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Book SynopsisWhen evil clowns menace the screen, do we scream or laugh? When zombies converge to tear a victim limb from limb, do we cringe and hide our eyes, or shriek What??! Play that again!!? What about those instances when these seemingly opposite reactions happen at once? This is the phenomenon known as sLaughter.Horrific Humor and the Moment ofDroll Grimness in Cinema: Sidesplitting sLaughter presents the first focused look at the moment in audience reception where screams and laughter collide. John A. Dowell and Cynthia J. Miller bring together twelve essays from an international collection of authors across the disciplines. The volume begins with an examination of the aesthetics and mechanics of the sLaughter moment, then moves closer to look at the impact of its awkward frission of humor and horror on the individual viewer, and finally, broadens its lens to explore sLaughter's implications for the human condition more generally. The chapters discuss such box office hits such as A Clockwor
Trade ReviewHorrific Humor is, ultimately, a fascinating read.... The reader will find one’s self looking at aspects of cinema they’d never before considered. * Cinepunx *
John Dowell and Cynthia Miller’s collection of essays, Horrific Humor and the Moment of Droll Grimness in Cinema: Sidesplitting sLaughter, is one of the finest examinations of the horror genre published in the past decade. The theory of the intersection of horror and humor in popular film is transcendental in its profundity. For the scholar of film or for the general reader who loves to watch horror films, the book absolutely deserves a place on your shelf. -- Gary Hoppenstand, Michigan State University
Only recently the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, the closest it’s been to heralding a man-made global catastrophe since 1953. Our popular culture abounds with dark and sardonic narratives, with stories and fictions that oscillate uncannily between the shocking perspectives of literary realism and the uncontrollable emotions that erupt in laughter, leaving us with the uncomfortable realization we find what is horrifying is simultaneously humorous and enjoyable. Here Dowell and Miller have collected a seminal series of essays that explores the typology and mechanics of that dark underside of popular culture that we love to laugh at from the comfort of our post-truth reality. If the real function of humor is in speaking the truth to power, then this volume offers insight into the critical import of popular culture in all our contemporary lives; sLaughter speaks a truth of the human condition! -- Steve Webley, Staffordshire University
Table of ContentsForeword: From “Stairway to Heaven” to “I Hate Mondays”: Is Understanding sLaughter Essential? Molly Merryman Introduction: The Hilarity of Terror: Toward an Understanding of sLaughter John A. Dowell, with Cynthia J. Miller Part I: The Aesthetics and Mechanics of sLaughter, or Welcome to the Funhouse of Carnography—Please Watch Your Head 1. Troma-tized by Punk Iain J.W. Ellis 2. “Must I Remind You of a Little Movie Called Deliverance?”: sLaughter and the Postmodern Pastiche Don Tresca 3. Phallic Noses, Blood-Filled Balloons, Exploding Popcorn, and Laughing-Gas-Squirting Flowers: Reading Images of the Evil Clown Moritz Fink 4. The Mechanical sLaughterhouse: Horror, Humor, and Repetition in American Psycho and Fight Club Colin Yeo Part II: Bodies in the sLaughterhouse, or You Might Feel a Little Pinch 5. “Michael Eat Your Meat”: Trauma, Satire, and Nostalgia in Bob Balaban’s Parents William Quiterio 6. Ha!/Aaah!: The Painful Relationship between Humor and Horror David Misch 7. Igniting the Fuse of Destructive History: Nation and Ablation in the sLaughterhouse Thomas Britt 8. sLaughter as Existential Epiphany Ben Urish Part III: Beyond Mere War, or So Long and Thanks for All the Jokes! 9. Surfing Fascists and the Masses: (Non-)Evolving Images of the Cinenazi Ben Betka 10. In the UnDead of Winter: Humor and the Horrific in Dead Snow Cynthia J. Miller 11. Too Soon?: Laughing at Disaster on the Cinematic Titanic Ann Larabee About the Editors Notes on the Contributors
