Description
30 Fake Beheadings imagines 30 unthinkable sequels to 30 sui generis movies. Drawing on decapitation theory and the post-cephalic nature of cinematic experience, it documents a viewer’s repeated decollation as a way of documenting the invented films. But as the films themselves are also documenting the viewer, each is ultimately feeding on and inventing the other. However unique a human head, its coming off demands a sequel.
“30 Fake Beheadings is the last film guide you’ll need. The films Gary J. Shipley describes don’t exist, but the descriptions are deadly: they’ll take your head off. As you’re beheaded, you’ll see what he’s made: a frightening, fucking funny sequel to the world—and films—you used to know.”
– Derek McCormack
“I’m a sucker for this type of book—imaginary catalogues, false biographies, fantastical encyclopedias, etc.—perpetrated variously by Schwob, Borges, Capek, Pavic, and others. Now Shipley. His is a mordant list of nonexistent movie sequels, many of them funny on their face alone: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom 2. It’s a terrific and endlessly effective conceit; but beyond the gag, Shipley locates a real and abyssal pathos.”
– Keith Leslie Johnson
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Gary J. Shipley’s most recent book is Warewolff! (Hexus Press). He has published in Spork, Sleepingfish, Gargoyle, The Black Herald, Action Yes, Vice, Fanzine, 3:AM and many others. He is the founding and managing editor of Schism Press.
