Abstract.
What’s in a name? In this case, quite a bit. I will address the terms of my critical argument as defined by the title of my book, Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Films of the Stalker Cycle. A selection of words in the title will be interrogated regarding their meaning, their consequence, as well as their possible variance. This approach will help position my critical work within the context of the late 1970s and early 1980s in New York City, as well as noting my experience in independent film production, my educational background, and my publishing. The larger historical context will also be noted, presenting the art, film, and critical practices of the period, the rise of postmodernism in cultural production, and the social and political conditions of the city and the world. All this will go into explaining the choice of my topic for study, the method of the analysis, and the insights I brought to the project.
To begin here with a number of examples, I will note the following. Why the “Stalker” film and not the “Slasher” film? What is the critical distinction between these terms, and why is it important? Why “Games”? Is there an association to childhood, to returns of past developmental stages in this name, or is it simply a description of a formal, even spatial category? Why did I choose the films in my selection, a mere number of nine films in the volume, and why did I choose this era, a mere three years, between 1978 and 1981? Does this constitute a “cycle"? And what about the “monster"? Is the Stalker Film a “horror” film, or a “tale of terror,” and what are the conditions of each? Also to be considered is the relationship of the Stalker Film to historical film genres, to the other postmodern works of film and art, and to the question of conservative and resistant strains of re-assembling cultural codes.
To begin here with a number of examples, I will note the following. Why the “Stalker” film and not the “Slasher” film? What is the critical distinction between these terms, and why is it important? Why “Games”? Is there an association to childhood, to returns of past developmental stages in this name, or is it simply a description of a formal, even spatial category? Why did I choose the films in my selection, a mere number of nine films in the volume, and why did I choose this era, a mere three years, between 1978 and 1981? Does this constitute a “cycle"? And what about the “monster"? Is the Stalker Film a “horror” film, or a “tale of terror,” and what are the conditions of each? Also to be considered is the relationship of the Stalker Film to historical film genres, to the other postmodern works of film and art, and to the question of conservative and resistant strains of re-assembling cultural codes.
Bio.
Vera Dika holds a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University and has taught at UCLA, USC and NYU. She is currently Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at New Jersey City University. Specializing in 1970s and 1980s mainstream and avant-garde film, and their relationship to the present, Dika is the author of three books, The (Moving) Pictures Generation: New York Downtown Film and Art (Palgrave Macmillan; 2012), Recycled Culture in Contemporary Art and Film: the Uses of Nostalgia (Cambridge University Press; 2003), and Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Films of the Stalker Cycle (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; 1990). Professor Dika has written film criticism for such publications as Art in America, Artforum, Millennium Film Journal, Film Reader, Jump Cut, and Quarterly Review of Film and Video.
Dika’s critical writings also appear in a number of anthologies and include “Between Nostalgia and Regret: Strategies of Historical Disruption from Douglas Sirk to Mad Men” in Hollywood and the American Historical Film (Palgrave Macmillan; 2012) and, most recently, “A Confrontation with History: Reviewing the Horror Film Sources of Get Out” in Was it Yesterday? Nostalgia in Contemporary Film and Television, edited by Matthew Leggatt (State University of New York Press; 2021). Dika is a founding editor of Millennium Film Journal and is currently an Associate Member of the Columbia University Film Seminar.
As an internationally recognized scholar, Dika has been invited to speak at universities, art institutions, and conferences. These include the INHA: institut national d’historie de l’art in Paris, the University of Trento in Italy, and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. In New York City, Professor Dika has spoken at Anthology Film Archives, John D. Calandra Italian-American Institute, and the Columbia Film Seminar, and in Newark, New Jersey, at the Jewish Museum. She has also guest curated shows at the REDCAT, Centre Pompidou, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Walker Art Center. Her current research interests include film making in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s, and contemporary experimental film.
Dika’s critical writings also appear in a number of anthologies and include “Between Nostalgia and Regret: Strategies of Historical Disruption from Douglas Sirk to Mad Men” in Hollywood and the American Historical Film (Palgrave Macmillan; 2012) and, most recently, “A Confrontation with History: Reviewing the Horror Film Sources of Get Out” in Was it Yesterday? Nostalgia in Contemporary Film and Television, edited by Matthew Leggatt (State University of New York Press; 2021). Dika is a founding editor of Millennium Film Journal and is currently an Associate Member of the Columbia University Film Seminar.
As an internationally recognized scholar, Dika has been invited to speak at universities, art institutions, and conferences. These include the INHA: institut national d’historie de l’art in Paris, the University of Trento in Italy, and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. In New York City, Professor Dika has spoken at Anthology Film Archives, John D. Calandra Italian-American Institute, and the Columbia Film Seminar, and in Newark, New Jersey, at the Jewish Museum. She has also guest curated shows at the REDCAT, Centre Pompidou, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Walker Art Center. Her current research interests include film making in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s, and contemporary experimental film.