New Israeli Horror

OLGA GERSHENSON is Professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies and of Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of The Phantom Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and Jewish Catastrophe and Gesher: Russian Theater in Israel, and editor of Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender. To learn more about her work, see www.people.umass.edu/olga

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction 1 The Precursors: From The Angel Was a Devil to Frozen DaysPart I Subversion2 The First Hebrew Horror: Rabies3 A Korean Revenge Thriller in the Israeli Countryside: Big Bad WolvesPart II Conversion4 Horror in the IDFZombies in the Fatigues: Poisoned and Cannon FodderFreak Out: “The Final Boy” on the BaseThe Specters of Violence in The Damned5 The Jewish Supernatural: JeruZalem6 Slasher on the Kibbutz: Children of the FallPart III Aversion7 Escaping Israel: Another World, Madam Yankelova’s Fine Literature Club, and The GolemCoda: Is There I-Horror? NotesIndex

"Richly entertaining and informative." (Haaretz) "Excellent." (New Books Network) "Gershenson's book is one of the most comprehensive and captivating studies on Israeli cinema." (Walla) "Gershenson provides a thorough, eloquent, and brilliant analysis of the reasons behind the rise of this new genre in Israel." (Maariv) "Devoted horror film fans, regardless of their countries of origin, will likely appreciate this book. Those who study the horror genre and film in general will admire the detailed scholarship that underlies the text. Readers with a broader knowledge of Israeli film history may benefit the most from this book because they can contextualize this emergent movement and compare this genre to other uniquely Israeli film styles.” (Journal of Popular Culture) “This significant work charts the ways in which New Israeli Horror films offer a critique of the violence that lies at the heart of Israeli society, the damaging masculinity of the military machine, and the suppression of Palestinian trauma. The result is a hugely readable and subtly nuanced work that makes a substantive contribution to our understanding of both modern Israel and the horror genre’s ability to articulate national trauma. It’s essential reading for all with an interest in the genre and in national cinema more broadly.”- Linnie Blake (Manchester Metropolitan University and author of The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Tr) “This is a fantastic book that looks at the intellectual, industrial, funding, and reception contexts of Israeli horror but without bouncing between them like demented pinball. Instead, what we get is an extraordinarily integrated interdisciplinary account that should operate as an exemplar for horror scholarship for decades to come!”- Mark Jancovich (author of Horror and editor of Horror, The Film Reader) "New Israeli Horror is the definitive study of Israeli cinema’s most unorthodox genre from its inception among a small group of students at Tel Aviv University to its success on the international film festival circuit and in online piracy in the Arab world. Through an examination of technology, financing, transnational adaptation, local and international reception, and interviews with filmmakers it deciphers the meanings behind the throng of serial killers in uniform, Palestinian ghosts, zombies, cannibals, and monsters from Jewish folklore that have invaded Israeli screens in this millennium."- Boaz Hagin (co-editor of Deeper Than Oblivion: Trauma and Memory in Israeli Cinema) “New Israeli Horror perceptively chronicles the origins and evolution of Israeli horror films. It brilliantly analyzes how this corpus of films replicated or subverted the familiar tropes of the horror genre and demonstrates that they possess implicit and eventually explicit relevance to the political and social conflicts within Israel.”- Lawrence Baron (author of Projecting The Holocaust Into The Present and editor of The Modern Jewish Experience in Wo)