"The Evolution of Horror in the Twenty-First Century explores the many aspects of the horror genre across thematics and media in the 2020s. Consisting of 21 chapters by experts in the field, this book examines how horror reveals the anxieties around our current cultural moment and how that might develop in the future"--

The Evolution of Horror in the Twenty-First Century examines the intimate connections between the horror genre and its audience’s experience of being in the world at a particular historical and cultural moment. This book not only provides frameworks with which to understand contemporary horror, but it also speaks to the changes wrought by technological development in creation, production, and distribution, as well as the ways in which those who are traditionally underrepresented positively within the genre- women, LGBTQ+, indigenous, and BAME communities - are finally being seen and finding space to speak.

Providing an indispensable resource for academics as well as readers interested in the evolution of horror fiction in the 20th century, this book provides a readable yet critical guide to global horror fiction and authors. Horror Fiction in the 20th Century encompasses the world of 20th-century horror literature and explores it in a critical but balanced fashion. Readers will be exposed to the world of horror literature, a truly global phenomenon during the 20th century. Beginning with the modern genre's roots in the 19th century, the book proceeds to cover 20th-century horror literature in all of its manifestations, whether in comics, pulps, paperbacks, hardcover novels, or mainstream magazines, and from every country that produced it. The major horror authors of the century receive their due, but the works of many authors who are less well-known or who have been forgotten are also described and analyzed. In addition to providing critical assessments and judgments of individual authors and works, the book describes the evolution of the genre and the major movements within it. Horror Fiction in the 20th Century stands out from its competitors and will be of interest to its readers because of its informed critical analysis, its unprecedented coverage of female authors and writers of color, and its concise historical overview.

Horror’s longstanding reputation as a popular but culturally denigrated genre has been challenged by a new wave of films mixing arthouse minimalism with established genre conventions. Variously dubbed 'elevated horror' and 'post-horror,' films such as The Babadook, It Follows, The Witch, It Comes at Night, Get Out, The Invitation, Hereditary, Midsommar, A Ghost Story, and mother! represent an emerging nexus of taste, politics, and style that has often earned outsized acclaim from critics and populist rejection by wider audiences. Post-Horror is the first full-length study of one of the most important and divisive movements in twenty-first-century horror cinema.

The Ethics of Horror: Spectral Alterity in Twenty-First Century Horror Film examines the theme of spectral haunting in contemporary American horror cinema through the lens of ethical responsibility. Arguing that moral obligation can manifest as terror to the complacent self, the text extracts this dimension of ethics in twenty-first century horror films. Drawing on the ethical theories of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, which posit the asymmetrical obligation of the self to the other, Michael Burke highlights how recent horror films portray spectral antagonists as ethical others that hound protagonists and summon them to an accountability that they can neither evade nor ever completely fulfill. Burke observes the resulting destabilization of notions of ethical responsibility and justice in a variety of contemporary horror subgenres, including technohorror, haunted house and zombie films.

Dark Forces at Work examines the role of race, class, gender, religion, and the economy as they are portrayed in, and help construct, horror narratives across a range of films and eras. These larger social forces not only create the context for our cinematic horrors, but serve as connective tissue between fantasy and lived reality, as well. While several of the essays focus on “name” horror films such as IT, Get Out, Hellraiser, and Don’t Breathe, the collection also features essays focused on horror films produced in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and on American classic thrillers such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Key social issues addressed include the war on terror, poverty, the housing crisis, and the Time’s Up movement. The volume grounds its analysis in the films, rather than theory, in order to explore the ways in which institutions, identities, and ideologies work within the horror genre.

Greatly expanded and updated from the 1977 original, this new edition explores the evolution of the modern horror film, particularly as it reflects anxieties associated with the atomic bomb, the Cold War, 1960s violence, sexual liberation, the Reagan revolution, 9/11 and the Iraq War. It divides modern horror into three varieties (psychological, demonic and apocalyptic) and demonstrates how horror cinema represents the popular expression of everyday fears while revealing the forces that influence American ideological and political values. Directors given a close reading include Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg, Guillermo Del Toro, Michael Haneke, Robert Aldrich, Mel Gibson and George A. Romero. Additional material discusses postmodern remakes, horror franchises and Asian millennial horror. This book also contains more than 950 frame grabs and a very extensive filmography.