Hollywood Horror: From Gothic To Cosmic Horror Book Review

Populated with vampires, monsters, mummies, zombies, werewolves, sinister scientists, aliens, and psychopaths, horror films are permanently imprinted on our culture. Hollywood Horror celebrates this ever-popular and enduring cinematic genre, providing an entertaining narrative and pictorial history of the classic American horror film from the silent era to 1968.   

The book captures all the mystery, power, dark humor, and chilling beauty of horror films, which author Mark A. Vieira calls “the escape valve of the American psyche.” Using the voices of directors, writers, special-effects artists, and actors, this history covers every aspect of cinematic horror: seminal icons such as James Whale’s Frankenstein, the steamy pre-Code jungle sorcery of The Island of Lost Souls, big-budget thrillers like The Uninvited, the cold-war science fiction of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, sublimely ridiculous “creature features” such as The Blob, and studies in terror like Hitchcock’s Psycho. Illustrated with 300 pristine still photographs-many never before published-Hollywood Horror is sure to appeal to a wide audience, from students and scholars, to classic movie fans and cinematic thrill-seekers, to all those interested in American popular culture.