A History of Horror, 2nd Edition

by Wheeler Winston Dixon

Ever since horror leapt from popular fiction to the silver screen in the late 1890s, viewers have experienced fear and pleasure in exquisite combination. Wheeler Winston Dixon's fully revised and updated A History of Horror is still the only book to offer a comprehensive survey of this ever-popular film genre.

Arranged by decades, with outliers and franchise films overlapping some years, this one-stop sourcebook unearths the historical origins of characters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman and their various incarnations in film from the silent era to comedic sequels. In covering the last decade, this new edition includes coverage of the resurgence of the genre, covering the swath of new groundbreaking horror films directed by women, Black and queer horror films, and a new international wave in body horror films.

A History of Horror explores how the horror film fits into the Hollywood studio system, how the distribution and exhibition of horror films have changed in a post-COVID world, and how its enormous success in American and European culture expanded globally over time.

Dixon examines key periods in the horror film-in which the basic precepts of the genre were established, then banished into conveniently reliable and malleable forms, and then, after collapsing into parody, rose again and again to create new levels of intensity and menace. A History of Horror , supported by rare stills from classic films, brings over sixty timeless horror films into frightfully clear focus, zooms in on today's top horror Web sites, and champions the stars, directors, and subgenres that make the horror film so exciting and popular with contemporary audiences.
 

Genres: Film, Horror, History, Nonfiction, Academic, Audiobook

298 pages, Paperback

First published August 24, 2010

About the author

Wheeler Winston Dixon is an American filmmaker, scholar and author, and an expert on film history, theory and criticism.

His scholarship has particular emphasis on François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, American experimental cinema and horror films. He has written extensively on numerous aspects of film, including his books A Short History of Film and A History of Horror. From 1999 through the end of 2014, he was co-editor of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video. He is regarded as a top reviewer of films. In addition, he is notable as an experimental American filmmaker with films made over several decades, and the Museum of Modern Art exhibited his works in 2003. He has taught at a number of schools of higher learning.

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent history of horror cinema (NOT fiction) from the turn of the last century to 2010. It's a very easy read, and enjoyable to a horror aficionado such as I.

The book does not have any in-depth analysis of how horror works: basically, it traces the evolution of the horror film from the silent movie era to the present. It touches upon almost all the famous producers, directors, and icons (such as Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee et al); and basically does a decent job of covering the field in a "quick-and-dirty" fashion.

Horror movies, which evolved initially as atmospheric flicks where the horror was suggested more than shown explicitly, moved into graphic territory with the advent and development of special effects technology - losing its soul, and audience, in the process. The author is critical of the current gore-fest which is sold as horror in Hollywood - rightly so, IMO. He praises the avant-garde approach of Japanese and Korean films, and the few original ideas that America seems to produce once in a while, among all the mindless sequels.

There is a useful list of horror websites at the end, also a list of movies.

One warning - the book contains MAJOR spoilers (the two I noticed were for "The Others" and "Orphan"), so it might be a good idea to skip the discussion on movies which you have not seen.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The early sections of the book covering classic horror up until the 70's are great. Well written, and including a lot of titles I want to follow up on. The later sections were not nearly as strong. Chronology gets really jumpy, the writing feels a little lazier (lots of run-ons), and there are mistakes (for instance, Land of the Dead is not the most recent Romero zombie film [the book was released in 2010] There have been two since then.) Dixon's horror tastes are solid, though. Beyond his enjoyment of Universal classics and Hammer stuff, two of my favorite recent films, Candyman and The Orphanage, are given solid write-ups.

I was surprised at the lack of attention paid to the modern B-level studios. Corman and Castle get their due, but more recent purveyors of the form, like Charles Band's Full Moon and Lloyd Kaufman's Troma aren't mentioned at all.

Overall, a good look at the genre, but go to it more for a look pre-1970's horror.

[Arthur O'dell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read, expecially for those with little to no background in film history. Dixon's chapters on the horror film to 1970 don't really add anything to what has been written elsewhere, and the two last chapters provide a useful summary of major films, especially foreign-language films. The book's main weakness is that it does not employ a consistent approach to its subject; Dixon jumps between a chronological and a topical approach that can be confusing if you are not already familiar with many of the films in question (which sort of defeats the purpose of the book). For the most part, Dixon is content to repeat what has been said elsewhere; I was hoping for a little bit more of either a personal touch or deeper analysis (actually, I hoped for both). With that said, the book is certainly not bad, but it's primary use is as a starting point, not as an in-depth reference or go-to guide for useful criticism.

[Taylor M · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is less of a history more of a general list of horror movies that exist. It’s also a bit misleading bc it’s a history of horror film and tv, not a broad history. There was little analysis or thematic grouping happening. The author opted for a chronological approach, then grouped by director, and often mentioned actors that were defining to the genre. This I think was the start of the ineffectiveness as a history, because it fell into a very repetitive format of: director filmed movie with this budget. “The plot is simple” “the actor is effective”. Nothing deeper than that. Additionally, there were many places where the author decided to explain a plot, but there was no real indication why one film over another. The author also sometimes got the plots a little wrong like the exorcist, he says “the plot is simple” and says it’s about a demonically possessed girl with lots of gore. He does not like gore. But I wouldn’t say this is really the plot of the exorcist, as it says nothing of the fact that it’s actually about the priest who’s having a crisis of faith. Also, the author says the girl is possessed by the devil…. pazuzu would never.

I did like that the author had an international approach to the list. Japan, Korea, Italy, France, Spain, the UK and Mexico all have make an appearance as to their contributions to the genre. It is in these sections telling that the author may have more to say about the nature of horror building upon itself as he discusses how each country has influenced mainly American film and how American film influenced them. There is also in the updated version (there’s about 5 pages talking about Covid, and I thought this book was written in 2010 so I guess I had the update) a section on black horror. However, even though it discusses things like race, gender, nationality and how these things are featured in horror movies, the book doesn’t explain any of the basics of horror honestly. Nothing to be said about the fear of being marginalized fueling horror and how that has changed over time. Nothing to say about how horror reflects society’s issues, sociopolitical moment, etc etc. it’s just a list.


All in all, there’s a lot of movies missing, no commentary on what horror is, why it takes on the forms is has over the years, and the conclusion going on about “what does humanity’s obsession with gore say about us?” Is very reductive as to what horror is and what it accomplishes with its format. All that to say it doesn’t seem like the author even likes horror, let alone is well versed enough in it to write a foundational book on the topic. Skip it, your random favorite YouTuber has a better grasp and take on “the history of horror” than this supposed professor does.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

I will admit that I went into this book hoping for a more in depth discussion of various themes in horror cinema and how they related to what was happening in the world at the time. I can not fault the book for my incorrect assumptions. What the reader is presented with, instead, is a roughly chronological listing of horror titles with descriptions of the films and some commentary about their creation. This is a bit confusing, as many of the descriptions reveal the plot twists and endings of the films in question. One wonders who the book is written for. True horror aficionados will already be familiar with the movies discussed, those who are not will no longer have had the endings spoiled for them.

Despite this, the book provides an interesting look at the history of horror up through the 1970s. Some of the information regarding the studio system of the 40s and 50s is enlightening. There were a number of titles which were mentioned about which I was not aware. If this was all that the book covered it would have received a 3 1/2 or 4 star rating.

Unfortunately, the book continues to cover more modern films, much to its detriment. It is painfully obvious that the author does not care for American films made after the late 1970s. Again, if this was merely a disagreement of opinion regarding the movies, I would be more understandable. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, rather than provide an in depth discussion of how the nature of the horror film was changed by the increasing violence present in the world at large, the author simply bemoans and reviles the splatter sub genre. It is painfully obvious that he has not done his due diligence with regards to films of this era. He gets a number of thing wrong in his descriptions of films (for example the killer in the original Friday the 13th). He refuses to acknowledge certain well recognized themes (for example the entire Scream series is written of as just another slasher franchise without any mention of the fact that the characters are themselves aware of the standard tropes of the horror genre and attempt to survive by thwarting them). Despite making mention of how original ideas are watered down through successive sequels, the author tends to lump all movies in a series into one category, failing to recognize original ideas (for example the shocks in the first Saw film).

There is a fair examination of foreign horror in the final sections of the book including the big hitters of J-Horror, K-Horror, Spain, and Mexico. When he returns to the discussion of modern movies he makes numerous errors with small words, equating "found footage" films (a term he never uses) with "attempts at documentary film making." The general theme of this final section is that Hollywood is over-reliant upon established names (a topic I agree with) and with special effects over acting and plot. However he tries to shoehorn all films into this concept by failing to recognize that movies he does approve of (for example Paranormal Activity) do in fact use special effects, just not over the top CGI.

In the final pages the author makes the fatal error of stating that Twilight is an example of a well made horror film in that it focuses more upon the difficult relationship between the main characters. When such a poorly written and acted film which has nothing to do with the horror genre except the character calls himself a vampire while displaying almost no vampiric traits is held up as an example of good recent horror, it becomes difficult to take anything the author says seriously.

A word on the audio version: the tone of voice used by the narrator is often completely at odds with what is being discussed.

[Joel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a reasonably complete list of horror movies that have been made, I'll give it that much. However, that really doesn't make it a history of horror so much as it makes it a catalog with random descriptions and, annoying, spoilers peppered throughout (such as the one about the reasonably recent movie The Orphan... I'm more-or-less ok with spoiling a classic Universal horror movie that's over 80 years old but maybe not reveal the secret ending to the 5 year old movie). It felt like I was reading someone's journey through Wikipedia articles and following links rather than reading a history. I was hoping for more analysis and fewer lists.

The early history is, perhaps understandably, nothing but a list of movies. Hey, these early movies probably don't exist any longer, are hard to come by, or just aren't long enough to have much to say about. That movies into the discussion of classic Universal horror movies and Hammer Studios was the only semi-meaty part of the book... the only area where I kind of learned something... even though it also devolved into list making.

The discussion of modern horror movies showed the writer's disinterest in anything but what had been done in the past (or in Korea/Japan). Granted, I'm not a defender of torture porn or splatter movies, but someone loves those movies and that someone might be reading this book. It's not that he shouldn't have an opinion but, rather, that the interjection of opinion in a book that is, essentially, a long list of movies with synopsis/spoilers, is out of place. If the book had been more theory, essays, and actual historical context, it'd have been perfectly fine. That's what I was looking for, but that's not what this book is.

Perhaps that's my mistake in expecting a book called "The History of Horror" to be something other than what it turned out to be.

[Skylar · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a decent catalogue of horror movies, some of their plot lines, and some of their backgrounds up until the last two chapters where we hit the 1970’s to the 90’s and then the 90’s to present day. At this point, the book just turns into the author’s dislike of slasher movies and splatterpunk which is fine, but it gets increasingly judgier as the chapters continue.

The entire book notes over and over that bad, cheap sequels and bad, cheap remakes have always been a thing where the author will give his opinion on whichever movie he’s discussing, but not turn it into a Greater Pattern. Until, of course, the 90’s where he suddenly forgets the 800,000 Universal monster sequels he talked about earlier and launches into bemoaning about how nothing is original anymore.

Also baffling, how do you talk about Cannibal Holocaust and Blair Witch popularity without noting that their popularity came out in large part because audiences initially believed they were real? How do you lump Scream into the other slasher movies when the entire point was to parody the tropes? How do you complain about torture porn and then also complain that Eli Roth isn’t making anymore Hostel movies? And lastly, I’m a Reformed Twilight Hater who regrets how much energy I used to put into hating a teen romance novel but also it’s a very strange movie to pick as One Of The Good Horror Movies of the 2000’s.

In fairness, he does put a lot of energy into discussing J-Horror, K-Horror, and Italian horror. But overall, I’d recommend The Monster Show by David Skal long before this one. All of the same info of the silent movies through the 1970’s is there with much more information on the movies, directors, actors, and culture at the time.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is a decent overview of horror films and themes for anyone interested in basics, but I struggled with a few things. There were incorrect names and dates, which was frustrating, but the broader topics were interesting. The book is broken down by decades and the dominant tropes, titles, and directors/actors of each period. As we got closer to the present day (the end), the author got more and more judgmental and opinionated about popular films, often becoming quite critical. Toward the end, it read less like a history of horror and more like a book report written by someone who didn't like the book.
The author also waffles between mentioning a particular title/series in passing and outlining entire plot points and endings for others. There doesn't seem to be any reason for going into some titles more in depth than others, so it creates an odd balance that led to me assuming he was making a comment on which films he liked as a viewer. I'd also like to understand how he chose each film to focus on, since there were many missing. It all seems arbitrary at best, and I'm curious what the criteria was, especially for the "50 Classic Horror Films" list in the back matter.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

WWD accomplishes what he sets out to do and his critical judgments of individual works strike me as pretty consistently on point. (He's more enthusiastic about SON OF DRACULA -- the Deep South sequel to DRACULA -- than seems necessary, but I'm perfectly willing to grant him Lon Chaney, Jr., and Count Alucard.) The question is whether a quick, 200-page survey of horror (mostly movies, with some, mostly 19thC, literary works tossed in) is a sensible thing to do. In tripping along so quickly, WWD sacrifices critical depth and intellectual playfulness for an approach that is, if anything, TOO consistent. I found this book very readable, but it seems to be written mostly for horror neophytes (i.e. not me). And it's a survey! It does survey things, makes survey assumptions, organizes unruly things into neat packages.

[Erika Schoeps · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
A fun, informative history of horror films. I really enjoyed this because instead of sounding like an overly pretentious thesis/analysis, the author simply gives you a basic overview. The author describes important and influential movies and narrates their impact on the film industry. This book is accessible and fun for literally anybody. Although this fun approach usually worked well, I sometimes wish the author would do a broader analysis of the time period and the cause and effect relationships between the movies he described. Also, he moves from theme to theme instead of following a chronological order. The theme to theme method was effective and enjoyable, but I wondered while reading if maybe his novel would have benefited from some chronological organization.

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brief summary of the horror film genre that manages to squeeze in a remarkable number of films. While some of the analysis is rather brief, and many of the films are from the non-English cinema world (as they should be), there is still much useful information here for someone wanting to learn about American horror films and their impact on viewers. My own personal viewing list grew with my reading of the book. Dixon does a particularly good job with the early days of the genre and often discusses the personalities behind the actual movies. I wrote a bit more about the book on my blog: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.

[Jill Hutchinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ho hum......this book did not impress me but there were some interesting tidbits that kept it from getting a failing grade. The author traces the horror film from the beginning through 2009 which should be a fascinating read for the movie buff but right off the bat there were some mistakes about who starred in what film. That immediately put me off but I kept reading. Lots of films mentioned, lots of actors mentioned, lots of director mentioned.......so why didn't it resonate with me? To be frank, I have no idea but it had me turning pages and jumping ahead when it bogged down (which it did frequently). It might be a book some would like but count me out.

[Mike Perschon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An outstanding survey of horror film. The book is at its best up until the chapters on the modern era; the author knows his stuff when it comes to the oldies, but gets a bit lost in the deluge of offerings since the ‘90s. For those looking for a book that covers over a century of horror at the movies, you’re unlikely to find better. The other star was lost for the author’s too brief and somewhat high handed conjectures about why we watch horror.

[JL Shioshita · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want a dry textbook retrospective of horror cinema, this is the book for you. There's not a lot of personality to it but it covers a huge timespan from the dawn of the silent age to fairly present day torture porn and is filled with tons of information. It is an educational read if not necessarily the most commercially entertaining, but if you love horror cinema, you'll probably finish satisfied.

[Ian Burrell]

After a slow start, this review of the cinematic horror hits its stride with the classic Universal films through to Hammer. Taking an interesting detour through the international world of horror including J-Horror and K-Horror Dixon winds up with an assessment of the recent trends in horror and predicts where the future of the genre lies.

An informative introduction to the history of the horror film.

[David Sterritt]

I’ve just read Wheeler Winston Dixon’s 2010 book “A History of Horror,” and his analyses and descriptions have led me to visit or revisit various blood-red oldies of varying intelligence and effectiveness, reminding me why this has always been one of my favorite genres, its pitfalls and excesses notwithstanding. Most important, the book has a moral compass that points to the genre’s ethical and aesthetic drawbacks as well as the frequent pleasures it provides. An admirably absorbing read.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent history that suffers hugely when it gets to genres and eras that the author doesn't like. The history lesson gets replaced by editorializing about violence and gore. Worse, when dealing with series the author doesn't like his research gets pretty sloppy. If I could do half stars It'd be 2.5, but I can't. HENCE 3.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half seems like an interminable reeling off of film titles with brief synopses as the book condenses the history of horror. Later on it is more expansive and reflective, with more interesting things to say about the genre. A good sketch of framework from which to further explore; also provides a lot of film suggestions to watch to fill any gaps in your horror CV.

[Aaron Hollander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative, broad survey on the history of horror cinema.

[Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not so much a history as an annotated bibliography of horror films.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good workmanlike book retelling the history of the horror film genre. A general overview, nothing really in depth.

[Spencer Howerton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for film fans.

[Trent Kartis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for film students.

[Steven Gaiko · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting but mostly just listing

[Matt Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a pretty interesting exploration of the evolution of horror movies. While the authors own personal views frequently slip in, especially towards the end, it was still neat to see the different ways horror has expressed itself in cinema. While some of the spoilers were a bit annoying, it overall was useful in discussing films that are generally not worth seeing unless you really have a lot of time on your hands. It was always fun to see some of my favorite horror movies pop up while he discussed the different eras, and there is a useful list of websites in the back. Overall, this is a pretty good read for anyone interested in horror movies.

[donovan · Rating 3 out of 5]

i knew most of this already, but that says more about how much of a horror obsessive i am than anything about the book. there is good information here but its very introductory. a bit judgey about modern horror films and violence in film also which im not into

[Matt Sautman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on what I see in the comments, make sure to read the second edition if one chooses to read this book, as it covers into the early pandemic and seems to be far more authoritative overall in comparison.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very helpful book in understanding the history of horror film. This detailed account leaves very few stones unturned in its listing and descriptions of the horror film genre throughout the years.

[Calvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a lot of misprints and typos. Good content, though. Interesting takes on movies throughout history.