Some films should never have been made. They are too unsettling, too dangerous, too challenging, too outrageous and even too badly made to be let loose on unsuspecting audiences. Yet these films, from the shocking Cannibal Holocaust to the apocalyptic Donnie Darko, from the destructive Tetsuo to the awfully bad The Room, from the hilarious This Is Sp?¨nal Tap to the campy Showgirls, from the asylum of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari to the circus of Freaks, from the gangs of The Warriors to the gangsters of In Bruges and from the flamboyant Rocky Horror Picture Show to the ultimate cool of The Big Lebowski, have all garnered passionate fan followings. Cult cinema has made tragic misfits, monsters and cyborgs, such as Edward Scissorhands or Blade Runner's replicants, heroes of our times. 100 Cult Films explains why these figures continue to inspire fans around the globe. Cult film experts Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik round up the most cultish of giallo, blaxploitation, anime, sexploitation, zombie, vampire and werewolf films, exploring both the cults that live hidden inside the underground (Nekromantik, Café Flesh) and the cult side of the mainstream (Dirty Dancing, The Lord of the Rings, and even The Sound of Music). 100 Cult Films is a true trip around the world, providing a lively and illuminating guide to films from more than a dozen countries, across nine decades, representing a wide range of genres and key cult directors such as David Cronenberg, Terry Gilliam and David Lynch. Drawing on exclusive interviews with some of the world's most iconic cult creators and performers, including Dario Argento, Pupi Avati, Alex Cox, Ruggero Deodato, Jesús Franco, Lloyd Kaufman, Harry Kümel, H. G. Lewis, Christina Lindberg, Takashi Miike, Franco Nero, George A. Romero and Brian Yuzna, and featuring a foreword by cult director Joe Dante, 100 Cult Films is your ultimate ticket to the midnight movie show.

""An invaluable collection for anyone researching or teaching cult cinema ... "The Cult Film Reader" is an authoritative text that should be of value to any student or researcher interested in challenging and transgressive cinema that pushes the boundaries of conventional cinema and film studies."
Science Fiction Film and Television

""A really impressive and comprehensive collection of the key writings in the field. The editors have done a terrific job in drawing together the various traditions and providing a clear sense of this rich and rewarding scholarly terrain. This collection is as wild and diverse as the films that it covers. Fascinating."
Mark Jancovich, Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of East Anglia, UK

"It's about time the lunatic fans and loyal theorists of cult movies were treated to a book they can call their own. The effort and knowledge contained in "The Cult Film Reader" will satisfy even the most ravenous zombie's desire for detail and insight. This book will gnaw, scratch and infect you just like the cult films themselves."
Brett Sullivan, Director of Ginger Snaps Unleashed and The Chair

""The Cult Film Reader" is a great film text book and a fun read."
John Landis, Director of The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London and Michael Jackson's Thriller"

""Excellent overview of the subject, and a comprehensive collection of significant scholarship in the field of cult film. Very impressive and long overdue.""
" Steven Rawle, York St John University, UK"

Whether defined by horror, kung-fu, sci-fi, sexploitation, kitsch musical or 'weird world cinema', cult movies and their global followings are emerging as a distinct subject of film and media theory, dedicated to dissecting the world's unruliest images.

This book is the world's first reader on cult film. It brings together key works in the field on the structure, form, status, and reception of cult cinema traditions. Including work from key established scholars in the field such as Umberto Eco, Janet Staiger, Jeffrey Sconce, Henry Jenkins, and Barry Keith Grant, as well as new perspectives on the gradually developing canon of cult cinema, the book not only presents an overview of ways in which cult cinema can be approached, it also re-assesses the methods used to study the cult text and its audiences.

With editors' introductions to the volume and to each section, the book is divided into four clear thematic areas of study - The Conceptions of Cult; Cult Case Studies; National and International Cults; and Cult Consumption - to provide an accessible overview of the topic. It also contains an extensive bibliography for further related readings.

Written in a lively and accessible style, "The Cult Film Reader" dissects some of biggest trends, icons, auteurs and periods of global cult film production. Films discussed include "Casablanca," "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," "Eraserhead," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Showgirls" and "Ginger Snaps."

"Essays by: Jinsoo An; Jane Arthurs; Bruce Austin; Martin Barker; Walter Benjamin; Harry Benshoff; Pierre Bourdieu; Noel Carroll; Steve Chibnall; Umberto Eco; Nezih Erdogan; Welch Everman; John Fiske; Barry Keith Grant; Joan Hawkins; Gary Hentzi; Matt Hills; Ramaswami Harindranath; J.Hoberman; Leon Hunt; I.Q. Hunter; Mark Jancovich; Henry Jenkins; Anne Jerslev; Siegfried Kracauer; Gina Marchetti; Tom Mes; Gary Needham; Sheila J. Nayar; Annalee Newitz; Lawrence O'Toole; Harry Allan Potamkin; Jonathan Rosenbaum; Andrew Ross; David Sanjek; Eric Schaefer; Steven Jay Schneider; Jeffrey Sconce; Janet Staiger; J.P. Telotte; Parker Tyler; Jean Vigo; Harmony Wu"

This collection focuses on 1970s films from a variety of countries, and from the marginal to the mainstream, which, by tackling various 'difficult' subjects, have proved to be controversial in one way or another. It is not an uncritical celebration of the shocking and the subversive but an attempt to understand why this decade produced films which many found shocking, and what it was that made them shocking to certain audiences. To this end it includes not only films that shocked the conventionally minded, such as hard core pornography, but also those that outraged liberal opinion - for example, Death Wish and Dirty Harry. The book does not simply cast a critical light on a series of controversial films which have been variously maligned, misinterpreted or just plain ignored, but also assesses how their production values, narrative features and critical receptions can be linked to the wider historical and social forces that were dominant during this decade. Furthermore, it explores how these films resonate in our own historical moment - replete as it is with shocks of all kinds.

Whether defined by the carnivalesque excesses of Troma studios ( "The Toxic Avenger"), the arthouse erotica of Radley Metzger and Doris Wishman, or the narrative experimentations of Abel Ferrara, Melvin Van Peebles, Jack Smith, or Harmony Korine, underground cinema has achieved an important position within American film culture. Often defined as "cult" and "exploitation" or "alternative" and "independent," the American underground retains separate strategies of production and exhibition from the cinematic mainstream, while its sexual and cinematic representations differ from the traditionally conservative structures of the Hollywood system. "Underground U.S.A." offers a fascinating overview of this area of maverick moviemaking by considering the links between the experimental and exploitative traditions of the American underground.

From mediations on explicit imagery and profiles of prominent performers to discussions of national nudities and the titillating thrills of new technologies, cine-erotica has become a significant and subversive category of contemporary film, media, and cultural studies.

Expanding on recent work in gender, cultural, and audience-based studies, "Peep Shows: Cult Film and the Cine-Erotic" examines the global traditions of cult erotica, explaining key patterns, paradigms, and performers from the world of cult celluloid sexuality. "Peep Shows" includes profiles of porn performers and icons such as Ron Jeremy, Betty Page, Catherine Breillat, and Joe D'Amato. Essays also provides case studies of contemporary porn parodies, lesbian erotica, Japanese Pink porn cinema, Caf? Flesh, the Seduction cinema label, the dominatrix in erotic cinema, female porn viewers, burlesque cinema programming, and porno chic soundtracks. The volume features exclusive interviews with erotic performers Seka, Buck Angel, Misty Mundae, Christina 'Thriller' Lindberg, and the prolific porn producer, Michael L. Raso.

* Cover image from VIVA (c) 2007 by Anna Biller

This collection focuses on 1970s films from a variety of countries, and from the marginal to the mainstream, which, by tackling various ‘difficult’ subjects, have proved to be controversial in one way or another. It is not an uncritical celebration of the shocking and the subversive but an attempt to understand why this decade produced films which many found shocking, and what it was that made them shocking to certain audiences. To this end it includes not only films that shocked the conventionally minded, such as hard core pornography, but also those that outraged liberal opinion – for example, Death Wish and Dirty Harry. The book does not simply cast a critical light on a series of controversial films which have been variously maligned, misinterpreted or just plain ignored, but also assesses how their production values, narrative features and critical receptions can be linked to the wider historical and social forces that were dominant during this decade. Furthermore, it explores how these films resonate in our own historical moment – replete as it is with shocks of all kinds.