scottish director Neil Marshall) is incisive and delightful, thoroughly researched and written with a scholar's skepticism and a fan's enthusiasm...Bernard gives horror obsessives (or film studies majors) deep and insightful new angles from which to assess their favorite fright flicks. It won't help justify a taste for gore in the minds of those who can't stand it, but for those of us whose celluloid bloodlust is insatiable, Selling The Splat Pack yields an abundance of ideas to ponder during repeat viewings.' -- Bryan Reed * Charlotte Viewpoint * Roth is one of the primary filmmakers at the (stabbed and bleeding) heart of Mark Bernard's Selling the Splat Pack: The DVD Revolution and the American Horror Film. In the Edinburgh University Press release, the author examines the business behind pushing the likes of Rob Zombie and the Saw franchise onto audiences of the multiplex and then, more tellingly, to home-video consumers who salivate over discs branded with lurid promises of "UNRATED" cuts and extra content... Selling the Splat Pack emerges as a smart study in the economics of horror - not to be confused with the horror of economics.' * Flick Attack and Bookgasm * Thorough and engaging Selling the Splat Pack is an industrial and economic analysis of a cycle of brutal but popular works of the mid-2000s like the Saw series, Hostel and Haute Tension (Switchblade Romance) -- Glenn Ward * The Gothic Imagination * In this much-needed addition to the study of contemporary US horror cinema from an industry standpoint, Mark Bernard's Selling the Splat Pack provides an extremely lucid framework in which we can engage with and truly understand the reasons behind the outburst of the horror 'indies' of the 2000s and their success in the theatrical and DVD markets. Packed with fresh ideas and arguments, and through an in-depth examination and understanding of the converged-with-other-media American film industry, the book offers a fascinating new perspective in the study of horror film that will appeal to both academics and fans of the genre. * Yannis Tzioumakis, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media, University of Liverpool *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
20 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 165 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
522 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7486-8549-3 (9780748685493)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2014
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€0.00
Available for download
Person
Mark Bernard is an Instructor of American Studies and Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is co-author (with Cynthia Baron and Diane Carson) of Appetites and Anxieties: Food, Film, and the Politics of Representation. He is currently working on a book about horror film acting and stardom (with Kate Egan) and a book about the representation of food in the horror film.
Content
Table of Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I: The Industrial Context of the Splat Pack; 1. Introducing the Splat Pack; 2. Politics and the Horror Film: An Industry Studies Intervention; 3. The DVD Revolution and the Horror Film, Take One: From Trash to Art to Collectable; 4. The DVD Revolution and the Horror Film, Take Two: Rise of the 'Unrated'; Part II: The Splat Pack on DVD; 5. Text, Subtext, and the Story of the Film: Eli Roth's Hostel and Hostel: Part II on DVD; 6. The 'White Trash' World of Rob Zombie: Class, Collecting, and Slumming Spectators; 7. Seriality, Subjectivity, and New Media: Consuming the Saw Series; 8. Scars, Both Material and Cyber: Haute Tension and The Descent on DVD; Afterward; Biblography; Filmography; DVD Supplemental Materials Referenced.