Selling the Splat Pack: The DVD Revolution and the American Horror Film

Mark Bernard

ISBN 10: 0748685499 / ISBN 13: 9780748685493

Published by Edinburgh University Press, 2014

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # B9780748685493

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Selling the Splat Pack: The DVD Revolution and the American Horror Film
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0748685499
• ISBN 13: 9780748685493
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

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.