The death film may or may not be transgressive, but it can certainly shock-which is what this book also aims to do, at least to a degree, through its scene-by-scene descriptions and its own participation as an ''illustrated history'' in the lurid visualities of its subject matter, showing off various grainy stills and film posters and so on. Creation Books, like ReSearch, has specialized in this sort of thing, and both publishers are ideologically attached to the idea of ''transgression'' in relation to the work they uncover-sometimes naiïvely and sometimes with justification. It is one of a number of books around the place that chronicles trash culture, forms of cinema in this case which are so lowbrow that to look at them would in itself be an act of transgression. Killing for Culture is a detailed genealogy of films which feature scenes of actual deaths: tribal massacre films, ''snuff'' films, autopsy films, filmed suicides, Satanic abuse movies, and so on. Killing for Culture: An Illustrated History of Death Film from Mondo to Snuffĭavid Kerekes and David Slater London and San Francisco: Creation Books, 1994, 1995, 1998 284pp.
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