Selling the Splat Pack

This book reveals the role of the DVD market in the growth of ultraviolent horror in the 2000s. This study reveals the history of how the emergence of the DVD market changed cultural and industrial attitudes about horror movies and film ratings. These changes made way for increasingly violent horror films, like those produced by the Splat Pack, a group of filmmakers who were heralded in the press as subversive outsiders. Taking a different tack, this study proposes that the films of the Splat Pack were products of, rather than reactions against, film industry policy. It blends study of the film industry with analysis of films such as the Saw and Hostel franchises. Features a timely combination of film industry studies with film genre studies; presents a re evaluation of the history of the horror film from an industry studies perspective; an exploration of the relationship between DVDs and film ratings; and interdisciplinary analysis of several recent significant horror films.