Offensive Films: Toward an Anthropology of ‘Cinema Vomitif’

The films discussed in this book have been labeled cinéma vomitif because they induce a visceral response in their audience. They are an underground hybrid of slasher movies, exploitation films, and shock-u-mentaries. Taking a serious look at a taboo subject, Brottman argues that these scandalous films are of far more substance than has been previously assumed. Their consistent appeal to our repressed appetites, libidinal instincts, and fascination with flesh and death has much to tell us about the human condition. Films analyzed include the voyeuristic Freaks (1932), the traumatic psychodrama The Tingler (1959), the succés de scandale The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1976), the Italian shocker Cannibal Holocaust (1983), and two recent series of live death shock-u-mentaries, Death Scenes and Faces of Death (1989-1994). These movies, shunned from mainstream cinema because they are too offensive, obscene, marginal or bizarre, are considered here for the first time as an important part of the cinematic canon.