FILM 4801 – Cult & Exploitation Cinema
Email: michaelbass@clayton.edu
Office: A&S G121
Visitation Hours: MW 10:00am – 12:00pm or by appointment

Fall 2023 Full Course Syllabus

Course Readings (Password Protected)

Resources
Clayton State Academic Calendars
Clayton State Film, Communication, and Performing Arts Department
Clayton State Communications and Media Studies Department
Clayton State Film Production Department
Clayton State Film Production BA Suggested Course Sequence
Clayton State Disability Resource Center
(Some) Georgia Film Festivals!
SWANK – CSU Library’s Online Streaming Service!
Kanopy – CSU Library’s Other Online Streaming Service!
Hoopla – Atlanta-Fulton Public Library’s Streaming Service!
Atlanta Fulton County Public Library!
Criterion Channel
Shudder
Adblock Plus
Videodrome Atlanta
Midtown Art Cinema Atlanta
Plaza Theatre Atlanta
Film Terms Glossary
Box Office Mojo
Film-Related Podcasts
How to Email a Professor
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
Gauntlett, “Essay-Writing: The Essential Guide”
A Brief Guide to Writing Film Papers
More Paper Tips
What is a Scholarly Article?
How to Read Scholarly Articles
How to Find Scholarly Articles
Citation Styles Help
Midterm Review

Lecture Notes
Andersen – Plato’s Cave and Cinema
Azevedo – Fighting Two Wars: Night of the Living Dead
Balazs – The Close-Up
Balmain – The Rape-Revenge Film
Bartlett – Introduction: Bad Films and Badfilms
Benjamin – The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Benshoff – The Monster and the Homosexual
Bordwell & Thompson – Film Art: Ch. 9 – Film Genres
Bourdieu – Introduction to Distinction
Briggs, et al. – Cult Cinema: A Critical Symposium
Carroll – Why Horror?
Christensen – The Final Girl vs. Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street
Church – Memory, Genre, and Self-Narrativization
Ciment – Kubrick and the Fantastic
Clark – What Are Exploitation Movies?
Clark – Towards an Understanding of Exploitation Films
Clover – Her Body, Himself
Corwin & Ahearn – Interview with Charlie Ahearn
Creed – Film and the Uncanny Gaze
Curtis – The Haunted House
Doughty & Etherington-Wright – Audience Research and Reception
Du Gay, et al. – What is Culture? and Meanings and Practices
Eco – Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage
Frayling – The Innocents
Freud – Fetishism
Freud – The Uncanny & Todorov – Definition of the Fantastic
Green – The French Horror Film Martyrs
Hall – Encoding/Decoding
Hantke – Japanese Horror Under Western Eyes: Audition
Hawkins – The Scalpel’s Edge
Hawkins – Sleaze Mania, Euro-Trash, and High Art
Hebdige – The Function of Subculture
Henry – A Review of Get Out: On White Terror and the Black Body
Hoberman & Rosenbaum – El Topo: Through the Wasteland of Counterculture
Jancovich – Horror, The Film Reader – General Introduction
Jess-Cooke – Screaming, Slashing, Sequelling
Knee – Gender, Genre, Argento
Lacan – The Mirror Stage
Lazaro-Reboll – Alejandro Jodorosky and El Topo
Mathijs & Mendik – Editorial Introduction: What is Cult Film?
McDonagh – Suspiria and Inferno
Monteyne – The Sound of the South Bronx
Moulton – Midnight Movies
Mulvey – Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
Namaste – Sex Change, Social Change
Naremore – Horrorshow
Nguyen – Get Out and the Evolution of Race in Western Horror Films
Olney – Blood and Black Lace
Resmini – Reframing the New French Extremity
Ross – Uses of Camp
St. James – Why Cultural Criticism Matters
Sanjek – The Doll and the Whip
Schaefer – “An Attempt to ‘Commercialize Vice'”: Origins of the Exploitation Film
Sconce – ‘Trashing’ the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style
Smith – Enfreaking the Classic Horror Genre: Freaks
Smith – ‘It’s Just a Movie’: A Teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes
Sontag – Notes on ‘Camp’
Spadoni – The Mystery of Dracula
Staiger – Viewers of Stars, Cult Media, and Avant-Garde
Strohl – Artists’ Intentions and Bad Movie Greatness
Tallon – Through a Mirror, Darkly
Toles – If Thine Eye Offend Thee
Tudor – The Sleep of Reason
Wada-Maciano – J-Horror: New Media’s Impact
Waddell – Cannibalizing Tradition: Romero’s Zombies and a Blood Feast
Wee – Terrifying Images: Ringu and The Ring
Williams – Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess
Wood – The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s (excerpt)
Wood – The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s (Full)
Wood – Psycho
Worland – The Horror Film, Ch. 1 – Introduction: Undying Monsters
Worland – The Horror Film, Ch. 2 – A Short History of the Horror Film: Beginnings to 1945
Worland – The Horror Film, Ch. 9 – Slaughtering Genre Tradition: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Wright – Genre Films and the Status Quo

The Bass Clan!