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1 results

  • 6 - Schlock, Kitsch, and Camp

  • from Part I - Histories
  • Edited by Stephen Shapiro, University of Warwick, Mark Storey, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to American Horror
    Published online:
    21 July 2022
    Print publication:
    04 August 2022, pp 91-104

  • Summary

    Schlock horror is excessive, gore-filled, aiming for great effects and intense emotions. It might harbor pretentions to deadly seriousness, but cannot achieve its aim. It usually fails, because something rings untrue, too silly, be it the acting, the scriptwriting, the sets, the too-bright red blood. Schlocky horror has long been a part of the genre, but its presence waxes and wanes across time, according to technological demands within the culture industry or vagaries of fashion. Reversals occur. Artworks that were designed more or less earnestly might come to be seen as schlocky, while artworks designed to become cult objects of bad taste might find themselves elevated into the zone of high art. Any consideration of schlock benefits from an assessment of the longer history of its associated (anti)-aesthetic terms: kitsch and camp – in order to discern how various cultural critics have derived social and political and other meaning from what are often disdained productions.