the horror film: supernature, science and pysche
In this issue entries appear for nine film study kits containing a total of twenty-seven VHS videocassettes compiled to aid the classroom study of the horror film. A set of notes accompanies each kit. These notes are designed to provide a context for the study of the genre and the specific titles included in the kits and/or available from the Film Study Collection on 16mm film. The Collection's holdings have been categorised in three broad sub-genres (psyche; supernature; science and nature) discussed below. There are notes on each title and also suggestions for different perspectives, e.g. the feminine, the family, society etc. The following is a condensation of these notes.
Note: The collection consists of 16mm film, VHS and Laserdisc titles. Please check the catalogue for the format of specific titles. In some cases, VHS titles may only be available as part of a study package. 
Horror is the only genre that is not defined by certain definite character types and story elements. Horror can be supernatural, biological or psychological. It can take place almost anywhere. It is defined instead by a mood or atmosphere and by how it makes the audience feel. Filmmaker David Cronenberg describes horror as the genre of confrontation which allows the viewer to confront things that disturb him or her. In other words in cinematic and literary horror the demons are dealt with only from discreet distances with the insulation of metaphor. It is the function of fantasy to encompass a real life fear and transform it into something that can be dealt with or obliterated.
While acknowledging the complexity and vastness of the genre, Joseph Grixti takes horror fiction to be essentially a type of narrative which deals in messages about fear and experiences associated with fear [1]. As a genre it proposes the contemplation and evaluation of areas of shared uncertainty touching on large and diverse areas of experience which are frequently found disturbing because they fit no easy categories. The horror genre projects images which have our vulnerability and superstitions as the points of focus: our own psyches, science and technology, pain, death, the dead and all forms of hostile forces which may at any moment intrude upon our patched up social and personal worlds.
When classifying genre, especially a genre as wide-ranging as horror, it is necessary to strike a balance between flexibility and prescription since genre is, in Andrew Tudor's words, `a social construction and as such is subject to constant negotiation and re-formulation' [2]. It hardly needs stating that there is both value and risk in schematic attempts to organise genre. However it is necessary to begin to identify the various themes and ordering structures which allow the genre to function as a meaningful system. At best these notes can only point the way. Readers are referred to the growing body of literature on the genre selectively listed in the bibliography.
In mapping the cinematic landscape of the horror genre it is useful to locate points on the map which can give us our bearings. There are certain films which have redefined (and renewed) film horror, and in so doing spawned a succession of imitations and variants, e.g. Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary's Baby and Halloween. There are films which exist on the margins, e.g. Freaks, Witchfinder General, White Dog and Q the Winged Serpent. Then there are films like Vampyr, I Walked with a Zombie, Repulsion and The Shining which use generic conventions as springboards to break out of the genre's confines, opening up conceptual horizons. In essence genre is the relief map which charts valleys and peaks while flattening, without necessarily eliminating, the distinction between `high' art and `low' popular culture. A film like Picnic at Hanging Rock was successful in finding a wide audience probably because it brought art-house ambiguities and discretion to psychosexual and supernatural horror. The Exorcist, on the other hand, drew its audience on the strength of its shock value. Psycho initially commercially but not critically successful, was later admitted to the canon of major works paving the way for Rosemary's Baby to simultaneously win critical and popular acceptance. Will Texas Chainsaw Massacre follow the path of Peeping Tom from critical revulsion to classic status?
As a preliminary it seems useful to summarise Andrew Tudor's distinction between two traditions of horror fiction, what he calls `secure' and `paranoid' horror. Secure horror is structured around clear oppositions. The threat is external. Human action is meaningful. Identification is with the expert. There is an absence of genuine doubt and there is narrative closure. Paranoid horror, on the other hand, is structured around less clearly marked oppositions. The threat is internal and proximate. Human action is routinely unsuccessful. Identification is with the victim. Doubt is pervasive and the narrative is open rather than closed, implying a continuing spiral of escalation. Broadly in cinema `secure horror' covers the classical period of the thirties, forties and fifties while `paranoid horror' is dominant in the seventies and eighties and is still developing. The late fifties and sixties constitutes a transitional period [3].
At the prescriptive end of the spectrum, in a sustained attempt to define the nature of horror, Noel Carroll, using analytic philosophy, has proposed the concept of art--horror, the product of horror--fiction, as distinct from natural horror, e.g. feelings aroused by the slaughter of wildlife or the Holocaust [4].
Central to art--horror, as defined by Carroll, is the monster. It produces in the reader/viewer an emotional state of agitation caused by the thought of the monster which is generated by a fiction or an image. Central to that thought is the recognition that the monster is threatening and impure. The reaction of the positive human characters to the monster (fear, disgust etc.) prompts the reader/viewer to a similar reaction, i.e. a powerful physical response of revulsion and avoidance.
Impurity resides in things that are interstitial -they cross the boundaries of deep categories of nature and are thus contradictory (e.g. a snake-woman), incomplete (e.g. shed blood) or formless (e.g. the Blob).
Monsters are identified as any being not now believed to exist according to reigning scientific notions.
What differentiates works of horror proper from monster stories in general is the affective responses of the human characters in the fiction. Horror stories also need to be demarcated from mythical stories with monsters. In fairytales, for example, monsters are part of the everyday world of the fiction (an ordinary creature in an extraordinary world). In horror stories monsters break the norms ('the ontological propriety') presumed by the positive characters in the story (extraordinary creatures in an everyday world).
Any definition of horror which confines Psycho to the margins, as Carroll's concept of art--horror appears to do, would seem to be inadequate. Norman Bates is not a monster but a schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is acknowledged by science. In anticipating this objection, Carroll claims that the value of his theory lies in its explanatory value. It explains why Psycho is so widely regarded to be a horror film: `Norman, by virtue of his psychosis, resembles the impure beings at the heart of art-horror' [5].
Carroll's definition might usefully be tested on the films in the psyche category, e.g. the package containing Caligari, Psycho and Repulsion and the three supernature and psyche packages. In Carroll's terms Repulsion would seem to lack a monster. The killer in Halloween, on the other hand, is more demonic than psychotic while The Stepfather is both psychopathic and mythic with more than a touch of the demonic.
Carroll also proposes a typology of monsters in five basic categories.
Fusion. A fusion figure is one in which categorically distinct or opposed elements are conflated or colligated or condensed into a single spatio- temporal identity where that identity is stable, e.g. mummies, vampires, ghosts, zombies, Freddie (Elm Street), Frankenstein's monster.
Fission. The contradictory elements are distributed over different but physically related identities, e.g. doppelgangers (doubles), alter- egos and werewolves. The categories are distributed over different but physically related identities. Spatial fusion multiplies characters in space (e.g. doppelgangers) while temporal fusion divides characters in time (Jekyll and Hyde).
Magnification of entities or beings aleady judged impure or disgusting (magnified phobia), e.g. giant (mutated) creepies and crawlies.
Massification exploits the repelling aspects of existing creatures by massing them into marauding armies.
Horrific metonomy. Horrific figures may initially seem normal but are subsequently found to be surrounded by objects of disgust and/or phobia, e.g. Dracula surrounded by vermin.
In general, fusion and fission are means for constructing horrific biologies; magnification and massification are means for augmenting the powers of already disgusting and phobic creatures. Horrific metonomy is a means of emphasising the impure and disgusting nature of the creature from the outside, i.e. by association with objects and entities already reviled in the culture. The horrific creature (monster) is essentially a compound of danger and disgust and each of these structures provides a means of developing these attributes in tandem.
Carroll broaches the paradox of art--horror: if horror has something repulsive about it how can audiences be attracted to it?
Carroll finds repression (the psychoanalytic explanation) [6] and awe (the quasi-religious explanation) insufficient bases for comprehensive theories of art--horror to explain this paradox. In what might be called a common-sense explanation he proposes curiosity and fascination as the keys. Objects of art--horror are such that they are both disgusting and fascinating, both disturbing and interesting, because they are classificatory misfits in the various ways outlined above. For Carroll what distinguishes horror from other affectively related genres (e.g. the detective thriller and the disaster film) is art--horror's specialisation in impossible, unknowable beings, the source of simultaneous fascination and disgust. Carroll then suggests how the two states (fascination and disgust) might relate to each other. For most consumers of art--horror, he suggests, fascination compensates for the negative emotions engendered by the distressing fiction (the co-existentialist hypothesis). But there is also a minority of consumers for whom fascination is essentially, not contingently, connected with pleasure (the integrationist hypothesis). To the latter, the `gross out' is an end in itself.
Carroll concludes with brief discussion of the possible relationship between ideology and art--horror. The widespread appeal of horror fiction in the seventies and eighties he connects with (post-Vietnam) anxiety and stress --a sense of cultural disintegration. Grixti, in contrast, presents a more wide-ranging, in-depth consideration of horror--fiction as a cultural phenomenon.
What follows is an alternative categorisation of horror drawing on the studies by Andrew Tudor and Charles Derry cited in the bibliography. As already indicated above, most of the films in the psyche subgenre would not qualify as core art--horror in Carroll's terms. It should be mentioned that Carroll suggests another category - art--dread -to embrace certain works (often labelled as horror) in which disgust is not a central feature, e.g. certain episodes of The Twilight Zone and W. W. Jacob's classic short story, The Monkey's Paw [7]. Art--dread, however, does not cover the films in the psyche category which, in the main, remain on the margins of Carroll's art--horror, the degree of marginality or exclusion depending on the extent to which the demonic is invoked in tandem with psychosis.
Supernatural horror provides an explanation of events which violates a materialistic understanding of the world. Demonic and supernatural forces, not secular ones, constitute the threats to social normality and existing institutional order. Nevertheless there can be ambiguity in the relationship between the supernatural and the secular so that it can become a matter of degrees of emphasis rather than outright apposition.
The threat from the supernatural (classic vampires, the mummy, werewolves etc.), which dominated the classical phase of the horror film up to the fifties, operates independently of humanity. Through magical metamorphosis as in demonic possession (the supernatural equivalent of psychosis) threat can also take on both internal and external aspects. Alternatively, supernatural forces can be internalised and dependent on human volition (the invocation of magic and witchcraft) although, like mad science, the tendency is for the forces unleashed to then run out of control.
Not all films so grouped invoke the same concept of supernature. Broadly Andrew Tudor identifies supernatural threats which are a direct consequence of human actions - what he calls dependent threats - and those threats which are autonomous, `emerging unbidden from supernature'. The most common realisation of dependent threat involves magical manipulation of some kind by magicians, witches, satanists and similarly disposed aspirants to supernatural powers. This manipulative supernature is under human control - though often precariously - and is therefore directly related to human motives and human failings. Such a manipulation is intelligible and is analogous with mad science. `If mad science movies are primarily about knowledge and its attendant dangers,' concludes Tudor, `those concerned with manipulative supernature are more about the need for, and the nature of, belief and faith' [8]. #
Films in the Film Study Collection which can loosely be included in the subgenre of manipulative supernature are:
- White Zombie (1932)
- Cat People (1942)
- Day of Wrath (1943)
- I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
- The Seventh Victim (1943)
- Dead of Night (1945)
- Rosemary's Baby (1968)
- Witchfinder General (1968) [9]
- The Wicker Man (1973)
A non-manipulative supernature of autonomous threats - from the likes of ghosts, vampires, werewolves and demons - inexplicable and from another order of reality is further subdivided by Tudor into co-existent and invasive supernature. Although all non- manipulative attacks are invasive, there are significant degrees of difference in emphasis. In some films bodies, minds and immediate environment may be overwhelmed by invading supernature so that `the fabric of an everyday world [is] ripped apart by a malevolent and obtrusive power' [10]. The demonic invasions in post- sixties horror movies typify this pattern. In other cases, such as traditional vampire movies, there is less sense of violent personal invasion. Supernature is represented as a domain co- existent with our own and while vampires prey on us they do not routinely threaten the fundamentals of our humanity.
Examples of co-existent supernature in the Collection are:
- The Student of Prague (1913)
- Destiny (1921)
- Nosferatu (1921); (1979)
- Dracula (1931)
- Vampyr (1931)
- The Mummy (1932)
- Q the Winged Serpent (1982)
- Mr Wrong (1985)
Examples of invasive supernature are:
- Night of the Living Dead (1968)
- The Last Wave (1977)
- Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
- The Shining (1980)
Note that the distinctions between co- existent and invasive supernature and between invasive supernature and nature are not always clear- cut. None of the four films cited above are core examples of invasive supernature. Classic vampire films like Murnau's Nosferatu and Herzog's remake, Nosferatu the Vampire, while placed within the co- existent supernature subgenre, in some respects also foreshadow the invasive subgenre. Night of the Living Dead, although thematically related to the classic vampire film in its apparent closure, also has the paranoid intensity and irony associated with invasive horror. Invasive nature films like The Birds and Long Weekend share open narrative (The Birds) and irony (Long Weekend) with invasive supernature. The threat, however, remains essentially external to humankind in line with co- existent supernatural horror.
The invasion of the bourgeois city by the plague spread by the vampire in both Nosferatu films is an external threat without the paranoid intensity of the disturbingly open narratives of seventies and eighties invasive horror (e.g. The Exorcist, The Fog, The Evil Dead, Poltergeist, The Shining, The Omen, Nightmare on Elm Street) [11]. The latter films share a conception of unrestrained supernatural forces attacking humankind with a directness and vigour hitherto unimagined and doing so from the inside of our minds, bodies and fundamental social institutions. The narratives are often left open, the threat, at best, temporarily held at bay. Whether directed at small groups, like the family, or at civilisation `as we know it', invasive supernature of the late seventies and eighties takes on a particularly apocalyptic tone.
More notable for atmosphere than narrative thrust, Peter Weir's two films are somewhat marginally within the ambit of invasive supernature. The Last Wave has stronger apocalyptic overtones than Picnic although the causes of retribution remain vaguely embedded in ancient myth. Picnic's unexplained mysteries are suspended somewhere between the psychosexual and the supernatural. Picnic portrays a closed world contaminated and destroyed by its inability to come to terms with the mysterious forces confronting it.
The belief that science is dangerous is as central to the horror movie as is the belief in the malevolent inclination of ghosts, ghouls, vampires or zombies. Most scientists may be observers misguidedly seeking knowledge (e.g. the scientist in The Thing) or may be more traditional megalomaniacs (one transmutes into the other in The Invisible Man). However, they all share the characteristic that disorder is the direct consequence of their actions whatever the motives. Frankenstein is at the centre of a tradition in which the key protagonists are devoted to the pursuit of knowledge at the expense of humane values.
Andrew Tudor identifies two types of science-based horror which dominate the thirties and forties: science as an overwhelming commitment (Frankenstein, The Invisible Man) or science as a means to other evil ends. In seeking to interfere with the fundamental processes of life, science is trespassing into areas forbidden to it.
'Mad science' films in the Collection include:
- Frankenstein (1931)
- The Invisible Man (1933)
- Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
In the fifties a new conceptualisation of science as threat emerges increasingly as the ills generated by mad science are replaced by the accidental and unanticipated consequences of science, most notably atomic energy, which threatens the world.
In the sixties and seventies a truly apocalyptic vision of human mutation and disease emerges (e.g. Its Alive!).
By the eighties mad science has clearly given way to a science which is but one element in what Tudor calls `a paranoid category postulating a world under threat of imminent destruction.' Science is but one among a range of ways in which power can be exerted over a desperately resisting population.
The Nutty Professor is a comic Jekyll and Hyde variation on this theme.
In the potential for evoking Armageddon this subgenre (the interaction between science and nature) relates to the invasion of supernature subgenre with the difference that the threat has its origins in malevolent (often mutant) nature. Non- human, unindividualised creatures such as birds, bats, bees, frogs, snakes, rabbits, ants or plants threaten the world with extinction. Mostly they are products of science's interference with nature (commonly radiation or some other form of pollution) although the threat may be unexplained or open- ended as in The Birds. In so far as the threat is the indirect consequence of scientific experiment these films are distantly related to mad science movies. This subgenre also continues the linear development of the invasive horror film from fifties science fiction horror (Them!, The Thing, and later Alien). The prehistoric monster film, of which King Kong is the archetype, is also related as an invasion narrative which focuses upon the monster's depredations.
The Birds is a seminal film. In its use of comedy and the banal it has been compared with Ionesco's theatre of the absurd. Although various explanations for the bird attacks are offered during the course of the film, the threat remains inexplicable and open- ended. Whether created by humankind or sent without explanation, the attacks are quite simply part of the nature of things. In Charles Derry's words `The Birds works as a metaphor for the human condition' [12]. In this, the film in the Collection that most closely approaches it is Long Weekend.
Most films featuring natural nasties are less bloody or sexually explicit than other horror subgenres. The seventies and eighties have been the decades for the natural monster movie with Jaws ranked among the highest grossing movies of all time.
Films in the Collection which can be related to threats from science and nature subgenre are:
- Freaks (1932) (N)
- King Kong (1932) (N)
- The Thing (1951)
- It Came From Outer Space (1953)
- Them! (1954)
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
- The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
- I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
- The Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961)
- The Birds (1963) (N)
- The War Game (1965)
- It's Alive! (1975)
- Long Weekend (1979) (N)
- Alien (1978)
- White Dog (1981) (N)
Note.Those titles marked (N) do not overlap with the science fiction genre in that science plays no part in the threat posed by the aberrations of nature although in the case of White Dog (non- scientific) human agency is responsible for aberrant animal behaviour. In the case of The Birds and It's Alive! the role of science remains ambiguously only a possible explanation.
Unlike mad scientists horror movie madmen are not visionary obsessives. They are, rather, victims of overpowering impulses that well up from within, `monsters brought forth by the sleep of reason, not by its attraction' [13]. Horror movie psychotics murder, terrorise, maim and rape because of some inner compulsion, because the psyche harbours the dangerous excesses of human passion. Whereas mad science is focused outside the individual on knowledge, as Andrew Tudor points out, horror movie psychosis is far more internal, the mind itself potentially unsound.
In its very nature, these films suppose, the psyche nurtures the seeds of its own destruction, and the contingent corruption occasioned by a desire for knowledge, ambition and progress; horror movie psychosis is deep- rooted human malevolence made manifest [14].
The Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story, remade in films a number of times, straddles both psychosis (the symbolic schizophrenia of the classic horror film) and mad science (the use of medicine to experiment with transformation). In general, however, it seems that the decline of mad science is almost exactly matched by the rise of the horror movie psychotic, the genre replacing one form of madness with another during the course of the sixties in what Tudor terms `the trend from secure horror to paranoid horror' which accelerated in the seventies and eighties.
The shift from the mad scientist to the mad slasher is a move from reason to unreason, from the relative security of human thought and volition to the absolute uncertainty of human impulse [15].
In classic horror typified by Caligari and the various versions of Jekyll and Hyde, insanity, with an overtly symbolic function has the connotations of fable rather than case study. From Psycho onwards the symbolic dimension, while still often present, is subordinated by the invitation to psychological explanation. Insane behaviour is the specific manifestation of horror lurking in the dark of the mind. A further development in the late sixties, with Targets and Pretty Poison, is a new face of horror, a bland and apparently unmotivated outbreak of horror in surburbia and small- town America, a development foreshadowed by Shadow of a Doubt. By the late seventies, in Halloween, psychosis is given stronger symbolic overtones although the demonic remains vague and undefined. The Stepfather strikes more of a balance with the psychology of the insane protagonist both explained and endowed with symbolic intenisty.
The following films in the Collection relate to the development of the psyche subgenre:
- Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1912 & 1920)
- The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)
- Waxworks (1924)
- The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
- The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
- The Black Cat (1941)
- Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
- The Lodger (1944)
- Bluebeard (1944)
- Bedlam (1946)
- Diabolique (1955)
- Psycho (1960)
- Peeping Tom (1962)
- Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
- Targets (1968)
- Pretty Poison (1968)
- Halloween (1978)
- The Shining (1980)
- The Stepfather (1987)
Note. Most of the titles on VHS videocassette are available in the study kits only (see below). However, several titles are alsoavailable separately on both film and videocassette: I Walked with a Zombie (VHS on A12046191) Nosferatu (1921) and Vampyr (together on VHS on A12033936) and the colour tinted restored version of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (VHS on A12007986).
Entries for all titles on film appear in the 1981 Film Study Catalogue or the 1984 or 1987 supplements with the exception of The Most Dangerous Game and Psycho which appear in Film & Video Acquisitions no. 4 of 1988, White Zombie in no. 4 of 1989, the Last Wave in no. 3 of 1989 and Targets in no. 2 of 1990. Entries for The Black Cat, Bluebeard and Picnic at Hanging Rock appear in this issue.
Diabolique and The Incredible Shrinking Man are on order. We are endeavouring to acquire the 145 minute version of The Shining on 16mm film.
There are nine packages each comprised of three videocassettes and accompanying study notes.
Nature and Supernature
- King Kong (1933)
- White Dog (1981)
- Q the Winged Serpent (1982)
Supernature (the Vampire)
- Dracula (1931)
- Vampyr (1931)
- Nosferatu (1979)
Supernature, Nature and Mad Science
- Nosferatu (1921)
- Frankenstein (1931)
- Freaks (1932)
Science and Nature
- Frankenstein (1931)
- Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
- The Invisible Man (1933)
- Alien (1979)
Supernature and Nature
- Rosemary's Baby (1968)
- Long Weekend (1979)
- Mr Wrong (1985)
Supernature and Psyche
- The Cat People (1942)
- Night of the Living Dead (R) (1968)
- The Stepfather (1987)
Supernature and Psyche
- Phantom of the Opera (1925)
- Witchfinder General (R) (1968)
- Halloween (R) (1978)
- I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
- The Wicker Man (R) (1973)
- Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
- The Shining (1980)
Psyche
- The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)
- Psycho (1960)
- Repulsion (1965)
Note: Nosferatu (1921), Phantom of the Opera (1925) and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) are silent films with musical soundtracks.
A selection of the burgeoning literature on the horror genre. While all have something to offer, an asterisk (*) indicates those which are, in my view, essential and currently in print with the possible exception of Hardy's book.
Reference Works
- Hardy, Phil, ed. The Encyclopedia of Horror Movies. Octopus Books, London, 1986.
The best of the general reference works on horror films.
- Nicholls, Peter. Fantastic Cinema: An Illustrated Survey. Ebury Press, London, 1984.
A general historical survey of science fiction and horror movies with a post-1950 emphasis. Includes extensive reference section with ratings.
- Sullivan, Jack, ed. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural. Viking Penguin, New York, 1986.
Useful for the breadth of its coverage of horror fiction including movies.
Historical Surveys
- Butler, Ivan. The Horror Film. Zwemmer, London, 1967.
An early survey.
- Clarens, Carlos. Horror Movies: An Illustrated Survey. Secker & Warburg, London, 1967.
The first general history in the field.
- Derry, Charles. Dark Dreams: A Psychological History of the Modern Horror Film. A. S. Barnes, New York, 1978.
Divides post-1950 horror into three subgenres: Horror of Personality; Armageddon; the Demonic.
- Hogan, David J. Dark Romance: Sex and Death in the Horror Film. Equator Paperback, London, 1986. Despite the subtitle this is more in the nature of a general critical survey of the horror film from Caligari to Videodrome.
- McCarty, John. Splatter Movies. Columbus Books, Bromley, 1984.
Proposes the contemporary splatter horror as an extension of Grand Guignol theatre. Many lurid stills belie the non-academic seriousness of the accompanying text.
- Pirie, David. A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946-72. Gordon Fraser, London, 1973.
The definitive survey of post-war English horror cinema.
- --- The Vampire Cinema. Hamlyn, London, 1977.
An in- depth survey of the vampire subgenre. (See also Waller, G. A.)
- Newman, Kim. Nightmare Movies: A Critical History of the Horror Movie 1968-88. Rev. edn., Bloomsbury, London, 1988.
A very readable general survey of the contemporary horror movie which, together with The Encyclopedia of Horror
Movies above, is a particularly useful guide to titles on the video store shelves.
Other
- Brophy, Philip. Horror, Gore, Exploitation. reStuff, Melbourne, 1988.
An anthology of essays by Brophy reprinted from Art & Text, Cinema Papers, Third Degree, Video Age etc.
- Carroll, Noel. The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart. Routledge, New York, 1990.
The first in-depth study of the aesthetics of horror: the nature and narrative structures of the genre as a `trans-media' phenomenon. Academically philosophical, but Chapters 1 and 4 are of more general interest.
- Grixti, Joseph. Terrors of Uncertainty: The Cultural Context of Horror Fiction. Routledge, London, 1989.
A study of horror fiction in literature and film drawing widely on psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, cultural and media studies in discussing the pros and cons of horror fiction.
- Huss, Ray & Ross, T. J., eds Focus on the Horror Film. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1972.
An anthology of classic essays divided into four sections: the Horror Domain; Gothic Horror; Monster Terror; Psychological Thriller.
- King, Stephen. Danse Macabre: The Anatomy of Horror. Macdonald, London, 1981.
A nonacademic mixture of autobiography, anecdote and observation on horror as popular culture by a leading practitioner.
- Prawer, S. S. Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980.
A literary-oriented study which draws a distinction between fantasy--terror, fiction (weird, eerie, ghostly, uncanny) and horror fiction (repugnance, fear, loathing as well as terror).
- Twitchell, James P. Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror. Oxford University Press, New York, 1985.
Literary-based attempt to account for the fascination with horror in art, literature and the cinema.
- Tudor, Andrew. Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989.
An analysis of the development of the genre since 1930, definitive in its systematic approach.
- Waller, Gregory A., ed. American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1987.
A useful anthology of 12 previously published essays.
- --- The Living and the Undead: From Stoker's Dracula to Romero's Dawn of the Dead. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1986.
Discussion of the vampire legend in cinema, television and literature with in-depth anlaysis of key films. (See also Pirie, D.)
- Wood, Robin et al. American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film. Festivals of Festivals, Toronto, 1979.
Anthology of 11 essays and introduction mainly on modern American horror films by Wood, Andrew Britton, Tony Williams and Richard Lippe.
- Wood, Robin. Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. Columbia University Press, New York, 1986.
Includes four chapters devoted to contemporary American movie horror. Wood's approach is a personal and provocative blend of Marxist and Freudian theory.
Footnotes
[1] See Joseph Grixti, Terrors of Uncertainty: The Cultural Context of Horror Fiction, Routledge, London, 1989, Introduction, p. xii.[Back to text]
[2] Andrew Tudor, Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989, p. 6.[Back to text]
[3] Tudor, Chapters 5 and 10. [Back to text]
[4] Noel Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart, Routledge, New York, 1990, especially Chapter 1. [Back to text]
[5] Carroll, pp. 38-9.[Back to text]
[6] For examples of the psychanalytic approach to horror fiction see Carroll's own essay `Nightmare and the Horror Film,' Film Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 3 (Spring 1981) and an essay with a feminist perspective by Barbara Creed, `Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine', Screen, vol. 27, no. 1 (1986). [Back to text]
[7] Carroll, p. 13. Art-dread is a similar concept to Prawer's fantasy-terror (see the bibliography). [Back to text]
[8] Tudor, p. 170. [Back to text]
[9] Unlike the other films listed in the supernature subgenre the forces in Witchfinder General and Day of Wrath are not directly connected with the supernatural per se but play upon the social consequences of belief in supernature and on the complexity of received views of good and evil. [Back to text]
[10] Tudor, p. 160. [Back to text]
[11] The fifties science fiction cycle is also relevant here, particularly Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and the 1978 reworking of the same material. [Back to text]
[12] Charles Derry, Dark Dreams: A Psychological History of the Modern Horror Film, A.S. Barnes, New York, 1978, p. 58. [Back to text]
[13] Tudor, p. 185. [Back to text]
[14] Tudor, p. 183. [Back to text]
[15] Tudor, p. 184. [Back to Text]
Last updated 12 August 1996 - Bruce Hodsdon, Curator, Film & Video Lending Collection.
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