Hollywood Haunts The World
An Investigation into the Cinema of Occulted Taboos
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Book Presentation:
The secret history of the world can be decoded through film.
In Hollywood Haunts the World: An Investigation into the Cinema of Occulted Taboos, Robert Guffey deconstructs the most powerful taboos of the twentieth century (and the initial decades of the twenty-first century) by analyzing how disturbing and transgressive ideas involving Theosophy, Gnosticism, Freemasonry, Darwinian Evolution, Surrealism, Freudian and Jungian psychology, race relations, paranoia, UFOs, xenophobia, political conspiracies, the JFK assassination, virtual reality, and alternate dimensions have been reflected in films―both American and foreign―throughout the past one hundred years.
Popular films and TV shows that fall under Robert Guffey’s cutting-edge scrutiny include Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, Larry Wade Carell’s Girl Next, Matt Shakman’s WandaVision, Anthony and Joe Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War, Scott Derrickson’s Dr. Strange, Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, Christopher Nolan’s Inception, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad, Oliver Stone’s JFK, Mark Frost and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, John Carpenter’s They Live, Alan Pakula’s The Parallax View, John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate, Jack Arnold’s It Came from Outer Space, Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Man from Planet X, Robert Florey’s Murders in the Rue Morgue, Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr., and Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage.
About the Author:
Robert Guffey is a lecturer in the Department of English at California State University, Long Beach. His book, Operation Mindf*ck: QAnon & the Cult of Donald Trump (OR Books, 2022), was described by Alan Moore as “jaw-dropping and essential.” A graduate of the famed Clarion Writers Workshop in Seattle, he has written for numerous publications, among them The Believer, The Evergreen Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Mailer Review, Postscripts and Salon. He lives in Long Beach, California with his wife and daughter.
Press Reviews:
"In Hollywood Haunts the World, Robert Guffey takes his readers for a trip behind the magic curtain to reveal the true Wizards at work―those behind the lenses, making magic and moving the secret levers. To this end, Guffey plays the role of Toto, tearing the curtain aside to reveal these flesh and bone Wizards of the military-industrial-entertainment complex, and the occult role they play in influencing our inner dreams and everyday realities." -Adam Gorightly, author of Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks and The Shadow Over Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control and the Manson Family Mythos
"Hollywood has truly haunted the world. So too should this book, one of the best ever written on American cinema." -Gary D. Rhodes, from his foreword,
"Jaw-dropping and essential." -Alan Moore on the author’s book, Operation Mindf*ck
"Robert Guffey’s writing has impressed, entertained, and enlightened me pretty much since I first met him. My suggestion? If he wrote it, read it." -Jack Womack, author of Random Acts of Senseless Violence
"Guffey’s work, full of vast and somewhat offbeat scholarship, is […] imbued with a Southern Californian sensibility that reminds one both of the trippy work of Philip K. Dick and the Sunshine State Noir of Tarantino circa Pulp Fiction." -Craig L. Gidney on the author's book, Chameleo
See the publisher website: Headpress
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