Blood Money

"Future historians of the horror genre who ignore Nowell's insights into a major transitional period in the relationship between independent producers and the major studios will do so at their own peril." Kevin Heffernan, author of Ghouls, Gimmicks and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business, 1953-1968

"Challenging numerous myths along the way, this impeccably researched study sheds new light not only on slasher films and cycles, but on the nature, structure and practices of independent production in North America in the 1970s and 1980s. Highly recommended." Professor Steve Neale, University of Exeten

"Meticulously researched and forcefully argued... Offers new insights into how films, filmmaking and film marketing operated in the North American film industry of the 1970s and early 1980s." Peter Kramer, University of East Anglia, UK, author of The New Hollywood (2005)

Scholars have consistently applied psychoanalytic models to representations of gender in early teen slasher films in order to claim that these were formulaic. excessively violent exploitation films, fashioned to satisfy the misogynist fantasies of teenage boys and grind house patrons. However, by examining the commercial logic, strategies and objectives of the American and Canadian independents that produced the films and the companies that distributed them in the US. Blood Money demonstrates that filmmakers and marketers actually went to extraordinary lengths to make early teen slashers attractive to female youth, to minimize displays of violence, gore and suffering and to invite comparisons to a wide range of post-classical Hollywood's biggest hits---including Love Story and Saturday Night Fever. Richard Nowell is a film scholar who has lectured at leading universities in the UK and Germany. His work can also be seen in Cinema Journal the Journal of Film and Video, and Post Script.