Movie Research Resources

Genre and Horror Resources

I was going to make all of these links but, I don't want to have to keep them updated. I originally found all of these books on Amazon - if that doesn't yield results, try half or any used text book website.

Altman, Rick.  Film/Genre.  London: BFI Publishing, 1999.

Carroll, Noel.  The Philosophy of Horror. London: Routledge, 1990.

Clover, Carol J.  Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton University Press. 1992.

Collins, Min.  Film Theory Goes To The Movies : Cultural Analysis of Contemporary Film.  Edited by Ava Preacher Collins.  London: Routledge, 1992.

Cook, Gary, et al.  B-Movie Survival Guide: A Comprehensive Guide to the In’s and Out’s of Finding a Way to Live till the Final Credits. Wild Things, 1999.

Curry, Christopher Wayne. A Taste for Blood: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis.  London: Creation Publishing Group, 2000. 

Dixon, Wheeler Winston ed.  Film Genre 2000: New Critical Essays. New York: State University of New York Press, 2000.

Duff, David, ed.  Modern Genre Theory. Longman, 1999.

Edmundson, Mark.  Nightmare on Main Street Street : Angels, Sadomasochism, and the Culture of Gothic. Harvard University Press, 1998.

Farwell, Mary H.J.  “After A Nightmare on Elm Street, director Wes Craven dreams up Shocker’s maniacal killer.”  People Weekly 32, no. 20 (1998): 159-61.

Freeland, Cynthia A.  The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror. Colorado: Westview Press, 1999.

Gelder, Ken, ed.  The Horror Reader. London: Routledge, 2000.

Giles, Jeff.  “Keep ‘em Screaming.”  Newsweek 130, no. 24 (1997): 70-1.

Goldstein, Jeffrey H., ed.  Why We Watch: The Attraction to Violent Entertainment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Grant, Barry Keith, ed.  The Dread of the Difference: Gender and the Horror Film. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1996.

Grossman, Dave.  Stop teaching our kids to kill: a call to action against TV, movie & video game violence.”  New York: Crown Publishers, 1999.

Guttmacher, Peter. Legendary Horror Films: Essential Genre History, Offscreen Anecdotes, Special Effects Secrets, Ghoulish Facts and Photographs.  New York: MetroBooks, 1995.

Halberstam, Judith.  Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Duke University Press, 1995.

Haskell, Molly.  From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Jameson, Richard, ed.  They went thataway: redefining film genres: a National Society of Film Critics video guide.  San Francisco: Mercury House, 1994.

Jones, E. Michael.  Monsters From the Id: The Rise of Horror in Fiction and Film. Texas: Spence Pub, 2000.

Keesey, Douglas.  “THEY KILL FOR LOVE.”  CineAction, Summer 2001, 44.

Klawans, Stuart.  “Craven Idolatry.”  The Nation 270, no. 9 (2000): 34.

Koehler, Robert.  “’Scream’ catalyst for new horror era.”  Variety 368, no. 10 (1997): M5

Lacey, Nick.  Narrative and Genre:  Key Concepts in Media Studies. Palgrave, 2000.

Lavery, David, ed.  Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks. Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1995.

Law, John W.  Scare Tactic: The Life and Films of William Castle. iUniverse.com, 2000.

Markovitz, Johnathan.  “Female Paranoia as Survival Skill: reason or pathology in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street.’”  Quarterly Review of Film and Video 17, no. 3 (2000): 211-21.

---. CriticalApproaches to Writing About Film. New Jersey:Prentice Hall, 2000.

McCarthy, John.  Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen.  New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984.

Monaco, James.  How To Read a Film: The World of Movies, Media, and Multimedia: Language, History, Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Mulvey, Laura.  Visual and Other Pleasures. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989.

Neale, Steve.  Genre and Hollywood. London: Routledge, 2000.

Nelmes, Jill, ed.  An Introduction to Film Studies. London: Routledge, 1999.

Nichols, Peter M.  “Taking the Children.”  The New York Times, 16 February 2001,

Parla, Paul.  de la,  Charles P. Mitchell.  Screen Sirens Scream!: Interviews with 20 Actresses from Science Fiction, Horror, Film Noir, and Mystery Movies, 1930’s to 1960’s. McFarland & Company, 2000.

Paul, William.  “What rough beasts; confessions of a gross-out maven.”  Film Comment 30, no. 6 (1994): 80-5.

---.  Laughing, Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

Pinedo, Isabel.  “Recreational Terror: postmodern elements of the contemporary horror film.”  Journal of Film and Video 48, no. 1-2 (1996): 17-35.

Postman, Neil.  The Disappearance of Childhood. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Powers, Tom.  Horror Movies.  Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1989.

Salisbury, Mark, ed.  Burton on Burton.  Great Britian: Faber and Faber, 1995.

Santino, Jack, ed.  Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life. Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, 1994.

Sharrett, Christopher, ed.  Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media. Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1999.

Simpson, Philip L.  Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer Through Contemporary American Film and Fiction. Illinois: Southern Illinois University Pres, 2000.

Solomon, Stanley J.  Beyond Formula: American Film Genres.  New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.

Staiger, Janet.  “Hybrid or inbred: the purity hypothesis and Hollywood genre history.”  Film Criticism 22, no. 1 (1997): 5-21.

---.  Perverse Spectators. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

Tietchen, Todd F.  “Samples and Copycats: the cultural implications of the postmodern slasher in contemporary American film.”  Journal of Popular Film and Television 26, no. 3  (1998): 98.

Timpone, Anthony, ed.  Fangoria’s best horror films.  New York: Crescent Books, 1994.

Trencansky, Sarah.  “Final Girls and Terrible Youth: Transgression in 1980’s Slasher Horror.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 29, no. 2 (2001): 63.

Tudor, Andrew.  “Why horror?  The peculiar pleasures of a popular genre.”  Cultural Studies 11, no. 3 (1997): 443-61.

Van Gennep, Arnold.  The Rites of Passage.  Translated by Monika B. Vizedon and Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

Williamson, Kevin. de la, Wes Craven.  Scream: A Screenplay. Talk Miramax Books, 1997.

Other Resources To Check Out

Baywater, Tim.  An introduction to film criticism: major critical approaches to narrative film.  New York: Longman, 1989.

Broeske, Pat H.  “Reinventing a Genre.”  Writer’s Digest 77, no.   11 (1997): 55.

Browne, Nick, ed.  Refiguring American Film Genres: History and Theory. California: University of California Press, 1998.

Cawelti, John G.  The Six Gun Mystique Sequel. Popular Press. 1999.

---.  “What rough beast – new westerns?”  ANQ 9, no. 3 (1996): 4-18.

“Film, TV go back west.”  Video Age International 14, no. 3 (1994): 16-17.

Frayling, Christopher.  “The Making of Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars.”  Cineaste 25, no. 3 (2000): 14.

Kaplan, E. Ann.  Women in Film Noir. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1999.

Kertzer, David I.  Ritual, Politics, and Power. Boston: Yale University Press, 1989.

Kreyche, Gerald F.  “Westerns Ride Off Into the Sunset.”  USA Today 128, no. 2652 (1999): 82.

Kroll, Jack.  “Blazing Saddles.”  Newsweek 131, no.  25A (1998): 34-5.

Leighninger, Robert D.  “The Western as male soap operas: John Ford’s ‘Rio Grande.’”  Journal of Men’s Studies 6, no. 2 (1998): 135-49.

Mitchell, Reid.  All on a Mardi Gras Day: Episodes in the History of New Orleans Carnival. Boston: Harvard University Press, 1999.

O’Boyle, J.G.  Journal of Popular Film and Television 24, no. 2 (1996): 69-82.

O’Brien, Geffrey.  “The movie of the century: it looks both backwards at everything Hollywood had learned about Westerns and forward to things films hadn’t dared do.”  American Heritage 49, no. 7 (1998): 16-20.

Paul Lucey. Story Sense: Writing Story and Script for Feature Films and Television. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 1996.

Slotkin, Richard.  Gunfighter Nation : The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.