Horror, The Film Reader brings together key articles to provide a comprehensive resource for students of horror cinema. Mark Jancovich's introduction traces the development of horror from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to The Blair Witch Project, and outlines the main critical debates. Combining classic and recent articles, each section explores a central issue of horror film, and features an editor's introduction outlining the context of debates. Sections include:
- Theorizing horror - traces attempts to identify the defining features of the genre and account for the enduring appeal of horror films
- Gender, sexuality, and the horror film - debates masculinity and femininity in horror films, focusing on female victims and heroes, issues of the gaze and the monstrous, and queer readings
- Producing horrors - looks at the contexts in which films are made, from James Whale's Frankenstein to the Hammer studio, tracing horror's relationship to both 'low culture' and avant-garde cinema
- Consuming fears - considers the reception of horror, studying the marketing of classic horror, the critical reception of The Silence of the Lambs, the exhibition of Psycho, and the ethnography of female horror fans
Part 1 Theorizing Horror
Part 2 Gender, Sexuality and The Horror Film
Part 3 Producing Horrors
Part 4 Consuming Fears