Description
This study discusses some of the key instances of this subgenre, such as Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985), Jumanji (1995), and Small Soldiers (1998), as well as its more recent resurgence in Stranger Things (2016-) and IT (2017). Exploring the importance of suburbia as a setting and the questionable ideological blindness of its heroes, this book reveals these underappreciated Hollywood films as the primary cinematic representation of late-twentieth-century American childhood.
About the Author
Angus McFadzean is a tutor in English literature at the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education.
Reviews
McFadzean's basic claims are cogent and illuminating. -- Rob Latham * SFRA Review *
Suburban Fantastic Cinema is a master class in film genre criticism. It offers careful and close analysis of the films in its corpus, and is a great example of how much meaning is latent in popular films that are sometimes dismissed as merely juvenile or crassly commercial. -- Bradley Schauer, University of Arizona
Suburban Fantastic Cinema offers thorough, knowledgeable, and erudite criticism of an important subgenre of American cinema, one that has previously been only cursorily explored in the literature despite its deep ideological, aesthetic, and economic influences. -- James Kendrick, Baylor University
Book Information
ISBN 9780231189958
Author Angus McFadzean
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press