Description
Book SynopsisCombining 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.
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- 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.
Trade Review"Worland writes in a scholarly but not overly pedantic style, and he is concise and insightful"
ChoiceTable of ContentsList of illustrations.
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
