The Modern British Horror Film

Steven Gerrard

Published by Rutgers University Press 2017

The Modern British Horror Film

Steven Gerrard

In the series Quick Takes: Movies and Popular Culture

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813579467

Overview
Contents

About this book

When you think of British horror films, you might picture the classic Hammer Horror movies, with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and blood in lurid technicolor. Yet British horror has undergone an astonishing change and resurgence in the twenty-first century, with films that capture instead the anxieties of post-Millennial viewers.

Tracking the revitalization of the British horror film industry over the past two decades, media expert Steven Gerrard also investigates why audiences have flocked to these movies. To answer that question, he focuses on three major trends: “hoodie horror” movies responding to fears about Britain’s urban youth culture; “great outdoors” films where Britain’s forests, caves, and coasts comprise a terrifying psychogeography; and psychological horror movies in which the monster already lurks within us.

Offering in-depth analysis of numerous films, including The Descent, Outpost, and The Woman in Black, this book takes readers on a lively tour of the genre’s highlights, while provocatively exploring how these films reflect viewers’ gravest fears about the state of the nation. Whether you are a horror buff, an Anglophile, or an Anglophobe, The Modern British Horror Film is sure to be a thrilling read.

Author / Editor information

STEVEN GERRARD is a senior lecturer in film and visual culture at the Northern Film School, Leeds Beckett University in Leeds, UK. He is the author of The Carry On Films.

Reviews

"Steven Gerrard clearly knows his subject well and does a very good job of linking the cycles he identifies (hoodie horror, outdoors horror, and the monster within) to the contemporary British social and political context."

— Barry Keith Grant, editor of The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film

"Gerrard's exemplary study shows how recent British horror films have revitalised the genre, building on the gothic traditions of Hammer to produce a cinema that reflects the anxieties of today."

— Robert Shail, author of Seventies British Cinema

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Hooded Terror Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
2. The Great Outdoors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
3. The Dead Inside, the Dead Outside, the Stranger Within Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Further Reading Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Magazines, Films, TV Series Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 184
Keywords: british; british horror; horror film; scary movie; Britain; horror movies

eBook

Published: February 5, 2018
ISBN: 9780813579467