Shock Value
How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror
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Narrated by:
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Pete Larkin
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By:
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Jason Zinoman
About this listen
Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but while Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film - aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman's Shock Value delivers the first definitive account of horror's golden age.
By the late 1960s, horror was stuck in the past, confined mostly to drive-in theaters and exploitation houses and shunned by critics. Shock Value tells the unlikely story of how the much-disparaged horror film became an ambitious art form while also conquering the multiplex. Directors such as Wes Craven, Roman Polanski, John Carpenter, and Brian De Palma - counterculture types operating largely outside Hollywood - revolutionized the genre, exploding taboos and bringing a gritty aesthetic, confrontational style, and political edge to horror.
Zinoman recounts how these directors produced such classics as Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween, creating a template for horror that has been imitated relentlessly but whose originality has rarely been matched. This new kind of film dispensed with the old vampires and werewolves and instead assaulted audiences with portraits of serial killers, the dark side of suburbia, and a brand of nihilistic violence that had never been seen before.
Shock Value tells the improbable stories behind the making of these movies, which were often directed by obsessive and insecure young men working on shoestring budgets, were funded by sketchy investors, and featured porn stars. But once The Exorcist became the highest grossing film in America, Hollywood took notice, and the classic horror films of the 1970s have now spawned a billion-dollar industry.
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Through roles in cherished films such as Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, Aladdin and Hook, he became the genial face of family comedy. His childlike enthusiasm was infectious, sweeping viewers away. Allied to his lightning-quick improvisation and ability to riff lewdly off any cue thrown at him, Robin was that rare thing - a true comic genius who appealed to adults and children equally. He could also play it straight, and empathetic depth came to him naturally.
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Good... but too many quotes
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The Stephen King Companion
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Overall
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The Stephen King Companion is an authoritative look at horror author King's personal life and professional career, from Carrie to The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. King expert George Beahm, who has published extensively about Maine's main author, is your seasoned guide to the imaginative world of Stephen King, covering his varied and prodigious output: juvenalia, short fiction, limited edition books, best-selling novels, and film adaptations.
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A Kingopedia: Books, Movies, Bio and Art
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Not a Good Reference, a Good Springboard
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Engaging and human portrait of Welles
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This bad narration is making me thirsty...
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Snooze
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Great read! No fooling.
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In the first full biography of actor Sidney Poitier, Aram Goudsouzian analyzes the life and career of a Hollywood legend, from his childhood in the Bahamas to his 2002 Oscar for lifetime achievement. Poitier is a gifted actor, a great American success story, an intriguing personality, and a political symbol; his life and career illuminate America's racial history.
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The Man, the Star, the Lightning Rod
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Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted
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Everybody Thought We Were Crazy
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Los Angeles in the 1960s: riots in Watts and on the Sunset Strip, wild weekends in Malibu, late nights at The Daisy discotheque, openings at the Ferus Gallery, and the convergence of pop art, rock and roll, and the New Hollywood. At the center of it all, one inspired, improbable, and highly combustible couple—Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward—lived out the emblematic love story of ’60s L.A.
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Wonderful!
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What listeners say about Shock Value
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- julian
- 09-03-18
Excellent analysis of horror
This book is an excellent analysis of horror over the decades. It tells of the directors producers and writers of popular horror. Names like Craven, Carpenter, Hooper, and Romero are given their own chapters and analysis of their life and upbringing as well as the work they directed.
Although the speaker of the book talks slow and dramatically throughout the entirety of the book, if you put it on 1.5x speed the speaker sounds more bearable to listen to.
I enjoyed this book and it’s an excellent source for fans of 70’s horror, and the directors that made the most quintessential horror movies of the twentieth century.
PRAISE TO JASON ZINOMAN.
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- Nik
- 05-26-13
Great for Horror Fans
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I did recommend this to my horror geek friends.
What other book might you compare Shock Value to and why?
None that I have read thus far.
Which scene was your favorite?
The history of Wes Craven's upbringing and eventual move into horror was really mind blowing. I was like "WHAT?"
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I laughed many times and shook my head a lot at the behind the scenes beefing between horror creators, writers and movie companies.
Any additional comments?
A really good book about the change in horror in the 70's.
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- Chris
- 03-12-15
Great synthesis, original material from interviews
Very worthwhile if you are interested in film from the 70s on. Zinoman makes a great case for the wide influence of 70s horror on the mainstream films that followed and some of its origins in late 60s theater (mostly Harold Pinter) . He interviewed many of the subjects covered in the book, including Wes Craven, Brian DePalma, Tobe Hooper, the late Dan Obannon, William Friedkin and others.
Not only focusing on the overall PPP-cultural effects of these films, but also has some great stories and anecdotes from the making of these films and the personal lives of their makers.
Many spoilers also; make sure you've seen these films prior to listening (if you wish to see), as each is described in detail (ending and plot points):
Rosemary's Baby
Last House on the Left
Dark Star
Halloween
Carrie
Alien
The Exorcist
Psycho
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Night of the Living Dead
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- A.Editor
- 06-13-15
Great read for the movie buff
Great stories, cool insight, well read. If you care at all about film history, you'll find this am interesting read.
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- Nicholas B.
- 06-12-17
loved it
too good! loved it! any horror fan needs this in their collection! great narration! great retrospective!
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- Shadow007
- 08-01-24
Quick profiles of famous directors with some hero worship
This book looked super interesting. Usually when people talk about the new young filmmakers who changed Hollywood they are talking about Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and all those of the time of the ‘new Hollywood’ movement. This argues that there other horror adjacent filmmakers that did the same expect they didn’t.
This book would try to make you think that but there is no evidence of this. Instead we are shown the story of each individual filmmaker, John carpenter, tobey hopper, Wes craven, George Romero, and how they made their first feature film, which usually is their most famous. There is no reason to think that they changed Hollywood just because their movie made a lot of money. At points the author tries to say thing such Romero’s film was made in Pittsburgh not Hollywood but that goes no where (especially when Romero leaves the state for California). The author points at Carpenter going to film school but Spielberg and friends did it before him. Craven’s violent ‘Last House on the Left’ doesn’t unleash copy cat films in Hollywood.
Really the author fails to connect any reason why these filmmakers should be considered trailblazers especially since he himself writes that after their big hit they usually failed to follow up with any films in either financial or critical success. The author also seems to be a big personal fan of the directors, praising everything he can about them, at times appearing to simp for them. But the reason to read this is the narrative of each filmmaker’s journey. Easy to listen to and follow, they have interesting lives and moments. But it is not this major studio changing impact the author fails to explain.
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- Don Smith
- 06-02-19
really enjoyed this!!!!
I really enjoyed this! this was well written and enjoyable!!! I loved getting into the heads of these creators!
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- Rafael Gonzalez
- 06-05-19
Really good !
I really liked it it was really interesting especially if you've ever liked horror movies. And the voice was very appropriate sounded a lot like an old time announcer or radio celebrity from the past:-)
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- Jason Potter
- 03-15-13
Great Book, Terrible Narrator
I read this book in print form when it first came out and absolutely loved it, when I saw it on sale recently it seemed like the perfect opportunity to pick up the audiobook and give it a quick listen. The book itself is excellent, however the narrator sounds like he's doing an 8 hour movie trailer. Definitely listen to the sample before you buy this book, it took all of thirty seconds before I realized that this guy was going to read the entire book like that, and I had to stop listening. This is one of only two audiobooks I've ever had to stop listening to because of the narrator, and it's a shame because this really is a great read, and is very informative for any horror fans.
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- Flavius Krakdaddius
- 11-15-14
A Selective History of the "New Horror"
"Shock Value" is an interesting and educational read. In discussing the careers of a handful of directors, Zinoman attempts to trace the various themes running through the "New Horror" films of the late 1960s through the 1980s. He does a pretty good job of this, tying the films to one another, and even occasionally to their predecessors from the Golden Age of Horror. As much as this is about the directors, it is also about their movies.
The author's access to his subjects and ability to elicit detailed responses (for the most part) keeps the book filled with entertaining anecdotes about the films, the business and the men (and a few women) themselves. This book kept my interest throughout.
The book is limited somewhat in its focus on a handful of directors, and then, only upon a fraction of their output during the period. I would have liked to have a few more directors added to the mix.
The narrator is well-suited to the book.
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