David Kerekes

David Slater

An Illustrated History of Death Film (Creation Cinema)

Killing for Culture

A social history of the ‘video nasty’. In the early 1980s, video technology forever changed the face of home entertainment. The videocassette – a handy-sized cartridge of magnetic tape inside a plastic shell – domesticated cinema as families across Britain began to consume films in an entirely new way. Demand was high and the result was a video gold rush, with video rental outlets appearing on every high street almost overnight. Without moderation their shelves filled with all manner of films depicting unbridled sex and violence. A backlash was inevitable. Video was soon perceived as a threat to society, a view neatly summed up in the term ‘video nasties’. CANNIBAL ERROR chronicles the phenomenal rise of video culture through a tumultuous decade, its impact and its aftermath. Based on extensive research and interviews, the authors provide a first-hand account of Britain in the 1980s, when video became a scapegoat for a variety of social ills. It examines the confusion spawned by the Video Recordings Act 1984, the subsequent witch hunt that culminated in police raids and arrests, and offers insightful commentary on many contentious and ‘banned’ films that were cited by the media as influential factors in several murder cases. It also investigates the cottage industry in illicit films that developed as a direct result of the ‘video nasty’ clampdown. CANNIBAL ERROR, a revised and reworked edition of SEE NO EVIL (2000), is an exhaustive and startling overview of Britain’s ‘video nasty’ panic, the ramifications of which are still felt today.

Anti-Film Propaganda and the 'Video Nasties' Panic of the 1980s

Cannibal Error

Death on Film and the Enigma of Snuff

The leading journal devoted to all aspects of popular culture and cult media, "Headpress 25 "turns its attention to the Dream, or Flicker, machine. On this subject, it features interviews with William Burroughs-following a chance meeting at a bus stop by writers Johnny Strike and Gregory Daurer-and Paul Bowles. The cover is a striking oil painting of Burroughs in Tangiers. "Headpress 25 "also includes a detailed look at the neglected life and career of the late Luis de Jesus, a "star" of diminutive stature whose film appearances range from sadistic sidekick in the cult 1976 feature, "Blood Sucking Freaks," to numerous hardcore porn features, of which the most notorious is "The Anal Dwarf,"

Headpress

HEADPRESS JOURNAL is a distinctive, acclaimed book series devoted to all that is strange and esoteric in film, literature and art.

William Burroughs & the Flicker Machine

Headpress 25

Au contraire des images de sexe, clandestines et projetées en privé seulement, les images de mort furent rendues publiques dès les débuts du cinéma. Thomas Edison, père de l'ère moderne, nourrit l'appétit voyeuriste des spectateurs en reconstituant dans ses films des exécutions capitales. Un siècle plus tard, les mises à mort sont devenues authentiques et le monde s'effare des brutalités disponibles gratuitement sur Internet. Certains de ces films sont le fait d'individus utilisant leur téléphone portable - Luka Magnotta, par exemple, ou les adolescents connus sous le nom des maniaques de Dniepropetrovsk. D'autres sont tournés avec un équipement haut de gamme et distribués par des groupes organisés, tels que les militants extrémistes de l'État islamique. Killing for Culture explore ces images de mort et de violence et l'obsession humaine consistant à les regarder - ou à ne pas les regarder. Démarrant sur la mythologie des soi-disant films « snuff » et son évolution au sein de la culture populaire, cet ouvrage retrace la mort et ses artifices dans les documentaires « mondo » qui émergèrent au milieu des années 60, et plus tard la pornographie du faux snuff qui trouva son public grâce à Necrobabes et autres sites web. Cependant, c'est quand les vidéos montrant les meurtres de Daniel Pearl et Nick Berg firent surface dans les années 2000 que prit forme une époque de véritables atrocités, transformant irrévocablement notre manière de fonctionner en tant que société. De Exécution d'un Bandit Chinois en 1904 à Unabridged Agony, en passant par Cannibal Holocaust ou le suicide de R. Budd Dwyer, l'ultime décryptage des plus sombres des images filmées.

Killing For Culture Tome 1

Camion Blanc

Killing for Culture explore les images de mort et de violence et l'obsession humaine consistant à les regarder - ou à ne pas les regarder. Démarrant sur la mythologie des soi-disant films « snuff » et son évolution au sein de la culture populaire, cet ouvrage retrace la mort et ses artifices, en passant par les « mondo » des années 60, les meurtres de Daniel Pearl et Nick Berg, le porno dark, Gimme Shelter et le guro notamment. C'est ainsi que prend forme une époque de véritables atrocités, transformant irrévocablement notre manière de fonctionner en tant que société. Au contraire des images de sexe, clandestines et projetées en privé seulement, les images de mort furent rendues publiques dès les débuts du cinéma. Thomas Edison, père de l'ère moderne, nourrit l'appétit voyeuriste des spectateurs en reconstituant dans ses films des exécutions capitales. Un siècle plus tard, les mises à mort sont devenues authentiques et le monde s'effare des brutalités disponibles gratuitement sur Internet. Certains de ces films sont le fait d'individus utilisant leur téléphone portable - Luka Magnotta, par exemple, ou les adolescents connus sous le nom des maniaques de Dniepropetrovsk. D'autres sont tournés avec un équipement haute gamme et distribués par des groupes organisés, tels que les militants extrémistes de l'État islamique. Killing for Culture, c'est l'ultime décryptage des plus sombres des images filmées.

Killing For Culture Tome 2

Temple Drake

An indispensable sampling of the vast assortment of publications which exist as an adjunct to the mainstream press, or which promote themes and ideas that may be defined as pop culture, alternative, underground or subversive. Updated and revised from the pages of the critically acclaimed Headpress journal, this is an enlightened and entertaining guide to the counter culture - including everything from cult film, music, comics and cutting-edge fiction, by way of its books and zines, with contact information accompanying each review.

A Sourcebook for Modern Readers

Headpress Guide to the Counter Culture

Horror and fantasy cinema from around the world with a distinctive retro sensibility, "Creeping Flesh" focuses upon obscure and vilified horror movies, the discovery of "lost" films, and an appreciation of exploitation. Contents include: An interview with Alan Birkinshaw, director of the surreal drug and schoolgirl opus, "Killer's Moon"; The forgotten inspiration for "The Wicker Man," and Robin Hardy's disastrous follow-up "The Fantasist"; The lifting of the ban on Ray Brady's controversial "Boy Meets Girl"; Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford on the seminal film zine "Sleazoid Express," and the grindhouse theaters of old Times Square; plus an overview of BBC television fantasy of the '70s, now gaining cult popularity on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Horror Fantasy Film Book

Creeping Flesh

This book chronicles the phenomenal rise of video culture and its alleged associations with criminal activity. It contains studies of murder cases supposedly influenced by films, and interviews with the video underground.

Banned Films and Video Controversy

See No Evil

Made in 1972, Last House on Dead End Street is a cult obscurity inspired by the Manson murders and fuelled by the copious intake of drugs. We track down the reclusive director, Roger Watkins, and cast members.

Funhouse

Headpress 23

Unlike images of sex, which were clandestine and screened only in private, images of death were made public from the onset of cinema. The father of the modern age, Thomas Edison, fed the appetite for this material with staged executions on film. Little over a century later the executions are real and the world is aghast at brutalities freely available online at the click of a button. Some of these films are created by lone individuals using shaky camera phones: Luka Magnotta, for instance, and the teenagers known as the Dnipropetrovsk maniacs. Others are shot on high definition equipment and professionally edited by organized groups, such as the militant extremists ISIS. KILLING FOR CULTURE explores these images of death and violence, and the human obsession with looking — and not looking — at them. Beginning with the mythology of the so-called ‘snuff’ film and its evolution through popular culture, this book traces death and the artifice of death in the ‘mondo’ documentaries that emerged in the 1960s, and later the faux snuff pornography that found an audience through Necrobabes and similar websites. However, it is when videos depicting the murders of Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg surfaced in the 2000s that an era of genuine atrocity commenced, one that has irrevocably changed the way in which we function as a society.

David Kerekes

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