Research Catalog
The monster show : a cultural history of horror / David J. Skal.
- Title
- The monster show : a cultural history of horror / David J. Skal.
- Author
- Skal, David J.
- Publication
- New York : Faber and Faber, c2001.
Items in the Library & Off-site
Filter by
1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Not available - Please for assistance. | Text | Request in advance | PN1995.9.H6 S57 2001 | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- 446 p. : ill.; 21 cm.
- Summary
- Illuminating the dark side of the American century, this book uncovers the surprising links between horror entertainment and the great social crises of our time, as well as horror's function as a pop analogue to surrealism and other artistic movements. With penetrating analyses and revealing anecdotes, David J. Skal chronicles one of our most popular and pervasive modes of cultural expression. He explores the disguised form in which Hollywood's classic horror movies played out the traumas of two world wars and the Depression; the nightmare visions of invasion and mind control catalyzed by the Cold War; the preoccupation with demon children that took hold as thalidomide, birth control, and abortion changed the reproductive landscape; the vogue in visceral, transformative special effects that paralleled the development of the plastic surgery industry; the link between the AIDS epidemic and the current fascination with vampires; and much more.--From publisher description.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Processing Action (note)
- committed to retain
- Contents
- Introduction: A sideshow in Camelot -- Tod Browning's America -- "You will become Caligari": monsters, mountebanks, and modernism -- Dread and circuses -- The monsters and Mr. Liveright -- 1931: the American abyss -- Angry villagers -- "I used to know your daddy": the horrors of war, part two -- Drive-ins are a ghoul's best friend: horror in the fifties -- The graveyard bash -- It's alive, I'm afraid -- Scar wars -- "Rotten blood" -- The dance of dearth -- The monster millennium -- Afterword.
- ISBN
- 0571199968
- OCLC
- 48199888
- SCSB-10771107
- Owning Institutions
- Harvard Library