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3 unusual facts about David Pirie


David Pirie

He also worked (uncredited) on the screenplay for Lars von Trier's Oscar nominated Breaking the Waves (1996).

In it he analyzes the films of Hammer and Amicus, as well as other British horror phenomena, including the works of Michael Reeves as well as what Pirie referred to as Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadean Trilogy", beginning with Horrors of the Black Museum in 1959.

His first book, A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946 - 1972 (1973), was the first book-length survey of the British horror film, and is still considered the definitive study of that subject.


Horrors of the Black Museum

It was the first film in what film critic David Pirie dubbed Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadian trilogy" (the other two being Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom), with an emphasis on sadism, cruelty and violence (with sexual undertones), in contrast to the supernatural horror of the Hammer films of the same era.


see also