Dark Carnivals: Modern Horror and the Origins of American Empire

by W. Scott Poole

But in truth it’s scripted as a nonspecific anywhere, the savage jungle of imperial imagination.

No shit

His predications of a despotic future served as a critique of Stalinism in his own time even as they effectively predicted the power of surveillance and lack of privacy of our contemporary moment. He also accurately predicted every superpower’s need for an enemy.

He also predicted the way in which, and where, future wars would be fought. Insightful guy or really lucky guesser.

bioweapons

Napalm is a disgusting weapon but it is not s bioweapon by any stretch of the imagination.

thug

Thug is not a recently invented term. Check a dictionary before you make word origin statements.

Nor did CIA agents directly engage in the distribution and sale of the drug, or at least no reliable evidence has appeared to prove such a thing.

Telling the truth but implying it's a lie for sensationalism

And, as Craven read in a 1987 story in the Los Angeles Times, many of their young people began to inexplicably die from heart failure, seemingly while trapped in a nightmare. The syndrome even received an acronym, SUNDS, or sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome.

So if he read it in 87 how could it influence a movie in 84?

In the 1980s, the nation continued its fascination with slasher films, fearful of the serial murderer who surely lived on their version of Elm Street.

A good example of the non sequitur statements this authors uses that make his writing difficult to follow.

examples of how many of those who wander are actually just really lost.

The notions Lindsey’s ideas of Biblical prophecy proffered didn’t originate with him; these underground ideas have been around since the nineteenth century.

I think they're older than that.

called Reagan’s notion of free market adventurism “voodoo economics.” He found the term ready at hand with so much talk of voodoo in the air in the 1980s,

Except he had to have said it in 80 since that is the primary he went up against Reagan in. Once again over exaggerating to create a connection.

Italian films like Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981)

So you mean it's not just the U.S. with these attitudes? Does that mean there's an Italian empire secretly exploiting the world?

Duvalier’s private army lived up to their name, disappearing political opponents and their supporters in the small hours.

I don't they were living up to the name. I think the people gave them the name based on the behavior.

Pullman’s Harvard botanist

Earlier you said anthropologist. There's a big difference.

Blain

Misspelled

In fact, he finds plenty of time to bleed when the film’s titular monster appears and rips most of his internal organs out of his body.

He was killed by a plasma bolt.

There’s an enemy striking from the shadows with unrestrained ferocity, and who knows what weapons they might be able to use against us?

I think that is a fear of humanity that goes way back to pre-history.