A History of Horror by Wheeler Winston Dixon
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.
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.
Wheeler Winston Dixon, Chair, Film Studies, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, is author of The Early Film Criticism of Francois Truffaut (Indiana, forthcoming), The Cinematic Vision of F.Scott Fitzgerald, and The Charm of Evil: The Life and Films of Terence Fisher (Scarecrow, 1991). Dixon has also written for The Velvet Light Trap, Post Script, The New Orleans Review, Film Criticism, and Cineaste. His films and videotapes have been screened at the Whitney Museum, the Kithen, and the Jewish Museum. In Spring, 1992, he served as Guest Curator for a series on Dystopian Science-Fiction at the National Film Theatre in London.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780813547961 |
| ISBN 10 | 0813547962 |
| Title | A History of Horror |
| Author | Wheeler Winston Dixon |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Rutgers University Press |
| Year published | 2010-08-30 |
| Number of pages | 264 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |