A History of Horror / / Wheeler Winston Dixon.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Dixon, Wheeler Winston,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2010]; ©2010
• Year of Publication: 2010
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (264 p.) :; 52 illustrations.

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Origins: 1896-1929 -- 2. Classics: 1930-1948 -- 3. Rebirth: 1949-1970 -- 4. New Blood: 1970-1990 -- 5. The Future: 1990-Present -- Top Horror Web Sites -- 50 Classic Horror Films -- Bibliography -- Index