Recreational Terror by Isabel Cristina Pinedo

To anyone who knows these ten films, in all their diversity, it is stunning that critics can find nothing to say but the same thing about film after film. What is apparent from this fascinating survey is that mainstream film critics have little insight or imagination when it comes to horror films. Platts surveys those reviews of the ten films in the main Friday the 13th franchise that appeared in Variety, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times. In “ ‘It’s worth recognizing only as an artefact of our culture:’ Critics and the Friday the 13 thFranchise (1980-2001),” Todd K. Indeed, the first essay of the issue shows pretty starkly how wrong mainstream film reviewers can be about horror film. 'Sobre este título' puede pertenecer a otra edición de este libro.This special issue celebrates the complexity, artistry, and cultural value of the Friday the 13th franchise, and it does so against four decades of reviewers who have dismissed and decried it. Her insistence on contextualizing both the films and what has been said about them by reviewers and film critics and theorists is consistent with the best work now being done by social scientists, historians, literary scholars, and students of film.' - Michael E. She makes distinctions that are neither obvious nor trivial, and 'reads' these films as texts with the sophistication of someone whose interdisciplinary background includes film studies, sociology, and psychoanalysis. 'Pinedo has seen some 600 films, and the wealth of this experience is reflected in the book. Bathrick, Professor Emeritus, Hunter College

Through an examination of this contradictory and complex dynamic we are persuaded to look again at the horror film and ourselves.' -Serafina K. Pinedo also persuades us to look at how subversive elements of female subjectivity-within specific films and within contemporary audiences-have informed the genre and its reception. With enthusiastic attention to detail, her work uncovers an irrational world where the mutilated female body is the site of a collapsed social order that viewers recognize and fear.

In an original contribution to genre/audience study, the author focuses on an important shift in narrative structure and devices within the postmodern horror film. 'For those who are disgusted by and afraid to look at this 'disreputable' genre, Pinedo explains why, and for fans, she provides critical attention to the fears we bring to this bloody spectacle.

Chancer, Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University Her excellent book is remarkably readable and yet sophisticated, written well enough to satisfy both general readers and film theory aficionados.' - Lynn S. 'Isabel Pinedo's Recreational Terror provides a superb analysis not only of women's greater agency within and outside the horror genre, but also of why people enjoy horror films in general.

Recreational Terror by Isabel Cristina Pinedo