Focus on the Horror Film

by Roy Huss, T.J. Ross

Horror Film (Film Focus)

Genres: Film, Horror

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1972

Reviews

[Aguirre Fitzcarraldo]

A book written on horror movies published in 1972 presents some challenges. Mostly how underdeveloped the genre was at that point in time. So it is interesting to see it from this dated perspective, a sort of naivety to the future of what is to come. The focus is mainly on Universal Monster movies of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and King Kong’s colossal horror and its derivatives.

No discussion on Romero and the zombie genre which sprouted to maintain a more prolific horror hegemony from the 70s on to the present, than the vampire monsters et al. Zombies in the early 20th century were used in a voodoo sense of corpses brought back to life as slaves and brainwashed entities rather than the infection flesh-fuelled mobs we know them as.

I did enjoy the takeaways from the monster movie genre in that they all suffer from failure of natural death and are set free from their painful striving with a final demise (p. 38) as well as, the inherently humanistic source of the monsters themselves personifying potentiality of evil within ourselves and the flaws within our character we embody (p. 41).

[Peter]

Everything inside the horror fan needs: from the publication of Shelley's Frankenstein to the death of Boris Karloff. Ghoulies and ghosties, the pageantry of death, gothic horror (the archetypes Frankenstein and vampirism), Dracula, Nosferatu, Jekyll and Hyde, a great black and white photo section, monster terror, King Kong, monster films, psychological thrillers, the school of shudder, Rosemary's Baby, Polanski and a fantastic filmography up to the 70s in the end. This is classic non-fiction stuff where the horror movie came from. Highly recommended!

[Alberto Boschini]

This one is almost a classic nowadays...