Author Archive for: ‘Jay Daniel Thompson’
Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy: The Last Masterpiece
Raymond Foery, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy: The Last Masterpiece. Maryland and Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, Inc. ISBN 9780810877559 US $40.00 (hb) 187pp (Review copy supplied by Scarecrow Press) Alfred Hitchcock returned to his native England to make Frenzy (1972), which turned out to be the director’s penultimate film. In the text under discussion, Raymond Foery explores this movie’s production and critical reception. …
Read MoreWriting the Horror Movie
Marc Blake and Sara Bailey, Writing the Horror Movie. New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2013. ISBN 9781441196187 US $18.99 (hb) 272pp (Review copy supplied by Bloomsbury Publishing) The front cover of Writing the Horror Movie reminded this reader of Roy Ward Baker’s horror-comedy The Monster Club (1980). Specifically, I recalled the undead family tree that appeared as a backdrop throughout …
Read MoreHammer! Making Movies out of Sex and Life
Barbara Hammer, Hammer! Making Movies out of Sex and Life. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York. ISBN 9 781558616 12 7 Au$19.95 (pb) 281pp (Review copy supplied by The Feminist Press) At first glance, I thought that Hammer! would be an overview of the famous British horror film studio. A closer inspection revealed that …
Read MoreHey, Little Girl: Beautiful and the “Sexualisation of Youth”
Hey, little girl, is your daddy home? Did he go away and leave you all alone? I got a bad desire (Bruce Springsteen, “I’m on Fire”) And it’s no surprise, little girls hurt sometimes (Icehouse, “Hey, Little Girl”) Beautiful has been commonly read as an exploration of the darkness that lurks beneath pristine images of middle-class suburbia. I argue, though, …
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