Horror Films

Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc

Kamera Books

Australia: Tower Books

Includes DVD of Horror Shorts

Horror Films is a small but surprisingly comprehensive cross cultural introduction to Horror. It is nicely presented, includes a small selection of colour photographs and a free exclusive DVD of three short horror films - Virus, Savage and Chicken Soup

The first section of Horror Films explores the psychology and experience of Horror and is informative as well as entertaining. It considers the simple question of why horror films work and what makes them such a powerful form of cinema. Odell and Le Blanc discuss the nature of fear and the way in which filmmakers manipulate our fears to create the experience we understand as Horror Cinema. They discuss some of the major patterns of horror cinema and how such films are constructed. They also discuss such related subjects as genre, censorship, violence and sex.

This is followed by an impressive overview of Horror Cinema in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia. The essays which comprise these sections are succinct yet comprehensive and offer a historical overview of horror within each region. It is clear the authors are exceptionally well versed in cinema as they not only provide a historical timeline for horror cinema in the various countries but offer select reviews of important titles. Each general section also includes chapters on specific countries with historical overviews and related reviews.

Horror Films is really quite an achievement for what seems at first glance such a small work. The reader will come away with a good understanding of why horror cinema works, how it works, historical backgrounds to horror cinema in countries ranging from Britain to Korea, Spain to Australia and will have some idea via capsule reviews of what films to begin watching if they so desire.

This is one of a series of titles from Kamera books and if all of them are as impressive as this one then I suggest film buffs look out for each.