Description
The book "The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror" by Stephen Skal looks at the history of horror in America, from the early days of the country to the present day. The book covers a wide range of topics, from the impact of World War II on horror to the current resurgence of horror in popular culture. The book is written by Stephen Skal and has a new afterword by the author that looks at the current popularity of horror in the last decade.
Illuminating the dark side of the American century,
The Monster Show uncovers the surprising links between horror entertainment and the great social crises of our time, as well as horror's function as a pop-cultural counterpart to surrealism, expressionism, and other twentieth-century artistic movements.
Skal explores a broad landscape of cultural expression—from painting, photography, and theater to television, comic books, and novels. Ultimately focusing on film, he examines the many ways in which this medium has played out the traumas of two world wars and the Depression; the nightmare visions of invasion and mind control engendered by the Cold War; the preoccupation with demon children and mutants that took hold as thalidomide, birth control, and abortion changed the reproductive landscape; the vogue in body-transforming special effects that paralleled the development of the plastic surgery industry; the link between the AIDS epidemic and a renewed fascination with vampires; and much more. With a new Afterword by the author that looks at horror's popular renaissance in the last decade,
The Monster Show is a thought-provoking inquiry into America's obsession with the macabre.
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