The Canadian Horror Film

From the cheaply made "tax-shelter" films of the 1970s to the latest wave of contemporary "eco-horror," Canadian horror cinema has rarely received much critical attention. Gina Freitag and André Loiselle rectify that situation in The Canadian Horror Film with a series of thought-provoking reflections on Canada's "terror of the soul," a wasteland of docile damnation and prosaic pestilence where savage beasts and mad scientists rub elbows with pasty suburbanites, grumpy seamen, and baby-faced porn stars. Featuring chapters on Pontypool, Ginger Snaps, 1970s slasher films, Quebec horror, and the work of David Cronenberg, among many others, The Canadian Horror Film unearths the terrors hidden in the recesses of the Canadian psyche. It examines the highlights of more than a century of Canadian horror filmmaking and includes an extensive filmography to guide both scholars and enthusiasts alike through this treacherous terrain.

This book contains 66 reviews of horror films written and ranked by critic and blogger Steve Hutchison. Each description includes five ratings (stars, story, creativity, acting, quality), a synopsis and a review. All 66 movies were produced exclusively by Canada. How many have you seen?

This book contains 80 descriptions of horror films reviewed and ranked by critic Steve Hutchison. Each description includes five ratings (stars, story, creativity, acting, quality), a synopsis and a review. All movies were produced exclusively by Canada. How many have you seen?

No horror film is truly mainstream, David Cronenberg has said, and it is for this reason that even the lowliest of them may be worth consideration. In this tenth anniversary revised and updated edition of They Came From Within, Caelum Vatnsdal adjusts the focus in Canadian horror films, and unwinds the history of this neglected genre to learn "why we fear what we fear and how it came to be that way." From the early Canadian infiltration of Hollywood in the thirties, to the flowering of Canuck horror films in the sixties and seventies, to the surreal products of the "tax-shelter" eighties and beyond, Vatnsdal shows how the Canadian horror film industry has, unwittingly or not, created a complex social, economic, and political portrait of a nation. Engagingly written, extensively researched, and lavishly illustrated with rare stills and poster art, They Came From Within is an invaluable addition of Canadian film criticism.

This book contains 80 descriptions of horror films reviewed and ranked by critic Steve Hutchison. Each description includes five ratings (stars, story, creativity, acting, quality), a synopsis and a review. All movies were produced exclusively by Canada. How many have you seen?

The chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Cinema present a rich, diverse overview of Canadian cinema. Responding to the latest developments in Canadian film studies, this volume takes into account the variety of artistic voices, media technologies, and places which have marked cinema in Canada throughout its history. Drawing on a range of established and emerging scholars from a range of disciplines, this volume will be useful to teachers, scholars, and to a general readership interested in cinema in Canada. Moving beyond the director-focused approach of much previous scholarship, this book is concerned with communities, institutions, and audiences for Canadian cinema at both national and international levels. The choice of subjects covered ranges from popular, genre cinema to the most experimental of artistic interventions. Canadian cinema is seen in its interaction with other forms of art-making and media production in Canada and at the international level. Particular attention has been paid to the work of Indigenous filmmakers, members of diasporic communities and feminist and LGBTQ artists. The result is a book attentive to the complex social and institutional contexts in which Canadian cinema is made and consumed.

Few studies of Canadian cinema to date have engaged deeply with genre cinema and its connection to Canadian culture. Ernest Mathijs does just that in this volume, which traces the inception, production, and reception of Canada’s internationally renowned horror film, Ginger Snaps (2000). This tongue-in-cheek Gothic film, which centres on two death-obsessed teenage sisters, draws a provocative connection between werewolf monstrosity and female adolescence and boasts a dedicated world-wide fan base. The first book-length study of this popular film, John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps is based on the author’s privileged access to most of its cast and crew and to its enthusiasts around the world. Examining themes of genre, feminism, identity, and adolescent belonging, Mathijs concludes that Ginger Snaps deserves to be recognized as part of the Canadian canon, and that it is a model example of the kind of crossover cult film that remains unjustly undervalued by film scholars.

Throughout the history of cinema, horror has proven to be a genre of consistent popularity, which adapts to different cultural contexts while retaining a recognizable core. Horror Film: A Critical Introduction, the newest in Bloomsbury's Film Genre series, balances the discussions of horror's history, theory, and aesthetics as no introductory book ever has. Featuring studies of films both obscure and famous, Horror Film is international in its scope and chronicles horror from its silent roots until today. As a straightforward and convenient critical introduction to the history and key academic approaches, this book is accessible to the beginner but still of interest to the expert.