... horror films that discuss urban poverty, such as The People Under the Stairs (1991) and Candyman (1992). It highlights the difficulty of separating issues of class and race in US horror cinema. David Robert Mitchell It Follows Detroit horror films economic decline...

... identity and stands out even within the dominant American horror films of the 1970s. The visual romanticism, lyricism, and moments of humour that De Palma used to counteract the movie's more horrifying moments has seen it cited in academic and critical circles as an influence on both the cycle of teen...

...'. Although there are notable critics who support the horror genre, horror is usually dealt short shrift by critical institutions. Certainly, reviews of horror films within the mainstream press would seem inclined to evaluate the film's morality, rather than any artistic or dramatic achievement...

... conformity. Some of those American youth, like Stephen King and Romero, would grow up to become significant figures in American horror films and literature, and bring the influence of EC into the genre. EC horror comics George A. Romero American comic book American youth Stephen King American horror...

... resemble. David Cronenberg Shivers modernist filmmaker horror films science-fiction films A shot from Linsky’s car repeats the sense of momentum and excitement conveyed by a similar shot of the building at the film’s opening, but the geometry we see is now garbled. His ‘MD on call’ sign is a poignant...

...This chapter evaluates Hammer horror as genre films. Hammer is renowned for its horror films, despite its breadth of productions including comedies, war films, action-adventures, and thrillers. Its specific brand of horror has often been considered to be a particularly English Gothic, Gothicism...

... in capturing the imaginations, and box-office dollars, of traditional and non-traditional horror audiences around the world. Capitalising on renewed interest in the work of Stephen King, the 2017 adaptation of his epic novel IT quickly became the highest grossing R-rated horror film of all...

... that Scrooge is being haunted. This is the chapter in which the author begins to textually analyse the film chronologically. Scrooge Brian Desmond Hurst Charles Dickens Ghosts Horror films A Christmas Carol Alastair Sim Noel Langley Inscribing a copy of his 1934 novel Tender...

... contemporary horror films as reference points, synthesising both old and new to create the latest movie monster. In doing so, it established most of the conventions that would be re-used in later mummy films. horror fantasy The Mummy Universal Pictures living mummy Egyptology contemporary horror films...

...-gloved killers, the ghost girls in TV sets, and all those other monsters created in horror films. ancient Egypt living mummy popular culture Tutankhamun horror films In Théophile Gautier’s story the modern man who bought the mummy’s foot fell asleep and dreamed. He dreamed of being visited...

...This chapter points out how the scenes of horror in David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me are markedly different to those from what could be deemed to be more 'typical' horror films. It describes Fire Walk With Me as a shining example of how horror films also...

...This chapter looks at caves in and out of horror films, and asks which of several millennia-worth of cave associations are mobilised in Neil Marshall's The Descent (2005). Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, caves are dark, providing the principal fear that The Descent...

...The chapter discusses how the interest in British horror films grew at a slow pace. It mentions that there was an enormous popularity of imported American horror films and that this led to a certain amount of unease in the UK, especially at the British Board of Film Censors. The chapter talks about...

...Tracing the entire career of the British director Terence Fisher, best known for his Gothic horror films for Hammer — such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958) — this book covers not only his horror films, but also his film noirs, comedies...

...This chapter begins by asking why audiences expose themselves to horror, and argues that the common idea that horror films are about fear is a profoundly wrong-headed notion. It shows that the film’s alignment of the audience with the perpetrators rather than the victims, a commonplace approach...

...This chapter provides an overview of Hammer Films. When Enrique Carreras and Will Hinds (stage name: Will Hammer) formed the distribution company Exclusive Films in 1935, they had no plans to become horror film producers. After a wartime hiatus, in 1947 they re-established their small independent...

.... As with other genres, over time horror developed codes and conventions that became typically associated with what one would now term a traditional horror film. Since the arrival of the 'modern' horror film in the early 1960s, the genre has displayed a degree of freedom from many of its more traditional...

... of the fantastic for that of either the 'marvellous' or the 'uncanny'. The chapter considers Jacques Tourneur's Cat People (1942), the first in a series of 'fantastic' horror films produced by Val Lewton for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. Famous for their use of suggestion and ambiguity...

... films Hollywood low-budget horror film Psycho Alfred Hitchcock, US 1960 Recommended viewing The Lodger (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927)Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)Frenzy...