Looking for Some Summer Reading? It’s Show Time for The Slasher Movie Book!
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Word on two new books crossed our desk, and since summer reading season is here, we thought we’d pass on the news about Phil Harvey’s Show Time about an extreme reality TV series and J. A. Kerswell’s The Slasher Movie Book, an overview of the stalk ‘n slash film genre.
Show Time Synopsis:
Welcome to the new world of reality TV. Viewing audiences have become totally desensitized to violence and entirely dependent on sensation to escape their boring workaday lives—an addiction nurtured by the media with graphic portrayals of war and crime and with so-called reality programming. TV executives in pursuit of the only things they care about—higher ratings and bigger paychecks—have created the ultimate reality show: Seven people, each bearing the scars of his or her past, are deposited on an island in the middle of Lake Superior. Given some bare necessities and the promise of $400,000 each if they can endure, the three women and four men risk death by starvation or freezing as the Great Lakes winter approaches.
The island is wired for sound, and flying drones provide the video feed so everything the contestants do and say is broadcast worldwide. Their seven-month ordeal is entirely unscripted, they can’t ask for help or they forfeit the prize, and as far as the network is concerned—the fewer survivors, the better.
The Slasher Movie Book Synopsis:
An affectionate yet critical look at the surprising beginnings of the slasher movie – a genre that brought a new high in cinematic violence and suspense to mainstream cinema – this grisly guidebook revels in its glory days of the late 1970s and early 1980s and discusses its recent resurgence. Packed with reviews of the best (and worst) slasher movies and illustrated with an extensive collection of distinctive and often graphic color poster artwork from around the world, this book also looks at the political, cultural, and social influences on the slasher movie and its own effect on other film genres. Also included are a list of the top 10 body count films, trivia about famous actors who made their big-screen debuts in slasher films, a glossary of need-to-know terms, a list of additional reading, and recommendations of websites to head to for additional macabre movies.
Combining Kerswell’s detailed essays with distinctive and often graphic retro poster art, The Slasher Movie Book is a fun and fascinating overview of a film genre that, like its villains, just won’t die. Everything from Hitchcock movies to grindhouse and violent French theatre to the Golden Age of the Slasher (1978-1984) launched by John Carpenter’s Halloween is here!
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