Table of Contents

Preface 1 For Virgins Only: A Brief Introduction to Cult Film 2 Beaver Las Vegas! A Fanboy's Defence of Showgirls 3 Wasting Time in the Stanley Hotel 5 Cult Adaptations 5 Exploitation as Adaptation 6 Erotic Inferno 7 Tolkien Dirty 8 From Adaptation to Cinephilia: An Intertextual Odyssey 9 Cult film as a Guide to Life Notes Index

Promotional Information

A collection of closely related essays on cult film, cult adaptations, and cultism as a way of life.

About the Author

I.Q. Hunter is Professor of Film Studies at De Montfort University, UK, and the author of British Trash Cinema (2013), editor of British Science Fiction Cinema (1999) and co-editor of British Comedy Cinema (2012) and The Routledge Companion to British Cinema History (2016).

Reviews

A remarkably self-critical reflection on Hunter’s own contribution to scholarship and the wider state of academic work in his field.
*The Year's Review in Critical and Cultural Studies*

I.Q. Hunter has seen everything, read everything, remembered everything, and miraculously retained all his fan’s love for a wildly improbable filmography stretching from Casablanca to Pink Flamingos, from Plan Nine from Outer Space to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. His autobiographical framework and his impassioned, inimitable voice drive this valentine to all things cultish with wit, vigor, and irresistible appeal without ever sacrificing razor-sharp analysis or theoretical sophistication. The result is one of those rare academic monographs you can read for fun. Whether or not cult film can indeed save your life, writing like Hunter’s could go a long way to save cinema studies from itself.
*Thomas Leitch, Professor of English, University of Delaware, USA*

Cult Film as a Guide to Life is an elegant exploration of a number of themes and debates such as cult adaptations, cultural capital and exploitation cinema. Weaving together a number of essays, cult film expert Hunter probes why these films are so important to those who love them and, in the final chapter, begins to outline how they can indeed function as a “guide to life”.
*Jamie Sexton, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, Northumbria University, UK*

In his characteristically bold and distinctive way, I. Q. Hunter raises vital questions, provokes debate and sets the agenda for new approaches within the continually shifting and evolving field of cult film studies. Cult Film as a Guide to Life is an engaging, highly readable and endlessly thought-provoking book.
*Kate Egan, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Aberystwyth University, UK*