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.

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

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