The very soul of a nation is threatened as three once naive Americans risk the ultimate sacrifice to uncover and expose a global conspiracy to defraud America of trillions funded by Washington war profiteering and illegal drug sales sanctioned by the CIA, controlled by the Mafia and laundered by Wall Street traders. Blood Profit$ will take you into the cigar smoke-filled room where American policy and laws are really made… ,

"Future historians of the horror genre who ignore Nowell's insights into a major transitional period in the relationship between independent producers and the major studios will do so at their own peril." Kevin Heffernan, author of Ghouls, Gimmicks and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business, 1953-1968 "Challenging numerous myths along the way, this impeccably researched study sheds new light not only on slasher films and cycles, but on the nature, structure and practices of independent production in North America in the 1970s and 1980s. Highly recommended." Professor Steve Neale, University of Exeten "Meticulously researched and forcefully argued... Offers new insights into how films, filmmaking and film marketing operated in the North American film industry of the 1970s and early 1980s." Peter Kramer, University of East Anglia, UK, author of The New Hollywood (2005) Scholars have consistently applied psychoanalytic models to representations of gender in early teen slasher films in order to claim that these were formulaic. excessively violent exploitation films, fashioned to satisfy the misogynist fantasies of teenage boys and grind house patrons. However, by examining the commercial logic, strategies and objectives of the American and Canadian independents that produced the films and the companies that distributed them in the US. Blood Money demonstrates that filmmakers and marketers actually went to extraordinary lengths to make early teen slashers attractive to female youth, to minimize displays of violence, gore and suffering and to invite comparisons to a wide range of post-classical Hollywood's biggest hits---including Love Story and Saturday Night Fever. Richard Nowell is a film scholar who has lectured at leading universities in the UK and Germany. His work can also be seen in Cinema Journal the Journal of Film and Video, and Post Script.

"Bad Blood meets Dreamland in this kaleidoscopic investigation into the shadowy and vampiric blood business and the dangerous limits of demand for the crucial resource that runs through our very veins. Every year, about twenty million Americans sell blood plasma for cash in a barely regulated market dominated by private industry and off-the-grid trafficking. These commercial efforts prey on an insatiable market for medical and scientific innovation fed from the veins of some of the country's most marginalized communities, such as undocumented immigrants and residents of poverty-stricken Flint, Michigan. We are often told that "blood donations" are used to save lives, but blood plasma, a component of whole blood, has become a precious commercial good. Blood plasma is collected and marketed by private industry, with the United States one of just five nations on the planet that have not yet banned the practice of pay-for-plasma giving. This precious resource is used for everything from expensive and unproven age-reversing treatments to costly and experimental cures for novel diseases like COVID-19. Based on a cross-country investigation into the plasma-giving capitals of the country, in-depth research into the blood industry, and her personal experience as a beneficiary of plasma-derived treatment for a rare condition, Kathleen McLaughlin's Blood Money reveals the underhanded machinations and unbalanced power structures of the blood industry. Taking us from China's blood black market to Silicon Valley's shadowy tech startups, this is an unforgettable inside look at an industry many of us had no idea even existed. Blood Money is an electrifying exposé that demonstrates the shadowy overlap between big medicine and big business and paints a searing portrait of the extent to which American industry feeds on the country's most vulnerable"--

A meticulously researched and revealing expose of the new players in organised crime.

On cover: European issues