You know, it's funny--I have both of those BFI books and like them both (The Thing more, though that was always likely), and while I've noticed all the same stuff about Quirke's writing style that you have, it didn't put me off...because, essentially, I sort of saw it as her writing fan-fiction, or approaching the film completely from the POV of what it kicked off in her head rather than as an exterior object. Interesting.
Shock Value sounds fascinating. I'll have to check that out.
Are those the first two BFI books you've picked up, or do you have more?
Mark Kermode's The Exorcist and Kim Newman's Cat People are total keepers. I also got good stuff out of Amy Taubin's Taxi Driver, Ron White's The Third Man, Greil Marcus's The Manchurian Candidate, Nick James' Heat, Iain Sinclair's Crash (mainly for his portraits of Ballard and Cronenberg), Jonathan Rosenbaum's Dead Man and Mahnola Dargis's L.A. Confidential.
I'll second the BFI Exorcist book as very good. Has anyone written one about Kubrick's "The Shining" yet?
Re the films mentioned above, I got around to seeing "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in my 20s. The fact it was grainy and obviously low-budget only increased my unease, and then all the shots Tobe Hooper framed with open spots so it seemed like someone/-thing was about to jump out and fill that space chilled me further. The film was SO cheap I feared they might do anything. Even though they didn't, that anticipatory terror has stayed with me.
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Shock Value sounds fascinating. I'll have to check that out.
Are those the first two BFI books you've picked up, or do you have more?
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Re the films mentioned above, I got around to seeing "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in my 20s. The fact it was grainy and obviously low-budget only increased my unease, and then all the shots Tobe Hooper framed with open spots so it seemed like someone/-thing was about to jump out and fill that space chilled me further. The film was SO cheap I feared they might do anything. Even though they didn't, that anticipatory terror has stayed with me.
Jeff P.
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