The American Nightmare
A Celebration Of Films From Horror's Golden Age Of Fright
Disfigured knife-wielding murderers. Buxom teens fleeing for their lives through dark woods. Hordes of the undead limping along deserted streets. These images, now synonymous with horror movies, were born in the groundbreaking films of horror masters such as Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street), John Carpenter (The Fog, Christine), and George Romero (Dawn of the Dead).
Go behind-the-scenes with these and other filmmaking greats, as they reveal their inspiration for the disturbingly gruesome films that emerged during the 1960s and 70s. Exploding with clips from fright favorites including Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, Shivers, The Last House on the Left, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Independent Film Channel's The American Nightmare celebrates the "golden age of horror" with the legends who brought the horror genre back from the dead.
Member Reviews
Historical and Cultural Contexts of a Film Genre - Pantagruel
This concise documentary closely analyses the contexts in which directors such as George A. Romero, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, and David Cronenberg created the seminal films of the horror genre. The directors prove themselves erudite and out-theorize the scholars Tom Gunning and Carol Clover, who give somewhat feeble renditions of some of the harder theory one finds in their scholarly publications. But that may well be one of The American Nightmare's highlights: even academics get frightened! And of course they do. Taking into account the perils of war, the ambivalences and ambiguities of the sexual revolution, and the reigning fists of American greed and hypocrisy, this documentary describes the horror genre, not in terms of imaginary villains and self-indulgent gore, but as a Nietzschean abyss, a mirror devoted to reflecting terror in the real world.
Member Reviews
Read All...
Historical and Cultural Contexts of a Film Genre - Pantagruel
This concise documentary closely analyses the contexts in which directors such as George A. Romero, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, and David Cronenberg created the seminal films of the horror genre. The directors prove themselves erudite and out-theorize ...