Julian Petley is emeritus and honorary professor of journalism at Brunel University London. He is the principal editor of the Journal of British Cinema and Television. His books include Film and Video Censorship in Modern Britain (2011), Censorship: A Beginner’s Guide (2009) and the co-authored Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left (2019). Xavier Mendik is Professor of Cult Cinema Studies at Birmingham City University, UK, from where he runs the Cine-Excess International Film Festival. He is editor of Shocking Cinema of the Seventies (2002), co-editor of Alternative Europe (2004) and Underground USA (2002).
Mendik and Petley's new volume unearths little-suspected histories and sub-genre cycles hidden in plain sight and material from darker recesses of criminality and fantasy. Contributors challenge conceptions of cinema and how and why academics study it, disturbing both conservative and radical sensibilities as much as do the films themselves. -- Nigel Morris, University of Lincoln, USA. This exciting collection advances significant new research in 70s cult cinema, especially fascinating work in international cinema including Japan. With an introduction rightly interrogating what is meant by 'shocking' and asking us to rethink our commonly held assumptions, this is compulsory reading for all film scholars and those interested in cult cinema and television. -- Jason Lee, De Monfort University, UK A collection as electrifying and as essential as the wild, diverse range of films from the 1970s it explores, authored by some of the most vital and exciting voices in cult film studies today. -- Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, author of Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study (2021)