Search results for ""author david church""

Too often dismissed as 'trash cinema', exploitation films have nevertheless become sincerely appreciated cult objects on home video. In this new study, David Church explores how the history of drive-in theatres and urban grind houses has descended to home video formats. Focusing on both the re-release of archival exploitation films on DVD and the recent cycle of 'retrosploitation' films like Grindhouse, Machete, Viva, and Black Dynamite, Church examines how nostalgia shapes the aesthetics and politics of exploitation films and the fan cultures devoted to them.

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Upon its premiere in 1992, Midway’s Mortal Kombat spawned an enormously influential series of fighting games, notorious for their violent “fatality” moves performed by photorealistically rendered characters. Targeted by lawmakers and moral reformers, the series directly inspired the creation of an industrywide rating system for video games and became a referendum on the wide popularity of 16-bit home consoles. Along the way, it became one of the world’s most iconic fighting games, and a transmedia franchise that continues to this day.This book traces Mortal Kombat’s history as an American product inspired by both Japanese video games and Chinese martial-arts cinema, its successes and struggles in adapting to new market trends, and the ongoing influence of its secret-strewn narrative world. After outlining the specific elements of gameplay that differentiated Mortal Kombat from its competitors in the coin-op market, David Church examines the various martial-arts films that inspired its Orientalist imagery, helping explain its stereotypical uses of race and gender. He also posits the games as a cultural landmark from a moment when public policy attempted to intervene in both the remediation of cinematic aesthetics within interactive digital games and in the transition of public gaming spaces into the domestic sphere. Finally, the book explores how the franchise attempted to conquer other forms of media in the 1990s, lost ground to a new generation of 3D games in the 2000s, and has successfully rebooted itself in the 2010s to reclaim its legacy.

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This is an indispensable study of exploitation cinema's continuing allure. Too often dismissed as nothing more than 'trash cinema', exploitation films have become both earnestly appreciated cult objects and home video items that are more accessible than ever. In this wide ranging new study, David Church explores how the history of drive in theatres and urban grind houses has descended to the home video formats that keep these lurid movies fondly alive today. Arguing for the importance of cultural memory in contemporary fan practices, Church focuses on both the re release of archival exploitation films on DVD and the recent cycle of 'retrosploitation' films like Grindhouse, Machete, Viva, The Devil's Rejects and Black Dynamite. At a time when older ideas of subcultural belonging have become increasingly subject to nostalgia, Grindhouse Nostalgia presents an indispensable study of exploitation cinema's continuing allure, and is a bold contribution to our understanding of fandom, taste politics, film distribution and home video. This is the first in depth critical examination of the recent and ongoing "retrosploitation" cycle. It expands a growing body of research on the importance of home video as containers of material history. It unites cultural memory studies and fan studies in productive ways for understanding a broad range of fan investments. It restores questions of affect and non ironic reception to understandings of exploitation cinema's continuing appeal.

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Explores one of the most prominent and debated trends within the horror genre Offers the first in-depth study of one of the twenty-first-century horror genre's most important and divisive developments Explores the shared aesthetics, themes, and reception of the post-horror corpus Updates existing debates about horror cinema, artistic value, and cultural taste Listen to David Church discuss his book on the Full Contact Nerd podcast Horror's longstanding reputation as a popular but culturally denigrated genre has been challenged by a new wave of films mixing arthouse minimalism with established genre conventions. Variously dubbed 'elevated horror' and 'post-horror,' films such as The Babadook, It Follows, The Witch, It Comes at Night, Get Out, The Invitation, Hereditary, Midsommar, A Ghost Story, and mother! represent an emerging nexus of taste, politics, and style that has often earned outsized acclaim from critics and populist rejection by wider audiences. Post-Horror is the first full-length study of one of the most important and divisive movements in twenty-first-century horror cinema. Case studies include: It Follows The Witch The Babadook Get Out Hereditary Midsommar Goodnight Mommy It Comes at Night The Invitation I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House mother! A Dark Song A Ghost Story "

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