Xavier Mendik
Profile
Xavier Mendik is the Director of the Cult Film Archive, University College Northampton.Director of the Cult Film Archive in Northampton, UK, Mendik has unlimited energy and an undying love for cult films. He interviews the world’s top directors on a regular basis (http://www.kamera.co.uk/interviews/index.html), publishes frequently in scholarly journals, has edited several anthologies including Unruly Pleasures: The Cult Film and its Critics (FAB Press, 2000) and Shocking Cinema of the Seventies (Noir Publishing, 2001), runs the Cult Film Archive, is beginning a new scholarly journal on cult and popular cinema, Alterimage, and even finds the time to work with DVD manufacturers (he was fundamental in instigating the DVD release of Abel Ferrara’s Driller Killer). His paper, “Monstrous Sex: Horror, Eroticism and Cult Constructions of the ‘Other’ in the Black Emanuelle Films,” will be on Black Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, a bizarre soft-porn and gore-fest movie in one.
Books
- Alternative Europe, Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945 (2004) - Ernest Mathijs, Xavier Mendik [Amazon US] [FR]
[DE]
[UK]
A previously unexplored area of film studies which is becoming increasingly more popular within the academic arenaFeaturing over 20 essays from an eclectic range of writers, this book focuses on topics such as Italian nunsploitation films, Black emmanuelle films, German porn, Italian Nazi exploitation cinema, Belgian alternative cinema, Russian horror, British exploitation cinema and Swedish rape and revenge film. Includes interviews with cult trash directors such as Jess Fanco and Brian Yuzna. Features foreword by film-maker Jean Rollin.
See also: Ernest Mathijs
- Unruly Pleasures: The Cult Film and Its Critics (2000) - Xavier Mendik (Editor), Graham Harper (Editor) [Amazon US]
This shady tome's said "pleasures" will only be so for the most select audience. But it's both fun and informative, exposing many a cult chimera... --Empire, August 2000
Whether defined through genres such as horror, science fiction, pornography or camp musical, the cult film has come to attain an important place in cinema culture. Unruly Pleasures is the first British volume dedicated to the critical consideration of cult movie making from the margins to the mainstream. In a series of innovative articles by leading film critics and theorists the book deals with aspects of the medium including the cult film's definitions, genres, film styles and gender depictions. --Book Description, amazon.co.uk
- Shocking Cinema of the Seventies - Xavier Mendik (Editor) [Amazon US]
In a series of innovative articles leading critics and writers consider the social and cinematic issues which shaped the films of the decade. The volume considers film genres such as horror, the disaster movie, blaxploitation and Kung-Fu in order to discover the truth behind one of the most prolific, turbulent and challenging periods in cinema history. --amazon.comFollowing the breakdown of censorship restrictions in the 1960s and a number of high-budget big-studio flops, the seventies heralded a new era in cinema, one that was unbridled by taste or shackled by decency. It was a dizzying time for movie sex and violence, a time when it felt like pretty much anyone could grab some reel-end stock and shoot whatever they fancied, however bizarre or extreme. Before the 1980s ushered in a new age of sanitised family-friendly, Reaganite film-making, a generation briefly experienced a degree of cinematic freedom.
Shocking Cinema of the Seventies provides a number of essays examining aspects of the decade's more controversial or intriguing films. Although concentrating on films of US origin (where the decade 'really' starts with Bonnie and Clyde (19667)/The Wild Bunch (1969) and carries over to the very early eighties with the MPAA restructuring and the video nasties debacle) the book also manages to include a number of discussions about Hong Kong cinema in the wake of the death of Bruce Lee and a few nuggets from Europe. Naturally it does not seek to be an exhaustive reference guide but rather an examination of cinematic trends and dissections of individual works that aims to shed light on films that are often dismissed or marginalised. To this end the subject matter ranges from the critically familiar (Last House on the Left (1973), Texas Chain-saw Massacre (1974), etc) to more unusual fare (Hammer's bizarre partnership with the similarly struggling Shaw Brothers on Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974), for example).
In his introduction Michael Winner recalls the heady days of his career, often citing the choice of subject matter as deliberately political in motivation. Later essays by Xavier Mendik and Andy Black explore Winner's films of the period, Black focussing on a comparison between The Sentinel (1977) and the European shocker The Antichrist (1974) (Winner's films of the period were generally made in the US). A few articles address the issues of the seventies wave of blaxploitation films with its inherent contradictions. Steven Jay Schneider explores the sub-genre of black horror (and quasi-horror) questioning its purpose at representing the "other" as monster. Linnie Blake examines the work of George A Romero, the seventies being arguably the director's richest years in terms of subtext and style. By placing this body of work in the context of America's distrust of its own government and the economic crisis, Blake reveals Romero as an aggressively left-wing filmmaker - citing Martin's depiction of depressed Pittsburgh as a reflection of contemporary society's disintegration. The attack on consumerism in Dawn of the Dead (1978) is more overt but Romero's distrust of government and authorities is present in the earlier The Crazies (1973) as well as his debut Night of the Living Dead (1968). Season of the Witch (1973, aka Jack's Wife) and its (occasionally garbled) feminism is sadly not covered.
Shocking Cinema of the Seventies is a very welcome addition to the (sadly scant) body of work discussing cult film in an intelligent and academic manner. Certainly not a tome for the casual thrill-seeker, but a very interesting, if eclectic, selection of essays that treat their subjects seriously. -- Colin Odell & Michelle Le Blanc
- Underground U.S.A. - Xavier Mendik, Steven Jay Schneider [Amazon US]
Whether defined by the carnivalesque excesses of Troma studios (The Toxic Avenger), the arthouse erotica of Radley Metzger and Doris Wishman, or the narrative experimentations of Abel Ferrara, Melvin Van Peebles, Jack Smith, or Harmony Korine, underground cinema has achieved an important position within American film culture. Often defined as "cult" and "exploitation" or "alternative" and "independent," the American underground retains separate strategies of production and exhibition from the cinematic mainstream, while its sexual and cinematic representations differ from the traditionally conservative structures of the Hollywood system. Underground U.S.A. offers a fascinating overview of this area of maverick moviemaking by considering the links between the experimental and exploitative traditions of the American underground. Co-authored with StevenSchneider
Related Movies
- Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977) - Joe D'Amato [Amazon US]
From the most popular erotic film series of all times! A gruesome cannibalistic slaying at a New York hospital sends the beautiful investigative journalist Emmanuelle into a steamy jungle inferno to track down the last existing cannibal tribe! See Emmanuelle face her greatest carnal challenge. Will Emmanuelle’s erotic charms tame the most savage, flesh-hungry beast? English Subtitles "One of D’Amato’s best, a real corker with enough nudity, sex, and gore to keep genre buffs happy." – Richard J. Taylor, VIOLENT MANIAC’S CAGE --From the Back CoverXavier Mendik's paper, “Monstrous Sex: Horror, Eroticism and Cult Constructions of the ‘Other’ in the Black Emanuelle Films,” will be on Black Emanuelle and the Last Cannibalsbizarre soft-porn and gore-fest movie in one.