Archive for October 2021

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[Commlist] New book - Horror Films for Children: Fear and Pleasure in American Cinema

Fri Oct 29 17:37:53 GMT 2021







Just in time for Halloween, Catherine Lester is pleased to announce the publication of my monograph HORROR FILMS FOR CHILDREN: FEAR AND PLEASURE IN AMERICAN CINEMA from Bloomsbury Academic.

Children and horror are often thought to be an incompatible meeting of audience and genre, beset by concerns that children will be corrupted or harmed through exposure to horror media. Nowhere is this tension more clear than in horror films for adults, where the demonic child villain is one of the genre's most enduring tropes. However, horror for children is a unique category of contemporary Hollywood cinema in which children are addressed as an audience with specific needs, fears and desires, and where child characters are represented as sympathetic protagonists whose encounters with the horrific lead to cathartic, subversive and productive outcomes. /Horror Films for Children/ examines the history, aesthetics and generic characteristics of children's horror films, and identifies the 'horrific child' as one of the defining features of the genre, where it is as much a staple as it is in adult horror but with vastly different representational, interpretative and affective possibilities. Through analysis of case studies including blockbuster hits (/Gremlins/), cult favourites (/The Monster Squad/) and indie darlings (/Coraline/), /Horror Films for Children/ asks what happens to the horror genre, and the horrific children it represents, when children are the target audience?

The introduction of the book is available to read online here: https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/615595195f150300016f104c <https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/615595195f150300016f104c>

Please request for your institutional libraries, or you can purchase a copy directly from the publisher at a 35% discount with the code GLR TW7 applied at checkout (the code is valid until the end of 2021): https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/horror-films-for-children-9781350135260/ <https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/horror-films-for-children-9781350135260/>

There will also be an online launch hosted by the BAFTSS Horror Studies SIG on Weds 24th November, 6pm UK time. Registration details will be available soon from the SIG's Twitter (@BAFTSS_Horror) and website: https://baftsshorror.weebly.com/events.html <https://baftsshorror.weebly.com/events.html>


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