Taboo Breakers (Guide to 18 Cult Independent Films) – first edition

Taboo breakers. Films that pushed boundaries, overstepped the line or simply went all out to shock. Whether through their advertising or their content these are the movies that used shock tactics to sell tickets.

Film critic and journalist Calum Waddell subjects 18 films to analysis and puts them into historical perspective, whilst discussing the films and their impact with those involved in their production. All of these movies, some good, some bad and some very, very bad indeed, carried with them a certain marketing savvy and air of controversy which ensures that they will stay in the mind long after the screen goes blank.

Films covered are: Blood Feast, Night of the Living Dead, Behind the Green Door, Fritz the Cat, Tenderness of Wolves, Coffy, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, Candy Tangerine Man, Halloween, Cannibal Holocaust, Maniac, Nightmares in a Damaged Brain, The Plague Dogs, Evil Dead, House of 1000 Corpses, Oldboy and Hostel.

Featuring exclusive interviews with Herschell Gordon Lewis, David Friedman, Connie Mason, George Romero, Judith O’Dea, Marilyn Chambers, Ralph Bakshi, Ulli Lommel, Jack Hill, Sid Haig, Ed Neil, Kim Henkel, Gunnar Hansen, Jeff Burr, Robert Burns, Don Edmonds,Howard Maurer, Dyanne Thorne, Matt Cimber, John Carpenter, P J Soles, Irwin Yablans, Ruggero Deotato, Carl Gabriel Yorke, Robert Kerman, William Lustig, Romano Scavolini, Baird Stafford, Martin Rosen, Tom Sullivan, Ellen Sandweiss, Rob Zombie, Bill Moseley, Park Chan-Wook, Eli Roth and Scott Spiegel.

295pp. Also has an 8pp full colour section. A5 paperback. AVAILABLE ONLY ON DIRECT FROM TELOS ORDERS WHILE STOCKS LAST
ISBN 978-1-84583-030-4
Published 21 August 2008

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Calum Waddell wrote Taboo Breakers in 2007 and it was published in 2008. At the time, he lived in his mum’s place with the family cat (RIP as of May, 2007) for company wondering if there was a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Since then, he’s managed to live a little better, get a PhD and make a few documentaries. But he still misses the family cat. No one bought Taboo Breakers, but it remains a beloved project that ultimately led to doing a doctorate that, in turn, led to K-pop concerts and living in China for three years (don’t ask) and a more enlightened life. Of sorts.