Xavier Mendik

Xavier is a lecturer in Film and Television Studies, as well as the Director of Brunel’s Cine-Excess international Cult Film Festival and DVD label www.cine-excess.co.uk. He is also Director of the acclaimed Cult Film Archive, which houses over 4,000 films and research resources in the Brunel library. He has written extensively on cult and horror traditions, and some of his publications in this area include The Cult Film Reader (2008), Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945 (2004), Shocking Cinema of the Seventies (2002), Underground USA: Filmmaking Beyond the Hollywood Canon (2002) and Dario Argento’s Tenebrae (2000). Xavier recently completed 100 Cult Films (with Ernest Mathis), to be released in September 2011 as part of the BFI/Palgrave film guide series, and is currently completing a monograph on 1970s Italian cult film.

Beyond his academic writing, Xavier has an established profile as a documentary filmmaker and distributor. he was responsible for the 2011 high-definition UK restoration of Dario Argento’s Suspiria for the Nouveaux Pictures- Cine-Excess DVD label, and has recently directed the documentary ‘The Long Road Back From Hell’, to be included on the Shameless Films 2011 UK Director’s Cut of Cannibal Holocaust. Further details of these activities can be found on www.cine-excess.co.uk

Research Interests

Xavier has an established research and publication profile in the fields of cult and horror cinema, and has published 6 books and 24 book chapters/journal articles in these areas.

Some of his key publications as author, editor and co-editor include The Cult Film Reader (Open University Press, 2008), the world’s first academic/undergraduate Reader on cult cinema. The Reader contained over 45 key articles on the theorisation, genres, reception and audience approaches to underground cinema. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=400941§ioncode=26)

Other key publications Xavier has completed include Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945 (Wallflower Press, 2004), which explored wide range of untheorised case-studies of European exploitation cinema.

His 2002 collection Underground USA: Filmmaking Beyond the Hollywood Canon (Wallflower Press) considered links between American avant-garde and underground ‘exploitation’ cinema traditions. http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/bookreview.php?issue=3&id=95)

Shocking Cinema of the Seventies (also released in 2002 by Noir Publishing), considered a range of American cinematic genres in light of wider social and political tensions of the decade. http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/bookreview.php?issue=3&id=95

His monograph Dario Argento’s Tenebrae (Flicks Books, 2000) considered the controversial film’s self-reflexive use of detective fiction, as well as its representations of sexual ambiguity and male masochism. http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/bookreview.php?issue=feb2003&id=377§ion=book_rev)

Xavier’s first published volume was the co-edited collection Unruly Pleasures: The Cult Film and its Critics (FAB Press, 2000), was the first British volume dedicated the cult film traditions and their gender representations.

He has just finished co-authoring the volume 100 Cult Movies (with Ernest Mathijs), which will be released By Palgrave/BFI in September 2011. He has also recently completed editing Peep Shows: Cult Film and the Cine-Erotic (Columbia University Press, 2012), which explores global configurations of erotica.

Xavier is currently working on his new book Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema, which explores social and psychic tensions in a range of 1970s Italian genres.

Teaching Activity

Xavier currently convenes modules on ‘Critical Methodologies’ (year 1) and ‘Gender and Sexuality’ (year 3), as well as contributing to ‘Crime Fictions’ (year 1), ‘Film Style (year 1), ‘The Horror Film’ (year 3) and ‘Film and TV Comedy’ (year 3). He is also convenor of the new ‘Film and TV Studies Work Placement’ module (year 3), which offers third year students placements with key London-based production, distribution and exhibition outlets.

Publications

Journal Papers

(2006) Mendik, X., Barker, M. and Mathijs, E., Menstrual monsters: The reception of the Ginger Snaps cult horror franchise, Film International 4 (21) : 68- 77

(2004) Mendik, X., A kind of (perverse) loving: The gothic horror films of Joe D’Amato, Senses of Cinema (30)

(2003) Mendik, X., Fear and loathing in Beverly Hills: Alex Cox on filmmaking, film criticism and the Hollywood machine, Senses of Cinema (24)

Book Chapters

(2010) Mendik, X., Body in a bed, body growing dead: Uncanny women in Joe D'Amato's Italian exploitation cinema. In: Weiner, RG. and Cline, J. eds. Cinema Inferno. Scarecrow Press 124- 144

(2004) Mendik, X., Black sex, bad sex: Monstrous ethnicity in the Black Emanuelle films. In: Mathijs, E. and Mendik, X. eds. Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and exploitation cinema since 1945. London : Wallflower 146- 159

(2003) Mendik, X., A tasteless art: Waters, Kaufman and the pursuit of 'pure' gross-out. In: Mendik, X. and Schneider, SJ. eds. Underground USA: Film-making beyond the Hollywood canon. London : Wallflower Press 204- 220

Books

(2011) Mendik, X. and Mathijs, E., 100 cult films. Palgrave

(2011) Mendik, X., Bodies of desire and bodies in distress: 1970s Italian exploitation cinema. Cambridge Scholars Press

(2011) Mendik, X., Peep shows: cult film and the cine-erotic. Wallflower Press

(2008) Mathijs, E. and Mendik, X., The cult film reader. Open University Press

(2004) Mathijs, E. and Mendik, XC., Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and exploitation cinema since 1945. Wallflower Press

(2002) MENDIK, X., Shocking Cinema of the Seventies. Noir Publishing

(2002) MENDIK, X., Tenebre/Tenebrae. Flicks Books

(2002) MENDIK, X. and Schneide, SJ., Underground USA : Filmmaking Beyond the Hollywood Canon. Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press

(2000) MENDIK, X., Unruly Pleasures: The Cult Film and its Critics. Fab Press