Horror Films FAQ explores a century of ghoulish and grand horror cinema, gazing at the different characters, situations, settings, and themes featured in the horror film, from final girls, monstrous bogeymen, giant monsters and vampires to the recent torture porn and found footage formats. The book remembers the J-Horror remake trend of the 2000s, and examines the oft-repeated slasher format popularized by John Carpenter's
Halloween (1978) and
Friday the 13th (1980).
After an introduction positioning the horror film as an important and moral voice in the national dialogue, the book explores the history of horror decade by decade, remembering the women's liberation horrors of the 1970s, the rubber reality films of the late 1980s, the serial killers of the 1990s, and the xenophobic terrors of the 9/11 age.
Horror Films FAQ also asks what it means when animals attack in such films as
The Birds (1963) or
Jaws (1975), and considers the moral underpinnings of rape-and-revenge movies, such as
I Spit on Your Grave (1978) and
Irreversible (2002). The book features numerous photographs from the author's extensive personal archive, and also catalogs the genre's most prominent directors.
