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inRetro: inSide Books, Shock Value by Jason Zinoman
While we’re on vacation, inRetro takes a look back at our most popular articles since launch. The best part about this book review was the exchange in the comments section between the article’s author and the author of the book being reveiwed:
The response to Shock Value–Jason Zinoman’s exploration of the horror films of the 70s–has been decidedly curious. Horror fans are a notoriously booster happy bunch, yet the response to Shock Value from genre fans has been muted at best, hostile at worst. Perhaps Glenn Kenny summed up the prevalent attitude of horror fans best when he dismissively remarked, “It’s a horror primer for Dana Stevens, Dan Kois and a bunch of other Slate writers/readers who otherwise would never have been bothered, and now think they’re onto something because they can say they’ve actually HEARD of Mario Bava….” before amending, “The shame is that Zinoman’s clearly both intelligent and enthusiastic and could have produced something better.”
In the meantime, reviews from the mainstream press, usually not an outlet to praise either books about horror or books of film criticism, have been downright enthusiastic in their admiration, earning raves in such noted horror repositories as Entertainment Weekly and NPR.
This fairly schizoid response is perhaps fitting for a fairly schizoid book. Shock Value is at its core a brisk engaging piece of film history that has the misfortune to be stapled to an ungainly, speciously-reasoned piece of film criticism.
Let’s start with the good. Zinoman’s work as a historian is well researched. He draws nuanced sympathetic portraits of under-explored figures such as Dan O’Bannon and William Peter Blatty. He manages to get most everyone on the record, and never plays softball or crosses over into mere fanboyishness. He writes in a lucid style with an understated, sharp wit. He is also occasionally an insightful critic as well, making connections between horror and the absurdist theater of the sixties, birth imagery, and the influence of surrealist Italian Horror on the more narrative powered American strain that few have bothered to make.
Now for the problems.
Zinoman piles up the critical fallacies, making logical leaps that suggest he has either had every interview on the couch for an extended period of time, or is at the very least a low grade psychic. His anti-auteurist bent crops up as persistently and inappropriately as a case of Tourettes, until his chapter on DePalma, where he somewhat perversely decides to embrace it. He also takes short cuts, such on his disappointingly shallow take on Mario Bava, where he talks about the birth of the gialli movement with The Girl Who Knew Too Much without even mentioning that the film is a light comedy that has much more in common with Charade than The Black Belly Of The Tarantula.
Most damningly (and this is what seems to have pissed off horror fans) is the way that Zinoman overstates his case. In an effort to establish the importance of 70s’ filmmakers, he denigrates the horror that had come before it. He shows no respect for the works of Tod Browning and James Whale and does not even mention the pioneering work of Murnau and the German Expressionists. He dismisses Val Lewton with a left handed compliment and does not even mention significant precursors to the “New Horror” like Michael Reeves. Zinoman plays with a stacked deck and those of us who really love the stuff cannot help but cry foul.
Yet for all my grousing, I must tip my hat to Zinoman. He has written a book that aims to get people to engage horror who otherwise wouldn’t, and in that he has been resoundingly successful. We horror fans can get a pretty good grumble going, but perhaps we should acknowledge that engaging new fans is more important than another round of preaching to the converted.
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Elsewhere inReads: Find out which YA horror novel author Holly Black was reading when we caught up with her and Ellen Kushner in a Whatcha Reading video. Also, which five movies didn’t make the cut for Zinoman’s book.
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About The Author:
Bryce Wilson
A freelance writer, unrepentant literature and film junkie and bookseller, Bryce Wilson is a recent California transplant living in Austin (he moved for the waters). Between bouts with his trunk novels, he has written for the San Luis Obispo New Times as a retro film critic for the past five years. You can also find his musings on his film blog Things That Don’t Suck (thingthatdontsuck.blogspot.com) and his horror blog Son Of Danse Macabre (sonofdansemacabre.blogspot.com).
Jason Zinoman posted on August 15, 2011
Bryce,
I liked your list of five movies I did not mention in Shock Value – every one worthy of its own book. And I’m not sure why you think I am denigrating film-makers who I don’t mention. The book is not a survey of horror movies in the 20th century. It’s a reported book ( i sure tried to have every interview for an extended period of time although it was usually in chairs, not couches) about a discrete period in horror that I do believe was a golden age, but that does not mean i don’t believe that great horror wasn’t made before or after. As for the auteur theory, to clarify: I find it useful, but through my reporting, I came to the conclusion that these movies were often much more works of collaboration than they have been given credit for.
But what’s most strange is your assertion that the response among horror fans has been muted or hostile. We could compare what we’ve heard from friends and movie people but that’s silly. This is a book that has received dozens of reviews, most of them from the horror press. You don’t mention any of them. So the evidence is easy to find. Check out Fangoria or Bloody Disgusting or Freddy in Space or Monsterland or Retro Slashers or any of the many, many others (Shock Value FB page has close to them all). I disagree with you that they are a “notoriously booster happy bunch.” I have been hugely impressed by the quality of thought and prose of the reviews from the horror press. You would benefit from taking a look.
Best, Jason Zinoman
Bryce Wilson posted on August 16, 2011
Jason,
I can certainly understand what you are saying and you make good points.
First though I want to say that I have to stand by what I say about the bias the book takes against Pre ’68 Horror films. You’re absolutely correct that omitting the study of films and filmmakers alone wouldn’t be denigration but as your thesis tends to describe “old horror” in terms of camp and gimmicks, as kids stuff. With phrases like “Karloff represented the cobwebs of a spooky castle, cheap advertising campaigns, the lurching monster-in other words old horror.” And “Romero mocks the conventions of the Old Horror movie as betraying any sense of reality.” You are criticizing the films implicitly if not explicitly and in a way I simply felt wasn’t accurate. I bet most people today would find Freaks tougher watch than Last House On The Left (Which I think Stephen King summed up nicely as “Abbot And Costello Meet The Rapists”.) And I think Val Lewton certainly made more than “modest Freudian films.”
That said, I can certainly understand your position on the auteur theory, and of course with the extensive research you’ve done you’re more than earned it. It’s just the sudden right turn that was taken at the DePalma chapter that through me. As I will admit it is mostly the Hitchcock material that inspired “The Couch” comment. (
As for the reviews, it is true that I made my comment based mostly on dialogue with other horror fans. I try to keep up with as much horror literature as I can (My go to girl on that front remains Stacie Ponder, with a side of Drew McWeeney, and some Scott Weinberg as well.) but I will cite Bill Ryan, and the afore mentioned Glenn Kenny, just to demonstrate what I’m saying isn’t unfounded. I would go ahead and add The Deadly Doll’s House Of Horror Nonsense to your list of popular reviews. In hindsight mixed would be a more appropriate word than muted. Though I think I said what I meant to the first time out which was merely “curious” and in reference as much to the positive response by the mainstream.
That said, I will also stand by my comment that horror fans are a booster happy bunch. As I meant it as a sincere compliment. What other group of fandom is more or less self sustaining? Just look at “Before The Mask’s” Facebook Page, I’ve seen horror fans rally around something they really love too many times for it to be otherwise. They might not always succeed (The swift retraction of Hatchet II from AMC theaters springs to mind) but they always give it their best shot. If Attack The Block goes nation wide it will be because of them. There’s a lot of truth in this Faracci article (http://www.chud.com/19627/chud-quick-list-6-reasons-why-horror-fans-make-the-best-film-fans/
Anyway I certainly have an enormous amount of respect for what you’ve accomplished, the amount of work you put into it and your passion. I was sincere when I made the compliment about starting a dialogue with people who usually wouldn’t. If we disagree in a some key places in our understanding of the genre that’s natural. Hopefully you understand the spirit of debate it is intended in.
All The Best,
Bryce
Bryce Wilson posted on August 16, 2011
And while I’m tipping my hat to my must read writers on the Horror Genre better mention Tim Lucas, Kim Newman, Bill Ryan’s “31 Days Of Slash” and of course Stephen King’s Danse Macabre. All essential reading for any horror fan.
Bryce Wilson posted on August 16, 2011
…And Joe Bob Briggs.
Jason Zinoman posted on August 16, 2011
Bryce,
I am not going to deny that i love the horror films from this era more than any other. I do and as a grumbling, not-at-all boosterish horror fan, that’s my right to stake an opinionated claim and then defend it to the death. But where i think you misunderstand me is that this book began not as a work of criticism, but as a work of reporting informed by a critical point of view. And what i discovered from talking to the directors of this period is that THEY saw the Old Horror as campy and not scary and out of date. And that THEY made movies in reaction to Vincent Price and Hammer. Some of them also loved those movies, but when i talk about what karloff represented to Peter B, my main goal is to try to explain how they movies got made the way they did. And my opinion, based on talking to directors, is that they set out to do something new and take horror in a different direction. To properly understand that shift, i wanted to map what they viewed as the horror scene then. That’s more important than what i think, because i didn’t make Last House on the Left. Craven did. Now maybe he isn’t the best critic of his own work, but i think on the ground reporting is a valuable tool to understanding the genre. That said, do i think that Alien and Texas Chainsaw Massacre are scarier than Freaks? Do i think Last House is more unsettling? Yes and yes. You can disagree and we can battle it out. As i say in the book, fear is as subjective as beauty.
As for horror fans, i know what you’re saying and i probably felt the same way before writing this book and reading reviews. But what i have found by reading scores of sites and magazine is a tremendous diversity of opinion and far deeper thinking than what i found in the major paper reviews. I also think the distinction between horror and nonhorror is not so clear. Glenn kenny may be a horror fan but he reviews everything. Laura Miller is a book critic for Salon but she is as smart about horror as anyone, and her review of my book, which includes praise and criticism, demonstrates that. The fact that Stacie Ponder (whose work i admire) and a few other of your friends didn’t like the book only proves my point. If you google search reviews, you will find that your characterization of the horror press’s response is straight-up wrong, no question about it. That doesn’t mean some people didn’t hate the book. They did. But as someone who loves a good critical spat, i wouldn’t have it any other way.
Add to your reading list Cynthia Freeland’s The Naked and the Undead, the best academic book on horror i’ve read in a long time. best, jason
Bryce Wilson posted on August 16, 2011
Jason you’re telling me that Horror fans and press are a diverse group with wildly divergent opinions, all of which voted in a unanimously positive block. I’m sorry but those are two contradictory arguments. Though I have to admit that characterizing the dissenting opinion as “a few of my friends” rankles. I can assure you that I wasn’t hanging out with some buddies behind a theater before turning to one and saying “I’m going to screw up Zinoman’s parade!” I gauged the opinions of the horror community based on the reviews I encountered and the opinions I heard expressed by horror fans and called it like I saw it. You can of course disagree with what I said, and as I already conceded there have been plenty of positive reviews. But there was nothing malicious in my approach, and as I already pointed out it’s not like I just made these reviews and opinions up. I gave quotes and cited sources, so questioning my professionalism seems a bit uncalled for.
As for the pre ’68 Horror, I think you walk the line between reportage and criticism in it. Sometimes it’s the filmmakers but just as often you are clearly giving your own opinion. Which obviously you have the right to it’s your book. As well as the right to “defend it to the death.” if you so choose. Just as I have the right to say that the films are more sophisticated, both stylistically and thematically, than you give them credit for and that your book talks about them in generalizations that I feel are unwarranted. As you said, not talking about something is not the same as denigrating them but there are such things as sins of omission and I believe that your book commits a few. I have to say I was particularly surprised to find no mention of The Witchfinder General in the text, as it was as sure a work of new horror as has been made, but made entirely from “Old Horror” Iconography. Especially as it starred Vincent Price, who you present as the standard bearer for musty Old Horror. How’s that for world’s colliding?
There were other things as well, like when you’re listing off the old horror stars who were dying at the end of the sixties, and included Lon Chaney. Who died in 1930. I’m presuming this was a typo and you were referring to Lon Chaney Jr., but he joined the choir invisible in 1973, some half decade after the time period you were referencing. It was omissions and generalizations such as these that I felt hurt the text, not just your opinion.
Like I said, I certainly do respect the work you put into this, I gave the book a hearty thumbs up as a work of film history and a discussion starter. And I certainly can’t argue with results. But my complaints were neither unfounded or unsupported.
Bryce Wilson posted on August 16, 2011
That said I look forward to reading The Naked And The Undead as soon as possible. And will take the opportunity to tip my hat to one horror scholar I forgot to mention, Tim Brayton of the superlative Antagony & Ecstasy.
Jason Zinoman posted on August 16, 2011
I never said horror people voted unanimously. I said your characterization that horror fans’s response was muted at best, hostile at worst is wrong. Then i gave you evidence to back it up. I never called you malicious or questioned your professionalism or said you were raining on my parade. What can i saw, Bryce? I just didn’t do that. Frankly, i find your response awfully defensive. Where we disagree is that you think your statement that the response from horror folk was hostile or muted is founded and supported with sufficient evidence. I don’t. And i wonder if the new evidence i presented has changed your mind at all.
I do agree that my book does mix reporting and criticism, and while i think you engaged with it on the latter, what i tried to do here is try and clarify my intentions with the former. The rest of your criticisms i appreciate, i really do. I respect your opinion, and the more criticism and debate, the better. And now, im afraid, a deadline looms so must go finish a review. All the best, jz
Bryce Wilson posted on August 16, 2011
Well I can certainly appreciate that Jason. And would that I had a hindsight time machine (would that we all) I would certainly change the word “muted” at the very least. Nothing that has provoked this much discussion could be called that.
I appreciate where you are coming from and thank you for taking the time to discuss your work. I very much look forward to what comes next.
Take Care,
Bryce