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How can love be understood globally as a problematic transgression rather than the narrative of "happy endings" that Hollywood has offered? The contributors utilize varying methodologies of textual analysis, psychoanalytic models, and cultural critique and engage with a broad range of films to explore issues of gender identity and spectatorship.

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Re-Imagining Censorship as ´Reel´ Mutilation: Why not a G-rated Version of David Cronenberg´s Crash; J.S.Robinson The Whip and the Body: Sex, Violence, and Performative Spectatorship in Euro-Horror S&M Cinema; A.I.Olney Lars von Trier´s Anti Christ and the Australian ´lost child´ Complex: Love, Loss and Emotional Indulgence; T.Waddell Black Bucks and Don Juans: Violent Romances of Race and Sex in Jane Campion´s In the Cut ; T.Lundy Mad Love: The Anxiety of Difference in the Films of Lon Chaney Snr.; K.Randell Love and Crime in Agatha Christie Films; M.Aldridge Monstrous Love: Oppression, Intimacy, and Transformation in Mary Reilly (1996); C.Miller Self-mutilation and Dark Love in Darren Aronofsky´s Black Swan (2010) and Michael Haneke´s The Piano Teacher (2000); K.A.Ritzenhoff Female Pleasure and Performance: Masochism in Belle de Jour and Story of O ; S.Deighan What´s in the Basket?: Sexualized and Sexualizing Violence in Frank Henenlotter´s Basket Case ; L.Cunningham Blood and Bravado: Violence, Eroticism, and Spain in Pedro Almodovar´s Matador ; M.Morris The Comedic Punch Line: Unpacking Scenes of Domestic Violence-as-humor in Tyler Perry Films; J.Hudson Obsessed and Fatally Attracted: The Gender and Racial Politics of Obsessed; S.Leonard High-Tech Pleasure: Seriality and Pornographic Body; S.Schaschek

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"This collection explores the complex relationship between love and sex . . . The essays fully engage the subject, examining films in relationship to violence, performative spectatorship, censorship, race, physical disability, and domestic violence . . . [They] problematize notions of sexuality and ask provocative questions. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." - CHOICE

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Karen Randell is the program leader in Film and Television in the School of Media at Southampton Solent University.

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