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How Horror Works in Books and Film cover art

How Horror Works in Books and Film

Written by: Shannon Scott, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Shannon Scott
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Publisher's Summary

Why are we scared of ghosts, zombies, vampires, demons, and monsters, when we know they are not real? Why do dark attics give us the creeps? How do writers and directors know exactly what anxieties to tap into, so that we break out in goosebumps, cover our eyes, and cringe?

Shannon Scott invites you into the spooky, creepy, and sometimes surprising world of the horror genre to examine how popular scary movies and books manipulate our collective and individual fears—not only to frighten us, but also to address taboo subjects, and to reflect and comment on the state of our society. More important, she examines what lessons we can learn from these fears.

Throughout this series, she will introduce you to the many facets of fear—the traditional monsters you are familiar with, as well as examples of apocalyptic and social horror, psychological horror, and ecohorror. Using well-known characters and settings, Shannon will show you how each case can—and does—reveal a lot about our personal fears and our cultural anxieties.

The things that go bump in the night are not always in your head, but it’s your head that makes you afraid of them.

©2022 Audible Originals LLC (P)2022 Audible Originals LLC

What listeners say about How Horror Works in Books and Film

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Good

I feel like this could have been fleshed out a lot more. It's good - basically picking apart the psychology of many fan-fav horror classics - but I was hoping to learn more about concrete structures and how to apply them to my own writing. That said, you can take this information and extrapolate it yourself to find exactly that. I'm just lazy.

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Too much what, not enough how

This book does not live up to the promise of its title. There are a lot of synopses from books and movies, some light analysis, but not enough study of technique... the "how" behind the "wow".

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