Published by Timeless Edition – 2026 – France20 x 26 cm – 300 pages – Soft coverFrench languageStandard edition limited to 800 copiesBetween travel journals, a barely disguised autobiography, and a compendium of visual obsessions, SHOCKROADS – From American Nightmares to Dream Films is above all a thrilling plunge—at once documentary and imaginary—into a horrific, oneiric, and downright cult cinema.Supported by a wealth of images that function like clues in an investigation, the author revisits film shooting locations, gathers the voices of filmmakers and writers, and takes us on a journey around the world, recounting the wild adventures he experienced along the way—those journeys where reality always outstrips fiction.Drawing on his passion for the American South and the richness of the cinema that emerged from it, Maxime Lachaud—previously the author of Redneck Movies: Rurality and Degeneracy in American Cinema—summons often terrifying settings, as if composing an anti–travel guide to all the places best avoided on the globe.This playful approach is underpinned by a genuine erudition, leading us to cast fresh eyes both on the films themselves and on the cities and environments that inspired them. Along the way, we wander through the ruins of abandoned drive-in theaters under the red sun of Texas, follow strange parades through the bayous of Louisiana, visit museums of dolls and shrunken heads, or lose ourselves in deserted amusement parks.The boundary between lived experience and the inventions of filmmakers grows blurred, and the reader is immersed in a mad, fanciful, and multicolored universe they no longer wish to leave.
