The Things That Keep Us Up at Night: Reel Bio Horror, Black & White Edition

by Victoria Sutton

The Things That Keep Us Up At Night: Biohorror, Biothriller Movies, the Law and the Science by Victoria Sutton. This book celebrates the new subgenre of biohorror and biothriller movies which has grown rapidly in the last two decades, building on a classic past beginning with Nosferatu (1922) and The Seventh Seal (1957)moving through the Biotechnology Revolution to the movies that use engineered and natural attacks from Mother Nature. All of these movies bring an amazing view of human nature in a disaster, a pandemic and sometimes a collapse of society. This book examines 48 movies representative of this biohorror subgenre with a look through the science and the law. Could this really happen? What laws do we have to protect us? What science do we have that can combat these biological threats? A book that will keep you up at night.

409 pages, Paperback

First published March 22, 2014

About the author

Victoria Sutton grew up in North Carolina and wrote her first book at age 9, a 90-page epic of a bee family. As a law professor and scientist she writes academic books on the environment and emerging technologies and law -- nanotechnology, biotechnology and bioterrorism. In academia she has won the Best Book Award at her University (Texas Tech University)and two book awards for each of her "pop law" books, "The Legal Kiss" and "Halloween Law". She has also explored fiction, winning one award in romance writing from the prestigious Golden Acorn competition.

Learn more at: reelbiohorror.com

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing walk through a fascinating genre. I'm not quite sure what to make of this book. It seems as if it would lend itself better to a discussion series in a film course. The perspective and ideas are interesting and somewhat well developed. However, the structure of the book is inconsistent - is it meant to be academic or casual? Are we supposed to have a dialogue over the material/implications or just be told what exists? This book also needed to be better edited. There are entire passages that are repeated across chapters, adding to the word count but not the book's substance. There are also pages with blank spaces - placeholders never completed (eg a movie title followed by parentheses with no year). I had high hopes given the current Ebola outbreak, but this comes across as an excuse to spoil the movies in question.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typically I don't read these types of books, but the title intrigued me. I found that I enjoyed "The Things That Keep Us Up At Night," despite this being a completely different genre than I thought it was going to be. There were many movies that I have not seen, but I never realized the ones I have seen had so much background information that I was missing. Victoria Sutton did her research when it came to the 40+ movies she wrote about. I found it very interesting how she managed to discredit some movies based on how they handled a breakout, such as in a real world scenario they should've acted quicker than the movie actually did. Anyone that likes information about bio-horror is sure to enjoy this book.

I received a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

This is great book and a lot of fun to read. It goes over bio-horror movies (zombies and diseases and the like) and rates them based on the medical ability to happen and the accuracy judicially. This makes for an interesting rating system.

No doubt this will sit on my coffee table as a great conversation piece.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wealth of information. I learned alot that I had not known before. A must read for fans of horror movies.