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Episode one: US horror film and the capitalist crisis (1974​-​1985)

from AgitProp - Season one by AgitProp

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A full script for the episode is available here: medium.com/@jrbml.public/podcast-us-horror-film-and-the-capitalist-crisis-1974-1985-2dfc1a4d3ee3

AgitProp is a podcast discussing Marxist approaches to art and culture. The show is written and performed by James Bell. This episode covers the history of US horror film between 1974 and 1985, referred to as the ‘golden age of US horror film’. This decade saw the release of many of giants of the genre: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Alien and The Shining to name but a few. Crucially, this period saw a sharp rise and fall in the use of horror as a form of political commentary. In this episode, we ask the question: “Why?”

If you would like to support this work, please donate when downloading or in the link below. Any donation, no matter how small, would be an enormous help. You can follow me on Twitter for more regular updates on the link below too.

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Contents:

Introduction [00:00]
Part one: Horror as social fear [00:53]
Part two: Contextualising the golden age of US horror [08:20]
Part three: From social critique to servility [16:50]
Part four: The decline of political horror film [36:43]

[Square brackets indicate timestamps within the recording.]

Sources and further reading:

Ann Billson, Crash and squirm.
Harris Bomberguy, The Power of VHS | SCANLINE.
Naomi Merrit, Cannibalistic Capitalism and other American Delicacies. 
Matthew Pridham, Underneath the Skin: John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and You.
Paul Bullock and David Yaffe, Inflation, the Crisis and the Post-War Boom.

(Links in transcript for the episode.)

Episode list:

Episode one: US horror film and the capitalist crisis (1974–1985)
Episode two: Eisenstein’s October and the Bolshevik Revolution
Episode three: Propaganda, the state and Comrade Detective
Episode four: Digital monsters: Black Mirror in historical perspective
Episode five: Netflix, subscription fees and the future of streaming
Episode six: Review round-up
Episode seven: Cuba’s artistic revolution

credits

from AgitProp - Season one, released November 8, 2017
Writing, editing, art and performance by James Bell
Recording by Alex Bushell

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about

James R. Bell Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

James R. Bell is a Marxist-Leninst writer, poet & critic. They are editor of the RED blog for revolutionary art & culture, regularly contributing their own work for publication. They also write for the Communist newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, principally on austerity.

jrbml.wordpress.com
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