Xavier Mendik

Professor of Cult Cinema Studies
download cv
United Kingdom °1969
research interests: Representations in cult and horror cinema, Images of terrorism in cult film traditions, Documentary film practices, Italian cinema and society, Culture and conflict in Canadian film
affiliation: Birmingham City University UK
en

Xavier Mendik is Professor of Cult Cinema Studies at Birmingham City University, from where he also runs the Cine-Excess International Film Festival (www.cine-excess.co.uk). He has written extensively on cult and horror film traditions. His publications (as author/editor/co-editor) include Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema (2015), Peep Shows: Cult Film and the Cine-Erotic (2012) The Cult Film Reader (2008) and Shocking Cinema of the Seventies (2002).

 

He has also completed a number of documentaries on cult horror film traditions including Cabin Fever: Fear Today, Horror Tomorrow (2004), Fear at 400 Degrees: The Cine-Excess of Suspiria (2010), The Long Road Back From Hell: Reclaiming Cannibal Holocaust (2011),  Tax Shelter Terrors: The Real Story of Canadian Cult Film (2017) , That’s La Morte: Italian Cult Cinema and the Years of Lead (2018) and The Quiet Revolution: State, Society and the Canadian Horror Film (2020 [festival cut]).

 

Current Research Interests:

  • Marginal communities in American horror
  • Horror film traditions and terrorist fears
  • Gender in European horror cinema
  • Horror as a mechanism for community engagement
  • Canadian horror film traditions and industry practices
  • Horror Studies through practice as research
  • Horror and cult film festivals

 

research

research expositions

  • That's La Morte: Italian Cult Cinema and the Years of Lead (2021) author(s): Xavier Mendik published in: Research Catalogue
    'That's la Morte: Italian Cult Cinema and the Years of Lead' is an 80 minute documentary that considers how cult and horror film cycles came to reflect wider anxieties within 1970s Italy. The documentary comprises of archival and film data from the decade alongside interview interventions from leading filmmakers, producers, performers, screenwriters musicians and historians.
     open exposition comments (0)
  • THE QUIET REVOLUTION: STATE SOCIETY AND THE CANADIAN HORROR FILM (2021) author(s): Xavier Mendik published in: Research Catalogue
    This two-part UK/Canadian produced documentary provides an extensive analysis of horror cinema trends from the 1960s to the present day. It critically evaluates Canadian traditions of the genre through a range of pertinent methodologies in order to explore wider tensions surrounding national identity (part one, 70 minutes), as well as the struggles for representation as advanced by female and indigenous filmmakers (part two, 52 minutes).
     open exposition comments (0)
  • TAX SHELTER TERRORS: THE REAL STORY OF CANADIAN CULT CINEMA (2021) author(s): Xavier Mendik published in: Research Catalogue
    This 2016 UK/Canadian documentary is the first practice as research project to fully explore the social and historical significance of the controversial ‘tax shelter’ films that were released in Canada between 1974 and 1984. It considers both the tax shelter phenomenon (which allowed investors to deduct 100% of taxable investment in film production), and the dramatic expansion in populist Canadian cinema it prompted (including ‘body horror’ films, home invasion thrillers, ribald teen movies and regional sex comedies).
     open exposition comments (0)