The Horror Film

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.

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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.

List 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

"Worland writes in a scholarly but not overly pedantic style, and he is concise and insightful" Choice Rick Worland is Associate Professor and Chair of the Division of Cinema-Television at Southern Methodist University. He has published in many scholarly journals, including Cinema Journal, and has contributed essays to a number of film collections. The Horror Film examines the ways in which horror movies have been produced, received, and interpreted by filmmakers, audiences, and critics throughout the medium’s history, from the 1920s to the present. This brief volume offers a broad, historical introduction to cinematic horror, outlining and investigating important issues in the production, consumption, and cultural interpretation of the genre.

Combining historical narrative with close readings of several significant horror films – including Frankenstein, Cat People, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, and Bram Stoker's Dracula – The Horror Film will be the definitive read for any movie-goer who thrills to a great scare.