Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare teaches courses ingenre cinema, grotesque traditions, cinematic embodiment and monster ethics in the Humanities department atJohn Abbott College, Canada. He is also an independent filmmaker and the co-director of the Montreal Monstrum Society.
To reckon with the horror film's connections to the Grand Guignol theatre is to refigure our understanding of the horror genre. DeGiglio-Bellemare stages this reckoning with the sort of ambition, enthusiasm and a wide range of references that enrich horror studies. This is a stimulating and provocative book - Adam Lowenstein, author of Horror Film and Otherness, Professor of English and Film/Media Studies, University of Pittsburgh, USA. This is a terrific book. While horror scholars frequently use the term 'Grand-Guignol' as a sort of shorthand - 'Grand-Guignol effects,' or 'Guignol Treatment' - we haven't devoted the time and scholarship to fully unpack the Grand-Guignol's lingering influence and affect in horror cinema. If that were all this book did, that would be enough to make it a necessary addition to the field. But DeGiglio-Bellemare also provides a rich and thick theoretical horror discussion - invoking Bataille, cultural studies, Marx and the rich scholarly history of the field. Well-written and immensely readable, this is a smart, sophisticated, well-conceived book - by a terrific scholar. Belongs on the bookshelf of every horror scholar and horror lover, and definitely belongs on the syllabus - Joan Hawkins, author of Cutting-Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-garde.