Categories
CFP

Emmanuelle, Black Emanuelle, and Emmanuelle Derivatives: Essays on the Emmanuelle Legacy (Revised CFP)

Note

This CFP supersedes the prior version of the Emmanuelle legacy CFP that was open late 2022 to early 2023. This CFP has been updated to reflected accepted topics, project timeline, additional Emmanuelle films, and that this collection has the interest from an academic publisher who wants a manuscript submitted. 

Overview

In 1974 Just Jaeckin’s film, Emmanuelle, was released to commercial success. The movie propelled its starlet, Sylvia Kristel, into the limelight, spurred a wave of similar erotic fare, and concurrently with the Golden Age of Porn, helped usher in mainstream acceptance of erotic content in cinema. Black Emanuelle, one of the many films that came in the wake of Emmanuelle, would go on to have its own impact, specifically in the realm of Italian cult cinema with its plethora of sequels starring Laura Gemser. The Emmanuelle, Black Emanuelle, and derivative Emmanuelle film phenomena lasted from the mid-70s to the early 80s before interest tapered off, though the Emmanuelle name continued to be used by producer Alain Siritzky for direct to cable softcore content.

Four decades later, the Emmanuelle movies have faded in pop culture memory, but are being kept alive with blu-ray releases from specialty and boutique labels such as Severin Films and Kino Lorber. While most of the Kristel and Gemser films are readily obtainable, scholarship on the Emmanuelle legacy is not. The majority of references to both Emmanuelleand Black Emmanuelle are found in film guides and books that focus on cult and exploitation films in a general sense (see the bibliography section at the end of this CFP) with a journal article here and there. Alex Cox’s 2000 documentary, Emmanuelle: A Hard Look, remains largely inaccessible, though companies like the aforementioned Severin Films release supplementary material on their Black Emanuelle and Emmanuelle derivative DVDs and Blu-rays. There is no singular, consolidated resource focused on the Emmanuelle film canon.

This collection of essays will strive to rectify this scholarship gap. The CFP is seeking additional abstracts (especially from women voices) to add to the collection with the aim to illustrate the various ways these movies are important, how they impacted both pop and film culture, and to illuminate subtexts and commentaries they impart.

Frameworks/Topics

Frameworks, essay ideas, and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Adaptations
  • Anti/Reverse Emmanuelle roles/films
  • Auteur theory (specific films and their directors)
  • Class and wealth depictions
  • Close textual analysis
  • Comparative textual analysis
  • Cultural and racial representations
  • Feminism studies
  • Ethical/Philosophical issues
  • Genre studies (porn-chic, softcore, exploitation, grindhouse, travelog, women in prison, etc.)
  • LBGT+ discourse and ideology
  • Interviews with/perspectives from crew/filmmakers 
  • Literature studies (Emmanuelle Arsan books)
  • Multiplicities (see Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots eds. Klein & Palmer)
  • Music studies (soundtracks, songs, sampling)
  • Parody and/or homage (Carry on Emmanuelle, SNL’s “Danielle” skit, Seinfeld’s “Rochelle, Rochelle”)
  • Proto-Emmanuelle films (what came before, what inspired)
  • (Post) Colonialism
  • Schreiber theory (specific screenwriters)
  • Semiotics and metaphors
  • Sexuality (fetishism, voyeurism, exhibitionism, desires, romance, etc.)
  • Vernacular film (see Mikel Koven)
  • World Cinema studies (France, Italy)
  • And other interdisciplinary approaches

The following topics have already been accepted from other submissions and are already accounted for:

  • Adaptation studies on Crepax’s Emmanuelle
  • Cosmopolitanism in Black Emanuelle
  • Diachronic studies in Emmanuelle 6
  • French culture and obsession in Emmanuelle in Tokyo
  • Genre and intertextuality in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals
  • Spatialness and eroticism
  • James Bond/spy studies 
  • Transgressive studies in Tropical Emmanuelle and Brazilian cinema
  • Vampire studies 

Filmography

Films that fall under the Emmanuelle/Black Emanuelle/Et al. canon include the following:

Emmanuelle Series

  • Emmanuelle (1974)
  • Emmanuelle II (1975)
  • Goodbye Emmanuelle (1977)
  • Emmanuelle IV (1984)
  • Emmanuelle 5 (1987)
  • Emmanuelle 6 (1988)
  • Emmanuelle 7 (1993)
  • Emmanuelle in Space Series (1994)
  • Young/Old Emmanuelle Series (1993)
  • Emmanuelle 2000 series (2000)
  • Emmanuelle in Rio (2003)
  • Emmanuelle: The Private Collection series (2003)
  • Emmanuelle Tango (2006)
  • Emmanuelle Through Time Series (2011)

Black Emanuelle Series and Laura Gemser Films

  • Black Emanuelle (1975)
  • Black Emanuelle 2 (1976)
  • Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976)
  • Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle (1976)
  • Emanuelle on Taboo Island (1976)
  • Emmanuelle and the Deadly Black Cobra (1976)
  • Emanuelle in America (1977)
  • Sister Emanuelle (1977)
  • Emanuelle Around the World (1977)
  • Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)
  • Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade (1978)
  • Emanuelle, Queen of the Sados (1980)
  • Divine Emanuelle: Love Cult (1981)
  • Violence in a Woman’s Prison (1982)
  • Emanuelle: Queen of the Desert (1982)
  • Women’s Prison Massacre (1983)
  • Scandalous Emanuelle (1986)

Misc. Films / Derivatives / Parodies / Related Films

  • Emanuelle and Francoise (1975)
  • Tokyo Emanuelle (1975)
  • Laure (1976)
  • Carry on Emmanuelle (1978)
  • Felicity (1979)
  • Emmanuelle in Soho (1981)
  • The Awakening of Emanuelle (2021)
  • Call Me Emanuelle (2022)
  • Amityville Emanuelle (2023)
  • Amor Emanuelle (2023)

There is an IMDB list that has a plethora of Emmanuelle derivatives: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls069765874/

Non-Emmanuelle films that star Sylvia Kristel or Laura Gemser (such as Julia [1974], Alice ou la dernière fugue [1977], etc.), Alain Siritzky produced films, and other Just Jaeckin movies will be considered if they can be strongly tied to theEmmanuelle/Black Emanuelle legacy. 

Other related texts, such as the Emmanuelle Arsan novels, the Emmanuelle erotic comics by Guido Crepax, and the like, are also of interest. 

Timeline of Project

  • November 2023 – June 2024: Contributors compose their essays. Call for Essays remains open, accepting submissions on a rolling basis.
  • June 30th, 2024: Draft of chapter due to editor.
  • July 2024 – October 2024: Edits coordinated and incorporated into the manuscript.
  • September 2024 – Rolling call for papers (this CFP) closes. 
  • October 30, 2024: Final drafts due to editor.
  • November 2024: Compile and submit manuscript to publisher by end of the month. 

Submission

Abstracts (no word limit), preliminary bibliographies, and CVs should be submitted to Nicholas Diak at vnvdiak@gmail.com. There is a publisher interested in the project who has asked for a completed manuscript to be submitted. Please feel free to share this CFP with other scholars. Any proliferation is greatly appreciated. 

About the Editor

Nicholas Diak is a pop culture scholar with a range of interests: sword and sandal films, industrial music, synthwave music and aesthetics, horror studies, and other idiosyncratic topics. He edited the collection The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990s (2018) and co-edited Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays (2020). More information, including academic CV, can be found at nickdiak.com.

Emmanuelle Studies Bibliography

  • 100 Cult Films by Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik
  • Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945 edited by Mathijs and Mendik
  • “Black is Beautiful” in DarkSide issue 211
  • The Black Emanuelle Bible edited by Kier-La Janisse
  • Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema 1970-1985 by Mendik
  • Deadlier Than the Male: Femme Fatales in 1960s and 1970s Cinema by Douglas Brode
  • “Forever Emmanuelle: Sylvia Kristel and Soft-Core Cult” by Leila Wimmer in Cult Film Stardom
  • The History of French Literature on Film by Kate Griffiths and Andrew Watts
  • Immoral Tales: Sex and Horror Cinema in Europe 1956-1984 by Tohill and Tombs
  • “The Legacy of Emmanuelle: Oriental Desire and Interracial Encounters 562 in European Films Set in Thailand 1974-1980” by Alexander J. Klemm
  • “Mondo Realism, the Sensual Body, and Genre Hybridity in Joe D’Amato’s Emanuelle Films” by Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare
  • Offbeat Attractions and Processes of Cultification edited by Egan and Thomas
  • “Orientalism, Star Power and Cinethetic Racism in Seventies Italian Exploitation Cinema” by Calum Waddell
  • Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle to Chabrol by Jeremy Richey
  • “Thailand in the European Cinematic Imagination: The Phenomenon and Legacy of Emmanuelle (Fr 1974)” by Alexander J. Klemm
  • Undressing Emmanuelle: A memoir by Sylvia Kristel
Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2023-10-22

Personal / Website News

Three Stooges Zine

The first issue of The Journal of Stoogeological Studies: An Unauthorized Three Stooges Fanzine is slated to be published in mid-November. I have an essay in this debut zine on the Three Stooges short, Matri-Phony (1942). For more information contact Will Sloan (website) or keep an eye out on his social media.

Fan2Fan Podcast Appearance

The cool kids at Fan2Fan Podcast have published an episode on the 1985 Lovecraftian cult, splatstick classic, Re-Animator. I am honored they have asked me to be a guest on this episode!

The episode can be streamed at the Fan2Fan Libsyn page, via the embedded player below, or through your podcast app of preference.

Re-Animator – Fan2Fan Podcast

For fun, here is my Re-Animator DVD (the old school version from Elite Entertainment) autographed by Charles Band (who owned Empire who produced the film).

Band autographed this at his Full Moon Roadshow he did in Seattle in the late 2000s. I am not sure why I don’t have Stuart Gordon’s signature on this, I met him at a Monsterpalooza in Burbank and he signed my other movies. I can only think that I couldn’t locate this DVD in time or it was packed away.

And finally, here is my copy of Bride of Re-Animator, also signed by Band.

Alas, I do not own a copy of Beyond Re-animator.

McFarland Horror Sale

My publisher, McFarland, is having a sale this month on their horror titles. If you use code HALLOWEEN2023 during check out you’ll get a 25% discount on the horror tiles. An entire list of eligible titles can be found here

Numerous books I’ve been a part of are included in this sale. If you want to pluck something up I’ve either co-edited or contributed an essay to, now is a good time!

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.

Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”

Vernon Press Product Page

Published in May, this issue of Weird Tales contains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”

Weird Tales Product Page

Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”

Limited to 50 physical copies.

Order via Patreon.

Published in early August, Dark Dead Things #2 contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”

Order via Dark Dead Thingswebsite.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

By The Gods! Magazine

The proprietor of Peplum TV has launched a magazine called By The Gods!.

The magazine is being published via Magcloud and the first issue can be bought here. I got my copy and will be checking it out!

Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2023-10-08

Personal / Website News

New Episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast

A new episode of our monthly HP Lovecast Podcast is online!

Angela Sylvaine returned to the podcast to talk about her debut novel, Frost Bite. The episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website, via the embedded player below, or through your podcast app of preference.

HPLCP Transmissions – Ep 26 – Angela Sylvaine and Frost Bite – H. P. Lovecast Podcast

Later this month we will be discussing Mimic 3 on the podcast, concluding our year tradition of diving into the Mimic franchise (Listen to Mimic and Mimic 2).

McFarland Horror Sale

My publisher, McFarland, is having a sale this month on their horror titles. If you use code HALLOWEEN2023 during check out you’ll get a 25% discount on the horror tiles. An entire list of eligible titles can be found here.

Numerous books I’ve been a part of are included in this sale. If you want to pluck something up I’ve either co-edited or contributed an essay to, now is a good time!

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.

Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”

Vernon Press Product Page

Published in May, this issue of Weird Tales contains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”

Weird Tales Product Page

Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”

Limited to 50 physical copies.

Order via Patreon.

Published in early August, Dark Dead Things #2 contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”

Order via Dark Dead Thingswebsite.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

CFP: The Mummy Edited Collection

Michele is teaming up with Sean Woodard to do an edited collection on The Mummy series. They have a CFP listed at UPENN, but I am also sharing a copy below.

Editors: Michele Brittany and Sean Woodard

Contact email: mummybookproject@gmail.com

Abstract Deadline: December 15, 2023

Chapter Drafts Deadline: June 15, 2024

Essays sought for an edited collection focused on Universal Pictures’ The Mummy franchise.

The 1999 Universal reboot of The Mummy, starring the indelible duo of Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, remains a tentpole of ’90s popular culture and cinema. Not only did The Mummy launch two sequels, a spin-off series, and a reboot, but it has lived on as a cult film, loved by fans for its mixture of horror, action/adventure, and humor. The film has also developed a strong meme culture on social media — one of the most viral examples contains a photo of a car bumper sticker proclaiming: “Honk if you’d rather be watching the 1999 cinematic masterpiece ‘The Mummy’ starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.”

While academic research has been focused on various releases of The Mummy (1932, 1959, 1999, and 2017), there has not been a singular scholarly text devoted to the film franchise. The recent “Brenaissance” in Fraser’s film career and the film’s anticipated 25th anniversary in 2024 make it an appropriate time to celebrate and re-evaluate the film.

The purpose of this edited collection is to place The Mummy into a cultural and theoretical context, as well as critically analyze the franchise, its connections to other genre films, and its continued influence.

We seek proposals for chapters that approach the subject matter with theoretical concepts that will appropriately meet the rigorous expectations of an academic work, but through a prose style that shall be accessible for both an academic audience and a general readership.  

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Resurgent interest in Brendan Fraser/“Brenaissance”
  • Stephen Sommers as an auteur
  • Representation of Egypt in popular culture and early filmic representation
  • Eastern mythology/culture/religion
  • Exoticism of non-western cultures
  • Post/De-colonialism 
  • Heroic representation
  • Body horror
  • Eco-horror/Ecocriticism
  • Gender representation
  • Toxic depictions in film
  • Queer/LGBTQ+ representation
  • Meme/GIF culture
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Generational nostalgia 
  • Element of music/film scoring
  • Genre hybridity
  • Film cycles/reboots/retcons (such as The Scorpion King, The Mummy animated series, Universal Classic Monsters, Hammer Studios, Dark Universe, etc.) and related adventure/archaeological-driven films (such as Ark of the Sun God, The Sphinx, The Librarian franchise, etc.)

Please send abstracts of 300 – 500 words with a working title and five (5) keywords, accompanied by a short third-person author bio (100 words max), to mummybookproject@gmail.com as a Word document. Final essays should be 6,000 – 8,000 words in length, including endnotes and bibliography, and be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition. The collection is being considered by a leading academic press.

Proposed Timeline

  • October 1, 2023 thru December 15, 2023 — Call for Papers
  • January 15, 2024 — Notification of abstract acceptances sent to authors  
  • January 15, 2024 thru June 15, 2024 — Book chapters drafting period
  • June 15, 2024 thru July 15, 2024 — Initial editorial review of submitted chapter drafts
  • August 1, 2024 thru October 1, 2024 — Double-blind Peer Review Period
  • October 1, 2024 thru November 15, 2024 — Contributor revision period
  • December 1, 2024 — Final editorial acceptance decisions
  • December 1, 2024 thru January 15, 2025 — Layout design, indexing, and proofing stage
  • January 15, 2025 thru February 15, 2025 — Copies of chapter proofs sent to contributors for copyediting review
  • March 1, 2025 — Final manuscript submitted in hard copy and digital formats to publisher

Editor bios:

Michele Brittany is a writer, editor, podcaster, and artist. She edited James Bond and Popular Culture and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Horror in Space: Critical Essays on a Film Subgenre. She co-edited Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays and co-hosts H. P. Lovecast podcast with Nicholas Diak. She lives in Glendale, Arizona.

Sean Woodard (MA | MFA) is a PhD candidate in English at University of Texas at Arlington. He also serves as the Assistant Editor for Global Insight: A Journal of Critical Human Science and Cultureand the Film Editor for Drunk Monkeys. He has contributed chapters to the edited collections Journeys Into Terror: Essays from the Cinematic Intersection of Travel and Horror and Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad. His research interests include horror cinema, the American West, psychoanalysis, fairy tales, and film scoring.

Autograph Stuff

Here are some of the autographed treasures I shared on social media these past two weeks.

First up is my copy of Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr. signed by longtime Wood collaborator, Conrad Brooks.

In the latter 2000s I contacted Brooks via his website and he reached out to me via phone. He actually thought I was a lady, probably because of my less-than-masculine voice. He let me send him all my Ed wood stuff for him to autograph (this book included) and he also sent me back some of his movies he directed himself and released via Alpha Video. He was a charming dude and we talked on the phone a few times, but I lost contact with him after we moved to California. I was sad to find out he died, one of the last vanguards of singular era of exploitation films.

Next, following along with classic exploitation, is The Complete Night of the Living Dead Film book, signed by John Russo.

Back in the latter 2000s Michele and I lived in Federal Way and our comic book shop was Spy Comics owned by Richard Spychalski. Richard was the man and we go to his shop every week to pick up our orders we made from Previews and stay well after the shop closed, talking with him and petting his dog Ollie. The bulk of my comic book collection was bought from Richard during this time.

This book popped up as something to order through Previews. The book is actually from 1985. I suspect Avatar Press, which was publishing some NOTLD comics, probably got a box of these books from Russo who has them sitting in his garage and asked for the publisher to sell them. Slap an autograph on them and a certificate of authenticity and voila! Anywho, I liked NOTLD well enough so I ordered this book with one of my previews orders and Richard was able to get it in for me.

I really, really miss having a local comic book store.

To go with my Mike Nelson autographed copy of Plan 9 From Outer Space I shared on 8/27, here’s my copy of Carnival of Souls signed by the MST3K alumni.

I bought this way back in early 20004 while living in University Place. This was an era I was hungry for more MST3K stuff, and at the time only Mike Nelson was doing anything like it. This version of Carnival of Souls was the first time I ever seen the cult film. It’s a great one – a very slow burn one.

#HorrorGameOctober

For #HorrorGameOctober I’ll be (well, am currently) playing two games: The Evil Within and The House of the Dead Remake.

There’s a theme to these two games: they both have lenticular covers!

Michele bought me The Evil Within as a yuletide gift way back in 2015. I played it for a bit, but something stopped me from getting too far in it. Something wasn’t jiving? I got distracted by another game? I’m not sure, but here I am 8 years later giving it a legit go.

The House of the Dead I used to play when I was a teen in the arcade at the Three Rivers Mall in Kelso. I never got far. The game was for sale dirt cheap on Amazon this summer so I plucked it up. I was able to beat it a few times, something I would never think I would do! The game made me feel very nostalgic. I’m going to give it a few more play throughs this month and score a few more Xbox achievements.

I am going to try and fit in a proper write up about these two horror games before the month ends.

Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2023-09-24

Personal / Website News

General Things Going On

As usual, lots of stuff going on behind the scenes. A small recap of things I am juggling:

  • Book reviews galore. I overcommitted myself to reviews I need to dig myself out of.
  • Michele and I are judges for an upcoming film festival, so we’ve been watching lots of short films for it.
  • Submitting the Emmanuelle proposal to publishers.
  • Next HP Lovecast Podcast episode will be an interview with Angela Sylvaine about her debut novel Frost Bite.
  • Will be a guest on a few upcoming Fan2Fan podcast episodes.
  • Next Scholars from the Edge of Time episode will be on Ironmaster.
  • Work has gotten hectic with project management work and implementations.
  • Other essay projects on the to do list I keep deprioritizing to get above items done.

Ooof. I’ll get my desk cleared off. Someday. I hope. It’s nice to get things done, but I need to manage better and learn to say no.

Book Review: The Scourge Between Stars

It’s been a bit since I published something here at my website. To break the spell I’ve done a book review on Ness Brown’s space horror novella, The Scourge Between Stars.

My review can be read here.

Michele and I also had the honor to interview Ness on our H. P. Lovecast Podcast. That episode can be streamed here.

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.

Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”

Vernon Press Product Page

Published in May, this issue of Weird Tales contains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”

Weird Tales Product Page

Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”

Limited to 50 physical copies.

Order via Patreon.

Published in early August, Dark Dead Things #2 contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”

Order via Dark Dead Thingswebsite.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Peplum Acquisitions

I did it. After watching G2: Mortal Conquest and doing a Scholars at the Edge of Time vidcast about it, I went out and bought a copy of The Swordsman 2: Gladiator Cop off eBay.

Oh yes, expect a podcast or an essay or a review – a something! – about this magnificent bastard of a film.

Autograph Stuff

Here are some of the autographed treasures I shared on social media these past two weeks.

First is the xbox game Darks of Days.

Michele and I saw this game demoed at PAX 2009? Around there. We have a shirt in a box somewhere. It’s an underrated time travel FPS game. It mostly takes place during the Civil War, but also WW1 and WW2, with a concentration camp scene being especially harrowing. The ending of the game is totally neo-peplum and totally epic: you’re back in Pompeii as Mt. Vesuvius is erupting. You got future armor and gun and you can just mow down Roman soldiers as folks run about. It is hectic and chaotic. Calls for an essay someday that’s for sure.

Way back then I contacted the developers, 8Monkey Labs, if they would autograph my copy. They said sure, I snail mailed it to them, and voila, here it is.

Next up is one of my most prized possessions, an Arkham House publication, Nameless Places, signed by author Gary Myers, Ramsey Campbell, and over artist Tim Kirk.

Gary is an old friend who has been a big inspiration to me for writing and getting into Lovecraft, especially the Dreamlands. I will never not plug his work when I can (check out his collection Country of the Worm!!!). Campbell I met at StokerCon 2018. Kirk I met at a Vintage Paperback Show in Glendale. He did a doodle in my book and its adorbs.

Categories
Essays

Claws From the Bulkhead Walls: Deep Space Horror in Ness Brown’s The Scourge Between Stars

Somewhere between the solar system and Proxima b the generation ship Calypso slowly limps back to Earth after failing to colonize an extrasolar planet. Carrying what may be the last of the human race, the Calypso is besieged by mechanical problems and caught in the crossfire between two unseen galactic forces. The ship’s problems are further compounded when a handful of xenomorphic stowaways make their presence known. The only person keeping everyone’s shit together (including their own) is Jacklyn Albright, who steps up to lead the Calypso against all odds when her father, the captain, falters.

And thus the premise of The Scourge Between Stars, the debut space horror novella by Ness Brown and published by Tor’s Nightfire imprint in the spring of 2023. Borrowing the stalking xenomorph from Alien, the decaying ship from Dark Star, and the uniformed humans who occupy a variety of functions a’la Star Trek, The Scourge Between Stars feels familiar, but Brown, whose professional background is astrophysics, keeps the narrative fresh, grounded, and throws in their own unique genre vision.

There’s no FTL in The Scourge Between Stars, which adds to a sense of futility and hopelessness to the story. If the Calypso will not make it back to Earth for hundreds of years, why bother? Main protag Jacklyn keeps the fire of hope burning despite all odds, and oh boy, are the odds against her, the crew, and the ship. Jacklyn is excessively critical of herself, comparing herself negatively to her father who, despite apparently having once been a great captain and leader, has sequestered himself in his quarter, forcing his daughter and crew to face the hardships on their own. 

Yet, Jacklyn is extremely resolute, and this is demonstrated through all her relationships – be them platonic, professional, or romantic. Jacklyn puts everyone before herself, which overtime does take its toll on her. She is carrying a burden and Brown excels at depicting Jacklyn overcoming all the ordeals she is faced with by using her leadership and trusting others to do their roles. 

These are the more action-oriented elements of The Scourge Between Stars. Jacklyn and her crew are also being hunted by xenomorphs that have made themselves hidden in the ship’s supplies, only surfacing now to lay eggs and stalk the Calypso crew. They bang inside the walls, dismember alone crew members, attack from the darkness, and even have a few unexpected tricks up their sleeve. Jacklyn and her crew take a competent approach to handle the alien menace, going ship section by ship section, locking down areas and trying to contain the aliens. Try as they might, things inevitably go awry, and the book has no shortage of alien attacks.

If there is a fault with The Scourge Between Stars is that the ending does feel rushed and resolved in a too tidy of package. Aside from this, The Scourge Between Stars expertly alternates between action and horror, finely maintaining an atmosphere of hopelessness and hope. Jacklyn is an excellent character, sympathetic and admirable, a model of a person acting against all odds. As a story proper, The Scourge Between Stars leverages the tropes that make space horror a fun genre to indulge in, but there is a unique authorial stamp from Ness that distinguishes the story from other space horror texts.

For more information about Ness Brown’s The Scourge Between Stars, check out our H. P. Lovecast Podcast interview with them:

HPLCP Transmissions – Ep 25 – Ness Brown – Scourge Between Stars – H. P. Lovecast Podcast

For more information check out the following links:

Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2023-09-10

Personal / Website News

H. P. Lovecast Podcast

The monthly Transmissions episode of our H. P. Lovecast Podcast is online.

In this episodes we interview Ness Brown about their debut space horror novella, The Scourge Between Stars. The episode can be streamed at the HP Lovecast Buzzsprout page, via the embedded player below, or via your podcast app of preference.

HPLCP Transmissions – Ep 25 – Ness Brown – Scourge Between Stars – H. P. Lovecast Podcast

In September or October we *should* be resuming our twice a month schedule. This summer has been crazy with projects, obligations, work, and prepping for CoKoCon.

Scholars from the Edge of Time

Michele and I did a second episode of Scholars from the Edge of Time in August. Michele talked about The Swordsman and I talked about the video game Starsand. Check it out on YouTube.

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.

Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”

Vernon Press Product Page

Published in May, this issue of Weird Tales contains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”

Weird Tales Product Page

Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”

Limited to 50 physical copies.

Order via Patreon.

Published in early August, Dark Dead Things #2 contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”

Order via Dark Dead Thingswebsite.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Autograph Roundup

Here is a round of autographed ephemera I’ve shared on social media the last two weeks.

First up is my copy of Bizarre Sinema! Horror all’italiana 1957-1979:

This is an incredible book. There’s an entire chapter + interview with Antonio Margheriti which I’ve cited in my masters thesis on Castle of Blood and in other essays as well.

Michele and I met Barbara Steele at a Hollywood Collectors Show back in July of 2010. She signed many of my movies but also my copy of Bizarre Sinema! in which she penned the foreword:

And, here is a picture of all of us from way back when. Queen!

Next up, part of my comprehensive Oliver Gruner library, is Crackerjack 3.

This DVD is signed by Gruner along with Bo Svenson, director Lloyd Simandl and WWE Diva Amy Weber. We met Amy Weber back in 2010 at a celebrity show in Burbank:

The folks at Boundheat Films coordinated the director signing my DVD. His auteur elements of including WIP/Lesbian Slave elements in his films are found in Crackerjack 3.

Next is Bikini Beach signed by the grooviest babe of the AIP beauty party films, Donna Loren.

These movies are always a lot of fun, especially when old guard folks like Buster Keaton show up.

Any finally, for this week, I have The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 3 signed by Gary Myers and George R. R. Martin.

Gary Myers is the bloody man and I would say is the most instrumental of me getting into the work of Lovecraft and cosmic horror. Myers’ Dreamlands stories are the best iteration of the Dreamlands and I suggest folks check his collection out.

George R. R. Martin was the guest of honor at StokerCon 2017 and that is were I got his autograph. I’ve never read Game of Thrones or watched the series, so his short story here is the only work of his I am familiar with.

CFP List

Here are a few interesting CFPs I want to help proliferate.

Music Medievalism In Popular Culture at ICMS in Kalamazoo (May 9–11, 2024)

Sponsoring Organization: Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture
Organizer: Anna Czarnowus

Jonathan Le Cocq (forthcoming, 2024) defines music medievalism as either the influence of the medieval on later music, or the impact on medieval music (real or imagined) on any later cultural practice. In popular culture, we can find both the music that has been influenced by the actual medieval one and music influenced by some folk music imagined as medieval. Medievalist music such as pagan folk music (Troyer in: Meyer and Yri, 2020) can be used in various media and there are various genres of it. Some music videos can be an example of the cultural practice that is influenced by the imaginary medieval music. Medievalist video games also contain “medievalized” music.

Please consider such topics and similar ones:

  • medievalist music as background
  • medievalist music and similar videos
  • medievalist music/folk music as medievalist

Please send your abstract to: annaczarnowus@tlen.pl by September 1, 2023, but an official proposal can only be made and accepted through https://icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi by September 15th.

Creating Camelot(s): The Idea of Community in Arthurian Texts (virtual)

Sponsored by Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain and International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB)

Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa and Joseph M. Sullivan

Call for Papers – Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2023
59th International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
Hybrid event: Thursday, 9 May, through Saturday, 11 May, 2024

Session Objective

Although we often refer to the Matter of Britain as the Arthurian tradition, the figure of King Arthur is merely the center point of the story. The tales are in fact about the community that Arthur builds and the ways those inside it (and outside as well) interact with each other. Through Arthur and those he surrounds himself with, Camelot becomes a living thing, and we experience its birth, maturity, and death, as well as its re-creation across the ages.
In this session, we’d like to highlight the multiple ways that Arthur’s realm has been constructed from the Middle Ages to the present. Submissions can explore the Arthurian legends from across time
and/or space as represented through diverse genres and media.
We seek contributions from a range of scholars–those within the disciplines of Arthurian Studies and/or Medieval Studies as well as those in outside fields, including beyond the humanities–as they
consider at least one of the following questions:

● What are the origins of Camelot? How do Arthur’s literary and/or historic predecessors (Ambrosius Aurelius, Arthur of Dal Riada, Constantine, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Lucius Artorius Castus, Riothamus, Uther Pendragon, Vortigern, etc.) influence the creation of his home base? What real locales inspired the idea or site of Camelot?
● Moving forwards, how has Camelot been built as a physical place whether in the Arthurian past or in post-Arthurian re-creations? What does the site look like? How does it function as a space where
individuals live and work?
● Also, how has Camelot been shaped as a communal space, a location for people to come together in fellowship, and who has been included within this group? In what ways does the community grow and change under Arthur and/or his successors?
● Alternatively, who has been excluded and/or expelled from the space(s) of Camelot, and in what ways have those individuals dealt with this loss?
● Similarly, who has been invited to join the community at Camelot but resisted its entreaties and/or rebelled against Arthur and his rule (or that of his successors)? What are the reasons for their rejection
of Camelot? How do their actions impact the Arthurian world?
● Lastly, do those removed from and/or repelled by Camelot ever integrate (or re-integrate) and become part of the community? How does this acceptance shape them and/or the world of Camelot?

Submission Information

All proposals must be submitted into the Confex system at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call by 15 September 2023. You will be prompted to complete sections on Title and Presentation
Information, People, Abstract, and Short Description. Be advised of the following policies of the Congress: “You are invited to make one paper proposal to one session of papers. This may be to one of the Sponsored or Special Sessions of Papers, which are organized by colleagues around the world, OR to the General Sessions of Papers, which are organized by the Program Committee in Kalamazoo. You may propose an unlimited number of roundtable contributions. However, you will not be scheduled as an active participant (as a paper presenter, roundtable discussant, presider, respondent, workshop leader, or performer) in more than three sessions.”.

Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at KingArthurForever2000@gmail.com.

For more information on the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain, please visit our website at https://KingArthurForever.blogspot.com/.

For more information on the International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB), please visit our website at https://www.international-arthurian-society-nab.org/ and consider becoming a member of our organization.

Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2023-08-27

Personal / Website News

Dark Dead Things #2

Issue two of Dark Dead Things is officially out!

This issue contains my essay, “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.” It can be purchased at the Dark Dead Things website or at Amazon.

BlueSky

I have an account at BlueSky now. I can be found at: @nicholasdiak.bsky.social. I’ll try posting there concurrently with Facebook and Twitter. And maybe Post and Tribel, but I don’t see many folks on those last two.

IMDB Profile

I have a profile at IMDB now!

Granted, there is not much there, but I think it’s pretty cool I’ve got to be in a few things. Here is a frame capture from Best.Work.Weekend.Ever. that you can kinda see me in:

I am in front of the T-shirt, way in the back. Michele and I also play dead bodies in There’s No Such Thing as Vampires – you can’t miss us in that.

Anyways, if you want to help me grow my acting CV, I am totally available to appear in documentaries, supplemental features on blu-rays, you name it!

CoKoCon Schedule

The schedule for CoKoCon 2023 is online. You can find Michele and I on the following panels:

  • Saturday Sept 2 9pm – Fiesta Ballroom 2: From EC Comics to Shudder: Horror Comics That Excite and Scare Us
  • Sunday Sept 3 6pm – Coronado: Creepy, Crawly, Otherworldly Bumps in the Night, or Cosmic Horror Films
  • Monday Sept 4 1pm – Coronado: 1pm: Weird West in Popular Culture

I’ll be on premises the entire con, so feel free to hunt me down to say hi! Michele and I will also have a table we were sill be selling and signing books.

Scholars from the Edge of Time

New episode of Scholars from the Edge of Time is now online.

In this episode, Michele and I discuss the 1999 Highlander/Mortal Kombat hybrid film, G2: Mortal Conquest. Check it out on YouTube!

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.

Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”

Vernon Press Product Page

Published in May, this issue of Weird Tales contains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”

Weird Tales Product Page

Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”

Limited to 50 physical copies.

Order via Patreon.

Published in early August, Dark Dead Things #2 contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”

Order via Dark Dead Thingswebsite.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Autograph Roundup

These past few months I’ve gotten into the habit of sharing some of my autographed items (mostly DVDs right now) on social media. Figure I can share them here too because I think I have some rad stuff.

First up is my copy of Contamination signed by director Luigi Cozzi. I remember first getting into Italo-horror and exploitation films being exchanged with the poster art. It looks so ominous. When I finally watched the movie, it turned out to be amazing. The beginning is just like Zombi but then you got all the exploding alien eggs. The final 1/3 of the film is like a spy-fi movie. Simple film that aims big and succeeds. I snail mailed my DVD sleeve to Cozzi way back in the aughts and he was gracious to sign it for me.

Next up is Nightbeast signed by director Don Dohler’s son, Greg Dohler, who acted in his dad’s films. Dohler was the king of 80s creature features. Another sleeve I snail mailed to Dohler asking for an autograph (always include as SASE folks!).

Abominable is a damn fine cryptid film full of cameo actors, both old guard and (then) new school. My copy was signed by Lloyd Braun himself, Matt McCoy, at a Hollywood Collector’s Show in Burbank in the late 2000s/early 2010s.

I remember being super hyped for the first Transformers movie when it was released and enjoying it. I saw the second one and was really disappointed, and have not seen any since. I might give Transformers: The Last Knight a watch because of the Arthurian/peplum elements.

This special edition of Transformers came out in the 2000s, back when super crazy special editions were all the rage. The DVD comes housed in am Optimus Prime that folds out. It’s pretty cool!

I had my copy signed by Mark Ryan who voiced Bumble Bee. He was a guest at a tiny comic book convention in Seattle back in the 2000s. Over time the silver ink from the booklet got a little stuck to the plastic box. Doh!

In the latter half of the 2000s Michele and I became Oliver Gruner super fans and were buying as many films as he was in as possible. Once of those films was Velocity Trap and boy is it a fun film. Basically a Die Hard in space. I have my DVD signed by a lot of folks: Gruner himself (his signature is in ballpoint pin and hard to see, but it’s under Bruce’s name), Bruce Weitz, James C. Burns, and Jaason Simmons.

There was a small, tiny window in the mid-2000s, after MST3K concluded, but before Film Crew, Rifftrax, and Cinematic Titanic, that Mike Nelson was doing solo commentaries for Legend Films. So, if you wanted MST3K-like content, this was the way to go. One of those releases of a colorized version of Plan 9 from Outer Space that came pre-signed by Nelson and also with an air freshener (because the movie stinks?). Great version of the cult film.

Apparently the North American region, Blu-ray release of Dawn of the Dead is super rare and OOP. Licensing issues I believe? I don’t have a Blu-ray of that classic film, but I do have this huge digipack edition Anchor Bay put out. There’s a few different versions of Dawn of the Dead in this edition. I had Ken Foree sign ming.

Can’t have Dawn of the Dead without following it up with Day of the Dead. Another digipack edition put out by Anchor Bay, mine is signed by Howard Sherman (Bub!) and Terry Alexander. I believe I met them both at a Crypticon in SeaTac back in the late 2000s.

And that is a recap of the last week or so of autographed stuff I shared across my social medias. If you want to see more of them, give me a follow!

Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2023-08-13

Personal / Website News

Black Emanuelle Boxset Unboxing

Severin Films recently released a titanic boxset of the Laura Gemser Black Emanuelle films. I, of course, did an unboxing article of it.

I also bring up prior incarnations of Black Emanuelle DVD releases. Check out the write up here.

Citation News

There’s been an uptick in work being cited lately and I am here for it!

Firstly, my essay “Lost Nights and Dangerous Days: Unraveling the Relationship Between Stranger Things and Synthwave” from Uncovering Stranger Things has been cited in the essay “‘Dad, every serial killer is somebody’s neighbor!’ The Problem of White Supremacy in Summer of ’84” by Erika Tiburcio Moreno and published in the edited collection The ’80s Resurrected: Essays on the Decade in Popular Culture Then and Now.

The book was published by McFarland in March earlier this year. More info can be found on the book’s product page at the McFarland website.

Next, Hannah Mueller’s essay “Male Nudity, Violence and the Disruption of Voyeuristic Pleasure in Starz’s Spartacus” from The New Peplum has been cited by James K. Beggan in his essay “Why is he there? Male presence in a sexually explicit magazine geared towards heterosexual men” that was published in the Porn Studies journal.

The New Peplum
Cover art for The New Peplum

If you have access the essay can be read at the journal’s page at Taylor and Francis.

New Episode of HP Lovecast

A new episode of our monthly Transmission program is now online.

For July we interviewed Chelsea Pumpkins, editor of the horror anthology AHH! That’s What I Call Horror: An Anthology of ’90s Horror. The episode can be streamed via our Buzzsprout page, the embedded player below, or through your podcast app of preference.

HPLCP Transmissions – Ep 24 – Chelsea Pumpkins – H. P. Lovecast Podcast

CoKoCon Schedule

The schedule for CoKoCon 2023 is starting to take shape! You can find Michele and I on the following panels:

  • Saturday Sept 2 9pm – Fiesta Ballroom 2: From EC Comics to Shudder: Horror Comics That Excite and Scare Us
  • Sunday Sept 3 6pm – Coronado: Creepy, Crawly, Otherworldly Bumps in the Night, or Cosmic Horror Films
  • Monday Sept 4 1pm – Coronado: 1pm: Weird West in Popular Culture

I’ll be on premises the entire con, so feel free to hunt me down to say hi! Michele and I will also have a table we were sill be selling and signing books.

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.

Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”

Vernon Press Product Page

Published in May, this issue of Weird Tales contains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”

Weird Tales Product Page

Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”

Limited to 50 physical copies.

Order via Patreon.

Essay about mimetic desire in Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu in Dark Dead Things #2/

Order via Dark Dead Things website.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

New Acquisitions

Kino Lorber just had a summer sale on their Blu-rays so I took the opportunity to pluck up some Italian films for the library.

The Last Hunter I already had on DVD, from Dark Sky Films. In fact, here is my copy autographed by Antonio Margheriti’s son, Edoardo Margheriti:

I did a presentation on The Last Hunter at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association conference waaaaaaay back in 2010. Not my best presentation and still very green at being an academic, but the text of it can be read at my Academia.edu account.

Ironmaster I have not seen. It sounds like an Italian sword and sorcery flick, but in a prehistoric age. I am a fan of Umberto Lenzi’s work so this should be a fun watch.

Lastly is Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, which I also have not seen. I’ve seen the iconic image of Sophia Loren slipping off her stockings that I feel like I’ve seen the film. I always think of Mastroianni from Divorce, Italian Style.

Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew Commentary

Matt Page, author of 100 Bible Films, has recorded a commentary for Paolini’s 1964 Biblical peplum, The Gospel According to St. Matthew. The commentary and be streamed from YouTube. Criterion Collection recently released a Pasolini boxset that contains this film.

Call for Papers

Michael Torregrossa has a few CFPs out there. I’m sharing them here to help get the word out. Check them out and consider submitting!

Beowulfs Beyond Beowulf: Transformations of Beowulf in Popular Culture (Panel)

Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture and the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association

Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Richard Fahey, Carl Sell, and Benjamin Hoover

Call for Papers – Please Submit Proposals by 30 September 2023

55th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association

Sheraton Boston Hotel (Boston, MA)

On-site event: 7-10 March 2024

The Old English epic Beowulf remains an important touchstone for connecting us to the medieval past, yet it also has continued relevance today through its various transformations in cultural texts (especially works of popular culture). Our hope with this session is to expand our knowledge of these works and assess their potential for research and teaching. 

Please visit our website Beowulf Transformed: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Beowulf Story (available at https://beowulf-transformed.blogspot.com/)  for resources and ideas. 

The full call for papers (with complete session and submission information) can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/Beowulf-Transformed-NeMLA-2024.  

Session Information

Over a millennium old, the story of Beowulf is disseminated primarily through its editions and translations and its transformations. These three types of Beowulfiana represent a massive corpus of over 1000 works according to the Beowulf’s Afterlives Bibliographic Database; though, as medievalists, we tend to focus on the first two categories rather than the last concentrating on scholastic pursuits rather than entertainments. Consequently, many are often surprised by the variety and vitality of this corpus and its vast potential for research and teaching.

New versions of the Beowulf story feature in all forms of modern mediævalisms, yet (as is true with most medieval texts) research continues to focus primarily on depictions of Beowulf on screen (about 100 examples according to the Internet Movie Database). We hope in this session to expand our view of Beowulf’s reception by creators and look more deeply at the text’s wider use. 

We are particularly interested in explorations of the adaptation and/or appropriation of the text, its characters, and its themes in works of fiction (at least 250 examples according to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database and much more recorded by the Beowulf’s Afterlives Bibliographic Database) and comics (at least 380 examples according to the Grand Comics Database), as well as their representations in new and neglected works on screen (including film, television, entertainment consoles, and the Internet). Additional versions of Beowulf can be found in works of creative, performative, and visual arts that also need more attention. 

We hope to make our conversation productive. Therefore, we request that submissions highlight the ways the new text transforms the old (for example as interpretations or appropriations of the poem or as an intertext for another work) as well as its value in furthering the Beowulf tradition rather than focusing solely on any perceived defects. 

Please see our website Beowulf Transformed: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Beowulf Story (at https://beowulf-transformed.blogspot.com/) for a growing list of ideas, resources, and support. 

All proposals will also be considered for a themed issue of the open-access journal The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe.

Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com.

Submission Information

All proposals must be submitted into the CFPList system at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20596 by 30 September 2023. You will be prompted to create an account with NeMLA (if you do not already have one) and, then, to complete sections on Title, Abstract, and Media Needs. 

Notification on the fate of your submission will be made prior to 16 October 2023. If favorable, please confirm your participation with chairs by accepting their invitations and by registering for the event. The deadline for Registration/Membership is 9 December 2023.

Be advised of the following policies of the Convention: All participants must be members of NeMLA for the year of the conference. Participants may present on up to two sessions of different types (panels/seminars are considered of the same type). Submitters to the CFP site cannot upload the same abstract twice.(See the NeMLA Presenter Policies page, at https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/policies.html, for further details,)

Thank you for your interest in our session. 

Again, please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com.

For more information on the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please visit our website at https://MedievalinPopularCulture.blogspot.com/.  

For more information on the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, please visit our website at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.

Categories
Essays

Traveling First Class: The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle Boxset

Roughly fifteen years ago Severin Films gave rejuvenated life to a handful of Black Emanuelle titles, Italian derivatives of the French Emmanuelle films. Staring Laura Gemser, the Black Emanuelle films took on a distinct identity of their own while at the same time flirting with other popular Italo-genres of the period: mondo, cannibal, women in prison, etc.

Severin only scratched the Black Emanuelle surface back in the latter august, with other DVD companies such as Blue Underground, Full Moon, Mya, and Shriek Show, published Black Emanuelle titles they had rights to. It was a scattered canon of releases with some titles and alternate versions remaining unreleased in digital format.

Fast forward to 2023 and Severin Films returns to the erotic world of Black Emanuelle with an epic fifteen disc boxset of Black Emanuelle Blu-rays and soundtracks. As in typical Severin fashion, the Black Emanuelle boxset came in a variety of bundles. This article is an unboxing of The Around the World bundle along with a comparison and remembrance of prior Black Emanuelle releases from other publishers.

Like the Severin release of All Haunts Be Ours, Black Emanuelle came in a large box, only cube-shaped instead of pizza box-shaped.

Bonus Spunky cat checking things out.

Packed with lots of popcorn, obscuring the contents within. 

First up is the Severin Airlines bag. The type face and red-orange-yellow colours evoke the 70s for sure. The sun has a bit of a broken sun vibe typically found in synthwave artwork. The bag is the perfect size to fit all the Black Emanuelle swag within.

It even has zippers of the iconic Severin Films logo.

A reproduction necklace from Black Emanuelle.

The insert shows a picture of Laura Gemser in one of her poses from the photoshoot scene in the film.

A reproduction Polaroid.

A passport that look quite convincing that had a Severin Films logo sticker and a sticker that references Violence in a Women’s Prison. 

A comparison of the Emanuelle passport to a real, present day one.

The passport reproduction gets even more detailed with identifying information.

To compliment the passport, there are three sheets of stickers that can be put inside the passport as visas.

Each sticker set is grouped by film. 

Gemser was truly a globetrotting reporter with all these sticker-visas!

The next big ticket item is the board game, Around the World with Black Emanuelle. This will be opened at a later date.

A recreation pen from the Hotel Siam in Bangkok. It looks like a white Mont Blanc.

And finally, the treasure itself, the boxset proper. The outer boxset is sturdy cardboard and has, on the side, a scroll wheel that changes the photo displayed inside Gemser’s camera when turned.

Before going further, the two original Black Emanuelle boxsets Severin published back in the 2000s need to be highlighted. These boxes were locked with velcro and when opened showed a nude Gemser. Each boxset had three films. 

Inside the Black Emanuelle boxset is a small, but thick book titled The Black Emanuelle Bible, edited by Kier-La Janisse who has done wonder work on other Severin releases.

The blu-rays and CDs are packed in a folding booklet, with inserts for each disc.

Disc one contains the Black Emanuelle and Black Emanuelle 2. Paired here is the original Severin DVD release of Black Emanuelle 2 which did not feature Gemser. 

Disc two contains Emanuelle in Bangkok and Emanuelle in America. Here the boxset is paired with the original Severin edition of Emanuelle in Bangkok and the Blue Underground version of Emanuelle in America.

Disc three contains two extremely controversial Black Emanuelle films. Firstly there is Emanuelle and the Last Cannibalspaired with the Severin Blu-ray edition and the Shriek Show DVD version.

The other half of the disc has Emanuelle Around the World. Severin originally published this in two different DVD editions: a normal edition and a European XXX edition.

Skipping to disc five there is Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade pictured with the original Severin DVD and the Full Moon Blu-ray.

The other film on disc five is Sister Emmanuelle. The original Severin edition came in a boxset that contained postcards of the films’ posters.

Disc six has the sleazy Violence in a Women’s Prison, compared to the Severin Blu-ray edition.

Disc seven demonstrates the fluid naming conventions Italian genre films adhered to. This disc contains Emanuelle Black Velvet, paired with its Full Moon edition. Severin previously published this film under the Black Emanuelle White Emmanuelle moniker (two Ms!).

Disc nine has Divine Emanuelle, this one paired with its Shriek Show counterpart Divine Emanuelle: Love Cult.

And finally, as far as release comparisons go, disc element contains Laura Gesmer’s first film appearance, Amore Libero – Free Love. The defunct boutique label Mya originally published this film on DVD under The Real Emanuelle title.

Slated to be included in this boxset was an item called “Emanuelle’s Studio Magnetic Fashion Playset.” However that item seems to be held up by the manufacturer and will ship at a later date.

All in all this is a comprehensive boxset on all things Black Emanuelle. The ephemera really contextualizes the era these movies came out in and underscores the traveling and cosmopolitanism aspect aspects of them. A glorious and glamorous boxset that solidifies the Black Emanuelle legacy.

If you enjoyed this unboxing check out these related articles. Also, I still have a soft open on the Emmanuelle/Black Emanuelle CFP. If you have an essay idea, send it over! Details can be found here.

Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2023-07-30

Personal / Website News

Dark Dead Things #2

The weird fiction/poetry literary magazine Dark Dead Things is publishing their second issue. I’m incredibly honored to be included in this issue with my essay on a Rene Girard reading of Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu.”

The issue can be ordered from the Dark Dead Things webshop as a bundle with a rad T-shirt of Meowlister Crowley. Issue 1 is still available, so check that out too and supporting this indie endeavor.

Sincere gratitude to Mike Salinas for including me in this issue.

Stranger Things Essay Citation

My essay, “Lost Nights and Dangerous Days: Unraveling the Relationship Between Stranger Things and Synthwave” that was published in Kevin Wetmore’s book, Uncovering Stranger Things, has been cited in Jutta Steiner’s book Nostalgie Im Upside Down: Das progressive Potenzial von Nostalgie in Der Retro-Serie Stranger Things.

My Stranger Things/synthwave essay continues to be my most cited piece of writing. Very flattered!

Bibliography Updates

I’m increasing seeing other texts aside from The New Peplum becoming cited and reviewed. Because of that I am creating subpages for some of these works with more detail. If you click the dropdown on the Bibliography menu you’ll start seeing them. These updates are a work in process, but I look forward to sharing more detail about these pieces I’ve composed or edited over the years.

Atlantis, the Lost Continent

A new episode of Scholars from the Edge of time is now online! In this episode Michele and I discuss the 1961 American sword and sandal film, Atlantis, the Lost Continent. Check it out on YouTube.

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.

Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”

Vernon Press Product Page

Published in May, this issue of Weird Tales contains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”

Weird Tales Product Page

Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”

Limited to 50 physical copies.

Order via Patreon.

Published in early August, the second issue of Dark Dead Things contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”

Order at Dark Dead Things.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

CFP: Ancient World, Modern Music II at CAMWS 2024

Dr. Jeremy Swist has a new CFP that’s live:

An organized panel to be proposed for the 120th annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West & South, April 3rd – 6th, 2024 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA at the invitation of Washington University, St. Louis.

After a successful 1st edition of the panel in 2022 at Winston Salem, we are seeking abstracts for another panel on the reception of antiquity in modern music. 15-minute papers on the topic may discuss any genre of modern & popular music, including folk & country, rock & metal, hip-hop & pop, and theater & soundtracks, and may focus on lyrics, album artwork, music videos, live performances, or the music itself. We are particularly interested in questions of how musicians integrate ancient culture, myth, and art into a modern medium, and how they read antiquity in response to the personal, the aesthetic, & the political.

Send 300-word abstracts and questions to Jeremy Swist (swistjj@miamioh.edu) by 15th August 2023. Potential panelists must commit to present in person if accepted.

Recent Peplum Acquisitions

I’ve plucked up two peplum films recently to add to the library.

First is Land of the Pharaohs which just got the Blu-ray treatment this past June. Michele and I recently talked about this movie on Scholars from the Edge of Time (YouTube video link here) and I really dug it! When I saw Warner Archive was going to do a new version of it I had to pre-order it.

Next is an old release of a movie called G2: Mortal Conquest. Apparently this movie is a re-worked version of the 1995 movie Gladiator Cop. A name like Gladiator Cop, I gotta watch it! However it’s OOP and kinda pricy, so I’ll pluck up a copy later. In the meantime, this alternate version in the form of G2 will have to do. I remember Daniel Bernhardt from Future War which was on MST3K, which was baaaaad. So, I am hoping this movie will be just as campy fun.

Secret Agent Barbie GBA Game

Last weekend was Barbenheimer – when two blockbuster films, Barbie and Oppenheimer, got released the same weekend. It looked like a pretty fun pop culture event, two movies at the polar opposites of tone and subject matter, but linked none-the-less.

I didn’t get a chance to partake, but I’ll definitely watch both movies when they are released on Blu-ray. In the meantime, just for fun, I’ll share the odd Barbie artifact in my collection: a complete, in box (CIB) copy of Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission.

I bought this game long ago, I believe at the SoCal Retro Gaming Expo in Ontario, CA. I don’t have many CIB retro games in my collection (then and now), and I recall this game being extremely cheap. It was also a time, I believe, I was knee deep in spy-fi studies when Michele was working on her James Bond book. So because of all of that, I plucked up this game when I happened upon it. I recall playing it for a bit on my Retron-5 and enjoying it. Perhaps I’ll have to give it a proper play through.

Anyways, a rare opportunity to see a CIB Barbie game: box, cartridge, poster, manual, and Nintendo booklet. Not pictured is my plastic case I keep the game in to keep it in the best condition I can (the outer box is a bit bent in though).