Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Illuminating the dark side of the American century, The Monster Show 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. Now with a new Afterword by the author that looks at horror's popular renaissance in the last decade, The Monster Show is a compulsively readable, thought-provoking inquiry into America's obsession with the macabre.

Language: English

Pages: 448

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Release: October 15, 2001

ISBN: 0571199968

ISBN 13: 9780571199969

The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Illuminating the dark side of the American century, The Monster Show 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. Now with a new Afterword by the author that looks at horror's popular renaissance in the last decade, The Monster Show is a compulsively readable, thought-provoking inquiry into America's obsession with the macabre.

Language: English

Pages: 448

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Release: October 15, 2001

ISBN: 0571199968

ISBN 13: 9780571199969

More books from David J. Skal

Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula

3.7/5 ( ratings)

Bram Stoker's Dracula: A Documentary Journey into Vampire Country and the Dracula Phenomenon

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood's Master of the Macabre

Vampires: Encounters With the Undead

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Fright Favorites: 31 Movies to Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Romancing the Vampire: From Past to Present

4.4/5 ( ratings)

Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture

3.7/5 ( ratings)

Claude Rains: An Actor's Voice

Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms: Essays on Gender, Race and Culture

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Halloween: The History of America’s Darkest Holiday

3.4/5 ( ratings)

Dracula in Visual Media: Film, Television, Comic Book and Electronic Game Appearances, 1921-2010

3.5/5 ( ratings)

The Horror Film

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2019 (F&SF, #742)

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature (Samhain 2013, #2)

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2021 (F&SF #758)

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2019 (F&SF, #744)

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Perfekte Geschöpfe

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?