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Kier-La Janisse
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House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films Paperback – October 15, 2012

by Kier-La Janisse (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 186 ratings
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House of Psychotic Women is an autobiographical exploration of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films.
Cinema is full of neurotic personalities, but few things are more transfixing than a woman losing her mind onscreen. Horror as a genre provides the most welcoming platform for these histrionics: crippling paranoia, desperate loneliness, masochistic death-wishes, dangerous obsessiveness, apocalyptic hysteria. Unlike her male counterpart - 'the eccentric' - the female neurotic lives a shamed existence, making these films those rare places where her destructive emotions get to play.
Named after the U.S.-retitling of Carlos Aured's The Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, House of Psychotic Women is an examination of these characters through a daringly personal autobiographical lens. Anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, trivia and confrontational imagery to create a reflective personal history and an examination of female madness, both onscreen and off.
This sharply-designed book with a 32-page full-colour section is packed with rare stills, posters, pressbooks and artwork that combine with family photos and artifacts to form a titillating sensory overload, with a filmography that traverses the acclaimed and the obscure in equal measure.

- comprehensive appendix
- 1000 rare photos, many in color
Previous page
  1. Print length
    360 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    FAB Press
  4. Publication date
    October 15, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    7.5 x 1 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1903254698
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1903254691
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"God, this woman can write, with a voice and intellect that's so new. This is the truth in the most deadly unique way I've ever read." -- Ralph Bakshi, director Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, The Lords of the Rings, etc.

About the Author

Kier-La Janisse is a film writer, programmer, producer, and founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. She is the author of A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi (2007) and House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (2012) and co-edited and published the anthology books KID POWER!(2014), Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s (2015), Lost Girls: The Phantasmagorical Cinema of Jean Rollin (2017) and Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror on Film and Television (2017). She edited the book Warped & Faded: Weird Wednesday and the Birth of the American Genre Film Archive (2021) and among her current writing projects are an anthology book on the films of Robert Downey, Sr. and a monograph about Monte Hellman's Cockfighter. She was a producer on Mike Malloy's Eurocrime: the Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the '70s and her first film as director/producer, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror is due out from Severin Films in 2021.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ FAB Press (October 15, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 360 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1903254698
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1903254691
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.33 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 1 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 186 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
186 global ratings
Really good content on the inside, but the cover is damaged.
3 Stars
Really good content on the inside, but the cover is damaged.
I was disappointed because I had been looking forward to this book for weeks, but it arrived with scratches.
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Top reviews from the United States

rndkr
5.0 out of 5 stars An unusual and refreshingly personal approach to criticism
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2016
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The second I heard about this book I was intensely interested in reading it, but the hefty price tag was daunting. Then just a few weeks ago I saw that it had finally come out in a more affordable kindle version, so I was on it like the proverbial Duck on a Junebug. House of Psychotic Women is not an ideal book for digital reading—all those beautiful stills and all I have is this rudimentary B&W kindle, basically the E-reader equivalent of dial up—but then again, now that I've finished it I don't have to try to find room on my already bursting bookshelves for another oversized, fancy pants film book. Anyway, Panisse's personal, autobiographical approach to examining horror and exploitation films is wonderfully realized. This could have read as horribly self-indulgent oversharing but in her hands becomes the fascinating story of a woman from extremely dysfunctional origins making her way, despite a lot of daunting odds (at times it seems as though Panisse was the living embodiment of the kind of girls Linda Blair played in 70's TV movies like Sarah T: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic or Born Innocent). With the struggles she endured, it's no wonder she was so drawn to movies featuring Women on the Verge (or well past) Nervous Breakdowns in bona-fide classics like Rebecca, Cat People, and Marnie; cult faves like Let's Scare Jessica to Death and The Haunting of Julia; and obscurities like The Whip and the Body and Secret Ceremony. Panisse reminds us of the power of art—high, low, and everywhere in-between—to help us escape, to process, and sometimes transcend our life problems, issues, and concerns. She's an excellent, brave and honest writer, scholarly in a way, but never academic (really, you can only be so academic when writing about The Blood Splattered Bride or Love Me Deadly). Final score: 4 ½ out of 5; if you're at all interested in the type of films covered here you owe it to yourself to check this out, especially if you have a nice E-reader or feel expansive enough to drop some cash on the print version.
5 people found this helpful
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Charles Floyd Rhodes
5.0 out of 5 stars 2022 edition has 310 movies covered.
Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2024
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The main text is the same as in the earlier edition, what is new is that there are additional movies covered in the A to Z review section, for this edition the total is 310, and the additions are from a variety of decades, up to 2022.

I am not going to list every title new to this edition, some examples are Les Abysses (1963), Alice of the Last Escapade (1977), Bacchanale (1970), Benedetta (2021), Demeter (2010), Il Demonio (1963), Deranged (1987), La Donna Invisible (1969), Dream No Evil (1970), Dys (2014), Fashionista (2016), Honeycomb (2022), I Like Bats (1986), Lilith (1964), Lost Gully Road (2017), Luna (1979), Magic Magic (2013), Monique (1978), Olivia (1983), Las Poquianchis (1976), Proxy (2013), Queen of Earth (2015), A Reflection of Fear (1972), The Savage Eye (1950), See the Sea (1997), The Strings (2020), The Untamed (2016), The Well of Deprivation (1969), White Reindeer (2013), Woodshock (2017) and You'll Like My Mother (1972).

Not only are USA and UK features covered, which includes TVMs in the case of the former, examples of which are Born Innocent, Trilogy of Terror, and The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver, but also those of other countries such as Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland,Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, and Uruguay.

There are a lot of pics, do keep in mind that as this book covers horror, thriller and exploitation films, that a number feature nudity.

I had considered giving a few examples of how each movie is covered and how each is related to the first section, but I think pointing out how many flicks are covered, giving examples of which ones are new to this addition, and pointing out that this has a lot of pics in color and in monochrome will suffice.
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Chip Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars ... a delightful book and I wish there were more like it. It's an immersive
Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2016
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This is a delightful book and I wish there were more like it. It's an immersive, psychologically moored study of maligned and overlooked films, channeled through the lens of personally wrought autobiography. Janisse is a first-rate memoirist (sp?) who knows everything worth knowing about horror films and their manifold penumbras. If you liked that scholarly Carol Clover book that Joe-Bob recommended, this is the warty underbelly. The presentation is sumptuous, but for the typography (a personal nit). An engrossing read. A good book. Get the hardcover.
2 people found this helpful
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Daniel House
5.0 out of 5 stars House of Psychotic Women is a must have for any serious cinephiles!
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2023
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Fantastic book full of more than you can ever imagine. Book, hell, it's more like a cinematic bible!
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A. Copp
5.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing in ways you wouldn'd expect
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2012
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I am still actually reading HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN as I am fortunately finding some of the VERY personal materiel the book is really about to by overwhelming. Having been through some of the terrors she relates as well as family members, this is more than a journey down the exploitation film roots of cinema. This is a laid bare expose of her history of slowly unraveling. Hard to read, but totally BRILLIANT, it is way worth your time.... *I hold the film HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN very dear to my heart because of who I watched it with...
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Sarah Jane
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply beautiful
Reviewed in Canada on November 21, 2022
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Came in great condition, a bit bend around the corners but that’s to be expected when shipping books unfortunately. The quality of the book itself is excellent and the content is fascinating. Very happy with this purchase!
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Helnwein
5.0 out of 5 stars Libro sul cinema delle donne psicotiche
Reviewed in Italy on December 11, 2015
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Un bel libro a partire dalla bella copertina quella rigida, il volume con la copertina flessibile ha un'altra immagine questa è decisamente migliore, pieno di film poco conosciuti ma meritevoli, la gran parte delle foto, molte, è in bianco e nero ma di buona qualità. Per chi ama un cinema strano di nicchia vale l'acquisto. In inglese.
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Mr. C. P. Underwood
5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning work that thrills and inspires
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 23, 2012
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I buy far too many film books and often as not they sit on my shelf till I decide to browse or look up some particular entry.

I read this right through. In some ways this is as much about the writer as the films, but it is most persuasive and very soon, just like the author, we are seeing the films through her own experience and horrors.

This is a stunning work and drove me to seek out many films I had never seen and one or two I had never even heard of. After some 50 years of horror film watching, I found myself humbled before this most impressive book.
I don't know if anyone else will find this such a rewarding experience but I don't see why not. Surely worth a try!
14 people found this helpful
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Kenda
5.0 out of 5 stars Great
Reviewed in Canada on June 14, 2022
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Received promptly, great book!
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Wood
5.0 out of 5 stars Self examination through film writing
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 3, 2018
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Kier-La Janisse writes a complex, multilayered book that, while it's a pretty comprehensive overview of the "women coming unglued" strand of exploitation and horror cinema, is also a warts and all spiritual autobiography, in which she lays bare childhood traumas, teenage problems and adult relationship difficulties, all in the service of using film to come towards a working theory of the most complex thing any of us will ever come to grips with, the self. Moving, frank, funny and supremely informative, I cannot recommend this book enough.
One person found this helpful
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