This essential book outlines a valuable new approach to understanding slasher films in their post-postmodern era. Through detailed and compelling analysis, Steve Jones sheds new light on the contemporary subgenre, offers valuable frameworks for understanding metamodernism, and situates the metamodern slasher as another example of the horror genre’s evolutionary potential.

- Laura Mee, University of Hertfordshire,

Following in the footsteps of Vera Dika and Carol J. Clover, Steve Jones proposes that the unique tone and sensibility of contemporary slashers are in meaningful dialogue with the theoretical zeitgeist. Elegantly written, exhaustively researched and ambitious in scope, The Metamodern Slasher Film demonstrates that metamodernist frameworks hold real potential to revitalise debates on the cultural value of the horror genre.

- Xavier Aldana Reyes, author of Gothic Cinema (2020) and Horror Film and Affect (2016),

It is commonly proposed that since the mid-2000s, the slasher subgenre has been dominated by unoriginal remakes of "classics". Consequently, most original slasher films have been ignored by academics (and critics), leaving the field with a limited understanding of this highly popular subgenre. This book corrects that mischaracterisation by analysing contemporary slasher films that sincerely attempt to innovate within the subgenre. I argue that these films reflect broader cultural turns towards sincerity, optimism in the face of crisis, and an emphasis on felt experience that are indicative of a metamodern sensibility. This is the first book to use metamodernism to analyse film in a sustained way, and the first academic work to use metamodernism to examine horror. The Metamodern Slasher offers readers new ways to understand the slasher film, the horror genre, and also the cultural moment we find ourselves in.
Les mer
Argues that contemporary slasher films embody a turn towards the metamodern sensibility
Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: From Postmodern to Metamodern Slasher Chapter 2: Investment (Epistemology) Chapter 3: Coherence (Ontology) Chapter 4: Conventionality Chapter 5: Subtraction Chapter 6: Hypercoding Chapter 7: Nostalgia Chapter 8: Remake, Sequel, Reboot, Requel Chapter 9: The New Icons Conclusion Bibliography Filmography
Les mer
Debunks the prevailing idea that the slasher film has consisted mainly of remakes since the mid-2000s via its detailed examination of contemporary American slasher films that have been largely overlooked by critics and scholars
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781399520959
Publisert
2024-02-01
Utgiver
Edinburgh University Press
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
312

Forfatter

Biografisk notat

Steve Jones is Assistant Professor in Media and Film at Northumbria University, where he leads the Horror Studies Research Group. His research principally focuses on sex, violence, ethics and selfhood within horror and pornography. He is the author of The Metamodern Slasher Film (2024), Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw (2013), and his work has been published in Feminist Media Studies, New Review of Film and Television Studies, Sexualities, and Film-Philosophy. He is a founding member of the BAFTSS Special Interest Groups for Horror, Film-Philosophy and Screening Sex. He is also on the editorial board of Porn Studies journal, and the 21st Century Horror and Hidden Horror Histories book series. For more information, please visit www.drstevejones.co.uk.