Horror Zone: The Cultural Experience of Contemporary Horror Cinema

Robin Wood has noted that horror ‘has consistently been one of the most popular and, at the same time, the most disreputable of Hollywood genres’. Horror is still immensely popular but its assimilation into our culture continues apace. In Horror Zone, leading international writers on horror take horror into the world outside cinema screens to explore the interconnections between the films and modern media and entertainment industries, economies and production practices, cultural and political forums, spectators and fans. They critically examine the ways in which the horror genre functions in all its multifarious forms, considering, for example, the Friday the 13th films as a contemporary grand guignol, the new series of Mummy and Blade films as blockbusters, and horror film marketing on the Internet. They also examine the relationship between the contemporary horror film and the theme park ride, the horror film as art house cinema, relationships between pornography and the horror film, set and costume design in horror films such as The Silence of the Lambs, and the place of special effects in this most reputable of film genres.