The Horror Film
An Introduction
New Approaches to Film Genre
1. Edition October 2006
340 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Combining historical narrative with close readings of several
significant horror films, this brief volume offers a broad and
lively introduction to cinematic horror. In doing so, it outlines
and investigates important issues in the production, consumption,
and cultural interpretation of the genre.
* * An ideal text for perennially popular courses on the horror
film genre.
* Examines the ways in which horror movies have been produced,
received, and interpreted by filmmakers, audiences, and critics,
from the 1920s to the present.
* Provides a short historical introduction of the horror film as
an orientation to the field.
* Analyses a wide variety of major works in the genre, including
Frankenstein, Cat People, Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween and Bram
Stoker's Dracula.
Acknowledgments.
1. Introduction: Undying Monsters.
2 A Short History of the Horror Film:Beginnings to 1945.
3. A Short History of the Horror Film: 1945 to the Present.
4. Monsters Among Us: Cases of Social Reception.
5. Edges of the Horror Film: Lon Chaney, Tod Browning, and The
Unknown (1927).
6. Frankenstein (1931) and Hollywood Expressionism.
7. Cat People (1942): Lewton, Freud, and Suggestive Horror.
8. Horror in "The Age of Anxiety": Invasion of the
Body Snatchers (1956).
9. Slaughtering Genre Tradition: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(1974).
10. Halloween (1978): The Shape of the Slasher Film.
11. Re-Animator (1985) and Slapstick Horror.
12. Demon Lover: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
13. Afterword: Our Haunted Houses.
Appendix: Horror Auteurs.
Notes.
Index
