When you think of British horror films, you might picture the classic Hammer Horror movies, with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and blood in lurid technicolor. Yet British horror has undergone an astonishing change and resurgence in the twenty-first century, with films that capture instead the anxieties of post-Millennial viewers. Tracking the revitalization of the British horror film industry over the past two decades, media expert Steven Gerrard also investigates why audiences have flocked to these movies. To answer that question, he focuses on three major trends: “hoodie horror” movies responding to fears about Britain’s urban youth culture; “great outdoors” films where Britain’s forests, caves, and coasts comprise a terrifying psychogeography; and psychological horror movies in which the monster already lurks within us. Offering in-depth analysis of numerous films, including The Descent, Outpost, and The Woman in Black, this book takes readers on a lively tour of the genre’s highlights, while provocatively exploring how these films reflect viewers’ gravest fears about the state of the nation. Whether you are a horror buff, an Anglophile, or an Anglophobe, The Modern British Horror Film is sure to be a thrilling read.

An in-depth summary of the Horror Cinema of the 60s and 70s, with references to earlier and later films. The topics examined are: Fear and contamination, Gothic and horror movies before 1968, 1968, Rosemary's Baby: satanic and demonic cinema, Night of the Living Dead, Horror movies in the ‘70s, New frontiers: monsters, zombies and chain saws. The following films were then analysed: Faust, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Living Dead, Repulsion, The Tenant, The Devil's Daughter, The Antichrist, The Exorcist, The Guardian, Twins of Evil, Lust for a Vampire, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Demons of the Mind, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?, The Legend of Hell House, It’s Alive, The Omen, The Brood, Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Exorcist III, Damien: Omen II, Rabid, Shivers, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Dawn of the Dead, The Crazies, Martin, Creepshow, Day of the Dead, Monkey Shines, Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Eaten Alive, Salem's Lot, The Funhouse, Poltergeist, The Mangler, The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes. Of each film: technical cast, plot, criticism as well as the judgment of the Catholic church (Catholic evaluation). Finally, more than 120 images including posters and images taken from the films.

John McCarty has selected fifty outstanding examples of the modern horror film. Film buffs will relive the terrors they enjoyed on the screen! Each of the fifty films is documented with casts, credits, production notes and reviews.

In recent years, the representation of alternative sexuality in the horror film and television has "outed" itself from the shadows from which it once lurked, via the embrace of an outrageously queer horror aesthetic where homosexuality is often unequivocally referenced. In this book, Darren Elliott-Smith departs from the analysis of the monster as a symbol of heterosexual anxiety and fear, and moves to focus instead on queer fears and anxieties within gay male subcultures. Furthermore, he examines the works of significant queer horror film, television producers, and directors to reveal gay men's anxieties about: acceptance and assimilation into Western culture, the perpetuation of self-loathing and gay shame, and further anxieties associations shameful femininity. This book focuses mainly on representations of masculinity, and gay male spectatorship in queer horror films and television post-2000. In titling this sub-genre "queer horror," Elliott-Smith designates horror that is crafted by male directors/producers who self-identify as gay, bi, queer, or transgendered and whose work features homoerotic, or explicitly homosexual, narratives with "out" gay characters. In terms of case studies, this book considers a variety of genres and forms from: video art horror; independently distributed exploitation films (A Far Cry from Home, Rowe Kelly, 2012); queer Gothic soap operas (Dante's Cove, 2005-7); satirical horror comedies (such as The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror (Thompson, 2008); low-budget slashers (Hellbent, Etheredge-Outzs, 2007); and contemporary representations of gay zombies in film and television from the pornographic LA Zombie (Bruce LaBruce, 2010)) to the melodramatic In the Flesh (BBC Three 2013-15). Moving from the margins to the mainstream, via the application of psychoanalytic theory, critical and cultural interpretation, interviews with key directors and close readings of classic, cult and modern horror, this book will be invaluable to students and researchers of gender and sexuality in horror film and television.

Focusing on recent postmodern examples, this is a collection of essays reviewing the history of the horror film and the psychological reasons for its persistent appeal.

Critics have traditionally characterized classic horror by its use of shadow and suggestion. Yet the graphic nature of early 1930s films only came to light in the home video/DVD era. Along with gangster movies and "sex pictures," horror films drew audiences during the Great Depression with sensational content. Exploiting a loophole in the Hays Code, which made no provision for on-screen "gruesomeness," studios produced remarkably explicit films that were recut when the Code was more rigidly enforced from 1934. This led to a modern misperception that classic horror was intended to be safe and reassuring to audiences. The author examines the 1931 to 1936 "happy ending" horror in relation to industry practices and censorship. Early works like Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) and The Raven (1935) may be more akin to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Hostel (2005) than many critics believe.

The Horror Film is an in-depth exploration of one of the most consistently popular, but also most disreputable, of all the mainstream film genres. Since the early 1930s there has never been a time when horror films were not being produced in substantial numbers somewhere in the world and never a time when they were not being criticised, censored or banned. The Horror Film engages with the key issues raised by this most contentious of genres. It considers the reasons for horror's disreputability and seeks to explain why despite this horror has been so successful. Where precisely does the appeal of horror lie? An extended introductory chapter identifies what it is about horror that makes the genre so difficult to define. The chapter then maps out the historical development of the horror genre, paying particular attention to the international breadth and variety of horror production, with reference to films made in the United States, Britain, Italy, Spain and elsewhere. Subsequent chapters explore: The role of monsters, focusing on the vampire and the serial killer. The usefulness (and limitations) of psychological approaches to horror. The horror audience: what kind of people like horror (and what do other people think of them)? Gender, race and class in horror: how do horror films such as Bride of Frankenstein, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Blade relate to the social and political realities within which they are produced? Sound and horror: in what ways has sound contributed to the development of horror? Performance in horror: how have performers conveyed fear and terror throughout horror's history? 1970s horror: was this the golden age of horror production? Slashers and post-slashers: from Halloween to Scream and beyond. The Horror Film throws new light on some well-known horror films but also introduces the reader to examples of noteworthy but more obscure horror work. A final section provides a guide to further reading and an extensive bibliography. Accessibly written, The Horror Film is a lively and informative account of the genre that will appeal to students of cinema, film teachers and researchers, and horror lovers everywhere.

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: 2,3, University of Applied Sciences Köln RFH, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Definition 2.1 Horror films 2.1.1 Splatter films 3. Medial effectiveness from portrayal of violence in horror films 3.1 Review 3.2 Portrayal violence in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” 3.2.1 Film Review 3.2.2 Real documented violence in a splatter film 3.3 Portrayal violence in “The Blair Witch Project” 3.2.1 Film Review 3.2.2 Fictional violence in a horror film 4. Conclusion

Essays on the rise of the horror film and on how moviemakers package and promote fright

As baby boomers gray, cinematic depictions of aging and the aged are on the rise. In the horror genre, fears of growing old take on fantastic proportions. Elderly characters are portrayed as either eccentric harbingers of doom--the crone who stops at nothing to restore her youth, the ancient ancestor who haunts the living--or as frail victims. This collection of new essays explores how various filmic portrayals of aging, as an inescapable horror destined to overtake us all, reflect our complex attitudes toward growing old, along with its social, psychological and economic consequences.