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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An Interesting Diagnosis,
By A Customer
This review is from: Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Films of the Stalker Cycle (Hardcover)
Games of terror:Halloween, Friday the 13th,and the films of the stalker cycle is a fascinating diagnosis of the genre and avid horror movie fans won't be dissapointed. The Friday the 13th section is particularly informative and gives one an idea of how the atmosphere was created. However for casual horror fans this book might prove a little dissapointing. For example the Halloween section only went over old facts and wasn't very good. Vera Dika does write a good description of the rapid rise of the slasher genre and that was the most interesting part of the book. In conclusion all casual fans would be better off buying a DVD of their favorite horror title, for that has interviews and directors commentary which is better. For seasond horror fans add an extra star to this review and buy it!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Jason and Cropsey Go to NYU,
By
This review is from: Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Films of the Stalker Cycle (Hardcover)
Games of Terror is actually an extended version of Vera Dika's NYU cinema studies PhD dissertation from the mid-1980s. She examines the 'slasher' film from a psychoanalytic point of view and carefully reviews several 'canonical' entries in the genre.Most movie fans don't delve into film theory, as it is not an easily accessible academic world for most moviegoers, and certainly not for the casual Jason or Freddy fan. That said, Games of Terror is still a careful and deliberate effort to define and analyze a body of films, discuss persistent themes, story elements, and plot points, and comment on meaning. Dika spends a good amount of time defining the gener (the "stalker cycle"), The resulting 'what it all means' is really food for thought, and some of it is interesting and may even spark discussion. Again, this is not Sergei Eisenstein or an examination of experimental films of the 1960s, but it's always intriguing to read a serious critical analysis of what is often considered low-brow entertainment. Many fans may indeed wonder if there's something really 'there', or if it's just a bunch of hacks trying to make a buck by following a tried and true formula. Freudian-themed palimpsest? Or Canadian-made, quick-buck tax flick? Looks like the book is out of print, and I see whopping prices from second market sellers for the hardcover (I don't believe there was ever a paperback). Difficult to recommend at such high prices. I would check out libraries...and if you live in NYC, a reading membership at NYU library would be cheaper than some of the prices I've seen!
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Good and Intellectual Look at the Slasher Film,
This review is from: Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Films of the Stalker Cycle (Hardcover)
Vera Dika's "Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Films of the Stalker Cycle" (1990) is an interesting book which documents the rise and success of "stalker" movies. Dika defines stalker films as "low-budget, independently produced works that reached national distribution" and locates them during the years 1978 to 1981 (p. 11). The stalker formula "is best identified by a predominately off-screen killer who is known primarily by his/her distinctive point-of-view shots" (p. 14). Such visual cues and repetition of motifs turn these highly predictable movies into games: "[T]he anti-illusion, or, at least, the lowered realism, functions to lighten and necessarily distance the effects of extreme violence depicted on-screen, a technique that ultimately facilitates a gaming attitude toward the films" (p. 23). Perhaps the most interest part of Dika's book is found at the end when she examines why stalker movies would attain immense popularity during the early Eighties: "The stalker film does not urge its audience to watch out for monsters from outer space, or, as did the science fiction film of the fifties, for alien forces that threaten our society. Instead, it explains to an insular community how self-awareness, a more conservatives stance in personal and sexual matters, and (as did the Western) the readiness to use violence are once again the attitudes that will best ensure survival" (p. 138). A very good--and intellectual--book for someone interested in the horror genre.
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