Posts by David Annandale

The horror film’s energy seems to move in cyclical patterns from country to country. At different points of the genre’s history, the best work tends to cluster geographically. I admit that my evidence for this is rather anecdotal, but let’s look at the patterns.

France is where it all begins, with Georges Méliès creating the first horror movies in 1896. The genre is, admittedly, in very embryonic form at this stage, but in the early years of the 20th Century, this is where the action is. The American film i...dustry, in its infancy, produces its fair share of early horrors (most notably the Thomas Edison-produced Frankenstein in 1910), but its day in the sun had not yet come. The real nexus of creativity for the first feature-length horror films would be Germany, beginning in 1913 with The Student of Prague, and hitting full steam with the Expressionist movement and the likes of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Golem, Nosferatu and so on.

Before anything else, some housecleaning. In my piece on BluRay and HD-DVD some time ago, I quoted Video Watchdog as saying the BluRay machines would not be backwards compatible. This has turned out, of course, to be inaccurate. Video Watchdog printed its correction, and I now follow suit.

Right, then. So, after a disappointing opening at the box office, the first reports about how Grindhouse will appear on DVD have surfaced, and that’s all the excuse I need to talk about the film again... now with the advantage of having seen it.

So Grindhouse is upon us, and fans of exploitation cinema everywhere are no doubt bathing in the warm glow of nostalgia for bygone sleaze and spooky cinemas many of us were too young to enter, but that nevertheless were surrounded by an aura of forbidden fascination. Here in Winnipeg, I remember, in my formative years as a film fan, being simultaneously frightened and attracted by the ad campaigns for movies playing at the likes of the Downtown and the Eve. The era has passed, of course, never to return, but t...e movies live on, often in DVD releases that present prints far more pristine than anything theatregoers would have experienced during the original releases. At any rate, in the name of nostalgia and history, here are a few books to completely immerse you in the grindhouse spirit.

A little digression first, however. Some time ago, I listed some worthwhile magazines in the field, and that Shock Cinema, in particular, is dedicated to keeping the spirit of Times Square and 42nd Street alive. Its website (www.shockcinemamagazine.com) opens up all sorts of further gloriously dubious avenues to explorer. Okay, end digression.