ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 focuses on the horror film. Early influences on the genre, especially the three core novels Frankenstein (Shelley), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson), and Dracula (Stoker), are discussed. An overview of the genre's history in cinema begins with the films of Georges Méliès and German expressionism. The account of horror in the studio era highlights the work of Tod Browning and Lon Chaney, Universal Studios, and Val Lewton. The capsule history concludes by exploring postwar Hollywood's turn toward the youth market, its revitalization in the 1960s with Psycho (1960), and later cycles such as body horror, splatter, and slasher films. The section on critical issues explains Robin Wood's model for understanding the horror film and the ideological issues raised by Wood and critics who have concentrated on questions of gender in the genre. The chapter concludes with a case study of Night of the Living Dead (1968).
