BIBLIO WATCHDOG THE HORROR FILM By Peter Hutchings


Pearson-Longman/Pearson Education Limited, www.pearson-books.com, Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE, England. 2004. Paperback, 256 pp. £19.95 ($14.95).


Reviewed by Brett Taylor


The title is less than original (this is the second book with this title I’ve reviewed in the past six months). The cover is fairly eye- catching, though, with a snazzy still of THE REPTILE set against a red backdrop carrying the brand of Pearson-Longman’s “inside film” series. So too does the book stand out among today’s glutted market of horror film books. What makes this book a relief is Hutching’s sen- sible approach to analyzing the horror film. Many academics take an overly


serious approach, as if they were writing a paper on neutrons for the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICS and don’t always acknowledge that their particular schools of thought are speculation rather than pure science. Not that Hutchings dis- counts such schools altogether; he just says that they give part of the picture rather than the whole thing. Hutchings, a Film Studies senior lecturer at Northumbria University, believes the horror film to be a par- ticularly subjective experience, one that allows a wide variety of reac- tions and interpretations. One viewer’s frightening experience may be another’s high camp blast, or even an important social document. As the author observes, “...such readings can


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be seen to focus on tensions and ambiguities present within films (and the horror genre

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