In this book the author takes a fresh look at horror film series as series and presents an understanding of how the genre thrived in this format for a large portion of its history. It sheds light on older films such as the Universal and the Hammer series films on Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy as well as putting more recent series into perspective, such as The Nightmare on Elm Street films. A well rounded review of these films and investigation into their success as a format, this useful volume, originally published in 1991, offers an attempt to understand the marriage of horror and the series film, with its pluses as well as minuses.

Horror and the supernatural have fascinated people for centuries, and many of the most central figures appear over and over again. These figures have gained iconic status and continue to hold sway over popular culture and the modern imagination. This book offers extended entries on 24 of the most enduring and significant figures of horror and the supernatural, including The Sea Creature, The Witch, The Alien, The Vampire, The Werewolf, The Sorcerer, The Ghost, The Siren, The Mummy, The Devil, and The Zombie. Each entry is written by a leading authority on the subject and discusses the topic's essential features and lasting influence, from the classical epics of Homer to the novels of Stephen King. Entries cite sources for further reading, and the Encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography. Entries include illustrations, sidebars of interesting information, and excerpts from key texts. Horror and the supernatural have fascinated people for centuries, with many of the most central figures appearing over and over again across time and cultures. These figures have starred in the world's most widely read literary works, most popular films, and most captivating television series. Because of their popularity and influence, they have attained iconic status and a special place in the popular imagination. This book overviews 24 of the most significant icons of horror and the supernatural.

John Kenneth Muir is back! This time, the author of the acclaimed Horror Films of the 1970s turns his attention to 300 films from the 1980s. From horror franchises like Friday the 13th and Hellraiser to obscurities like The Children and The Boogens, Muir is our informative guide. Muir introduces the scope of the decade's horrors, and offers a history that draws parallels between current events and the nightmares unfolding on cinema screens. Each of the 300 films is discussed with detailed credits, a brief synopsis, a critical commentary, and where applicable, notes on the film's legacy beyond the 80s. Also included is the author's ranking of the 15 best horror films of the 80s.

Combining both volumes of the original print editions, The Official Splatter Movie Guide, Volumes I & II is a dream come true for splatter aficionados: a film-by-film guide to more than eight hundred masterworks of blood and gore. Each listing contains the film's movie studio, date of release, running time, director, producer, writer, and actors, along with a synopsis and review of the film.

Ever since horror leapt from popular fiction to the silver screen in the late 1890s, viewers have experienced fear and pleasure in exquisite combination. Wheeler Winston Dixon's A History of Horror is the only book to offer a comprehensive survey of this ever-popular film genre. Arranged by decades, with outliers and franchise films overlapping some years, this one-stop sourcebook unearths the historical origins of characters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman and their various incarnations in film from the silent era to comedic sequels. A History of Horror explores how the horror film fits into the Hollywood studio system and how its enormous success in American and European culture expanded globally over time. Dixon examines key periods in the horror film-in which the basic precepts of the genre were established, then banished into conveniently reliable and malleable forms, and then, after collapsing into parody, rose again and again to create new levels of intensity and menace. A History of Horror, supported by rare stills from classic films, brings over fifty timeless horror films into frightfully clear focus, zooms in on today's top horror Web sites, and champions the stars, directors, and subgenres that make the horror film so exciting and popular with contemporary audiences.

Zombies are cautionary forms of humankind's most universally cherished ideal--life after death. Ragged, ill-spoken, rotting zombies (or the post-dead) seem socially awkward beside the more popular and aristocratic undead, like Count Dracula. The humble zombie remains, for the most part, unappreciated and unacknowledged--until now. The first exhaustive historical overview of zombie films, this book's lengthy entries evaluate more than 200 movies from 16 countries over a 65-year period from the early 1930s to the late 1990s. It covers everything from large studio films to backyard videography, and touches on memorable television episodes and miscellaneous shorts. An introduction traces the evolution of the genre and interprets the broader significance of the zombie in contemporary Western mythology.

Novelist and critic Kim Newman assesses the horror noir Cat People (1943), produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur. This important and influential film is considered in the light of its place in film history and as a work of ambitious horror. The new edition includes a postscript about the sequel, The Curse of the Cat People.

From reviews of the third edition: “Film Genre Reader III lives up to the high expectations set by its predecessors, providing an accessible and relatively comprehensive look at genre studies. The anthology’s consideration of the advantages and challenges of genre studies, as well as its inclusion of various film genres and methodological approaches, presents a pedagogically useful overview.” —Scope Since 1986, Film Genre Reader has been the standard reference and classroom text for the study of genre in film, with more than 25,000 copies sold. Barry Keith Grant has again revised and updated the book to reflect the most recent developments in genre study. This fourth edition adds new essays on genre definition and cycles, action movies, science fiction, and heritage films, along with a comprehensive and updated bibliography. The volume includes more than thirty essays by some of film’s most distinguished critics and scholars of popular cinema, including Charles Ramírez Berg, John G. Cawelti, Celestino Deleyto, David Desser, Thomas Elsaesser, Steve Neale, Thomas Schatz, Paul Schrader, Vivian Sobchack, Janet Staiger, Linda Williams, and Robin Wood.

The original edition of Planks of Reason was the first academic critical anthology on horror. In retrospect, it appeared as a kind of homage to the "golden age" of the American horror film, as this genre played an increasing role in film culture and American life. This revised edition retains the spirit of the original, but also offers new takes on rediscovered classics and recent developments in the genre.

The Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema offers an overview of the field of cult cinema – films at the margin of popular culture and art that have received exceptional cultural visibility and status mostly because they break rules, offend, and challenge understandings of achievement (some are so bad they’re good, others so good they remain inaccessible). Cult cinema is no longer only comprised of the midnight movie or the extreme genre film. Its range has widened and the issues it broaches have become battlegrounds in cultural debates that typify the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Sections are introduced with the major theoretical frameworks, philosophical inspirations, and methodologies for studying cult films, with individual chapters excavating the most salient criticism of how the field impacts cultural discourse at large. Case studies include the worst films ever; exploitation films; genre cinema; multiple media formats cult cinema is expressed through; issues of cultural, national, and gender representations; elements of the production culture of cult cinema; and, throughout, aspects of the aesthetics of cult cinema – its genre, style, look, impact, and ability to yank viewers out of their comfort zones. The Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema goes beyond the traditional scope of Anglophone and North American cinema by including case studies of East and South Asia, continental Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America, making it an innovative and important resource for researchers and students alike.