A History of Shock Film: The Story of Movies that Broke Taboos and Caused Controversies

— —

Eddie Daniels Jens Werner

A History of Shock Film

Name: A History of Shock Film
Price: 38.07 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780997073966

The Story of Movies that Broke Taboos and Caused Controversies

Eddie Daniels, Jens Werner

$44.95 $38.07

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Eddie Daniels
26 October 2025

Film theory & criticism; Film movie guides & reviews

""A History of Shock Film"" tells the story of movies that broke taboos, specifically in the realms of sex, violence, profanity, sacrilege, controversial messaging, and a few other areas that many cultures find transgressive.

The book shows how what constitutes shocking content has changed over the past century-plus of movies. It starts with an 1895 short of a woman dancing on stage and ends on a 2010 film that had to be edited to get an NC-17 rating. Throughout, these films sparked public controversies. The conflict between freedom of expression and various forms of censorship is central to the narrative of ""A History of Shock Film.""

While ""A History of Shock Film"" focuses mainly on the films of the United States, it also covers influential movies from around the world. A grand total of 321 official shock films from 27 countries are chosen as the most important to the story of shock cinema.

Among the official shock films are well-known classics like ""Psycho,"" ""Pink Flamingos,"" ""Blue Velvet,"" ""The Exorcist,"" ""Battleship Potemkin,"" ""Do the Right Thing,"" ""Frankenstein,"" ""Taxi Driver,"" and ""Monty Python's Life of Brian."" You'll also learn about more obscure art films and exploitation movies. Important figures range from art-film deity Ingmar Bergman to schlockmeister Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Author Eddie Daniels keeps the tone light and conversational; this is not an academic text. It is full of wild anecdotes about the people who made the movies. Daniels infuses his personality throughout, clearly delineating his own opinions from historical facts. He believes any statement of a film's effectiveness should be couched as a subjective judgement; he often uses phrases like ""in my opinion"" to emphasize that he's not trying to speak on behalf of all filmgoers.

Eddie Daniels' previous book, ""The Baseball Hall of Fame Corrected,"" was a moderate success by the standards of self-publishing. It was a combination of baseball history and humor book. In ""A History of Shock Film,"" Daniels leaves much of the comedy behind in favor of historical critique.

By: Eddie Daniels
Cover design or artwork by: Jens Werner
Imprint: Eddie Daniels
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 780g
ISBN: 9780997073966
ISBN 10: 0997073969
Pages: 592
Publication Date: 26 October 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Eddie Daniels is the author of ""A History of Shock Film"" and ""The Baseball Hall of Fame Corrected."" He also contributes articles about movies to Perisphere, the Trylon Cinema's blog, under the pseudonym Ed Dykhuizen. Daniels lives in Minnesota.