Why do we enjoy scaring ourselves? Why do some of the largest industries in the world--books, films, television, toys and games--depend so crucially on ghouls, ghosts and zombies? Walter Kendrick provides an answer with this authoritative history of 250 years of horror as entertainment.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
In The Secret Museum (1987), Kendrick traced the rise and influence of literary pornography. Here, in an equally freewheeling study, the Fordham English professor excavates another cultural back-alley--that of horror literature and film. Kendrick's basic thesis is two-fold: that horror arises from ``the fear of being dead,'' and that, since this fear is endemic to the modern (i.e., post-1750) condition, horror entertainments tend to recycle the same themes and styles. Drawing on impressively deep research, he develops both ideas admirably (although failing to deal adequately with the theory, propounded by Stephen King in Danse Macabre and by others, that the modern horror glut has arisen in response not only to death but to the terrors of contemporary life: nuclear war, urban violence, etc.). Kendrick finds horror to be a primarily emotional medium, with its roots in the 18th-century ``invention'' of intentional emotionality: ``modern fright is a kind of connoisseurship, a deliberate indulgence that recognizes no aim beyond itself.'' By century's end, he shows, with the appearance of Graveyard poetry and the novels The Castle of Otranto and The Monk, horror's course had been set, with the obsession with the past and sepulchral settings, even the tendency to graphically depicted terrors, all in place. During the next two centuries, these traits underwent many transformations, which Kendrick details thoroughly and colorfully--his discussions of Grand Guignol theater and of mid-20th-century horror films are particularly insightful, while his appreciation of contemporary horror's self-awareness, as exemplified in fans' ``sophisticated'' approach to film gore and in the rise of ``psychotronic'' criticism, is refreshingly on the mark. Of most value for its in-depth look at the genre's seminal works, Kendrick's lively and penetrative ramble through horror's vaults is an excellent companion to King's Danse Macabre, which remains the last word on contemporary horror. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A triumph of modern criticism,
By DEmprimo@juno.com (Jacksonville, TX) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Thrill of Fear: 250 Years of Scary Entertainment (Paperback)
_The Thrill of Fear_ is the rarest of books -- a scholarly study that can be read and enjoyed by the layman. Covering 250 years of literature and art is an awesome task, but Kendrick attacks it with aplomb and pulls it off just as neatly as you please. This most entertaining book is highly reccommended to anyone with an interest in the horrid and the macabre -- from Gothic novels to EC comics to the gore-filled mayhem that passes for horror movies these days; it's all here!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The making of convention and cliche,
By
This review is from: The Thrill of Fear: 250 Years of Scary Entertainment (Hardcover)
This book maps a history of horror through literature, theatre, and movies. From the obscure to the mainstream, the author shows the depth of his research. He refers to such work as "horrid" literature. After reading, I don't think he intends to disregard the tradition, but I think he is trying to maintain distance.The text follows a linear train of thought as it goes from the Graveyard Poets to more modern movies. As it progresses, the author continues to link how a particular book or film borrowed an element or two from a previous work. From this, all horror sounds formulaic and was stolen from some place else. This is misleading. Most works borrow from others. The thrill comes in mastering the elements or giving them a twist. I was disappointed that more was not said of H.P. Lovecraft, but that's just my wish. After reading this book, I feel that the same came be done for most genres. Every genre has particular conventions and cliches that are used to get a specific response from the reader. Crypts create a sense of terror. A quest means growth or coming of age. A sandy beach at sunset means romance is brewing. This is what makes a genre a genre. One of the benefits of the book is the bibliography. Any fan of horror, gothic or slasher, will learn of more books to read. I would not recommend the book for casual reading. I would recommend it if you are a horror enthusiast looking for new authors.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Roots of Fear,
By
This review is from: The Thrill of Fear: 250 Years of Scary Entertainment (Paperback)
I am somewhat fond of horror books and movies, but I am not what Walter Kendrick would call a "slasher maven". It's the old fashioned stuff stuff that I like: horror films from the thirties, traditional ghost stories, gothic novels, _Weird Tales_ anthologies. Like Kendrick, I believe that horror media contains the "occasional genius" (xxvi) but that it is mostly "infatuated collectors, mad self-dramatizers, scrambling hacks, stern remonstrators, fools, gulls, [and] lunatics" (_ibid_). It is not a field that has engendered many classics, but it has provided a certain amount of fun._The Thrill of Fear: 250 Years of Scary Entertainment_ (1991) is a scholarly study that traces the roots of horror back to the mid-eighteenth century with the resurgence of Graveyard poetry (such as Gray's _Elegy_), sentimental romances (such as _The Sorrows of Young Werther_), the gothic novel (like Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_), melodramatic plays, and accounts of "true life crimes". In later years, horror fiction became more "Genrified" into _Weird Tales_ stories, pulp fiction, E.C. horror comics, and monster movies. In recent years, the horror industry has become more graphically violent with horror being the main emotion intended to be raised among the audience. (Earlier works of horror aimed for other emotions in addition to horror.) Kendrick argues that the violence may in fact recede over time. Kendrick notes several paradoxes relating to the roots of horror fiction. At a time when cemeteries were becoming more sanitary and modern, the public thought of them as gloomy and horrific sites with yew trees, owls, ravens, and crypts-- sites for murder or (at the very least) Dark Meditations on Mortality. Gothic castles totally unlike real medieval castles anchored themselves in the popular imagination. (They later evolved into Old Dark Houses.) Rotting bodies and faces were also popular. They had actually been around before in paintings and statuary. But before, they were _familiar_. Now, they were to be _feared_. Kendrick repeatedly uses the terms "horrible books" and "horrible movies". He claims that his reason is purely descriptive, that he does not want them confused with "gothic architecture". In this, I believe that Kendrick is being disingenuous. They are terms that invite ridicule. While much of horror fiction/movies is pretty awful stuff, I believe that Mary Shelly, J.S. Le Fanu, and M.R. James deserve higher accord than Kendrick gives them. Even lesser writers like W.W. Jacobs, F. Marion Crawford, and Robert Bloch were a bit more than miserable hacks grinding out potboilers. On the balance, though, this is an excellent and well-written study. It is a reminder that Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell had their predecessors-- and that they were not exactly like what we take for granted today.
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