Making Zines: Re-Reading European Trash Cinema (1988-1998)

Discussion of the horror film fanzine culture of the 1980s and early 1990s has been dominated by an emphasis on questions around the politics of taste, considerations of subcultural capital and cultism in fan writing, and processes of cultural distinction and the circulation of forms of capital. Sconce’s concept of ‘paracinema’ has come to shape the conceptual approach to fanzines. The aim of this article is to refocus attention on other areas of fanzine production, providing a more nuanced and richer historicisation of these publications and the ways they contributed to the circulation, reception and consumption of European horror film. Focusing on the fanzine European Trash Cinema I propose a return to the actual cultural object – the printed zine – examining the networks of producers converging around, and writing about, Euro horror films and related European trash cinematic forms, as well as the contents within the publication itself.