[ecrea] New Book - Merchants of Menace: The Business of Horror Cinema

About Merchants of Menace

Anglophone horror films are typically approached as the inevitable 
by-products of psychological and social demons haunting filmmakers and 
their homelands - in short, as if they were, "our collective 
nightmares". Consequently, the genre's industrial character remains 
under-explored and poorly understood. Merchants of Menace responds to 
this major void in film historiography by shedding much-needed new light 
on one of the world's most enduring audiovisual forms. Spanning from 
1930 to the present, this groundbreaking collection boasts fourteen 
original chapters that focus on topics as diverse as early zombie 
pictures, post-WWII chillers, Civil Rights-Era marketing, Hollywood's 
literary adaptations, Australian horror production, "torture-porn" 
auteurs, and twenty-first century remakes.


Table Of Contents

Introduction
There’s Gold in them there Chills, by Richard Nowell
Section One
Production Lines, Trends, and Cycles
Chapter One
‘House of Horrors’: Corporate Strategy at Universal Pictures in the 
1930s, by Kyle Edwards
Chapter Two
The Undead of Hollywood and Poverty Row: The Influence of Studio-Era 
Industrial Patterns on Zombie Film Production, 1932-46, by Todd K. Platts
Chapter Three
By the Book: American Horror Cinema and Horror Literature of the late 
1960s and 1970s, by Peter Hutchings
Chapter Four
Risen From the Vaults: Recent Horror Film Remakes and the American Film 
Industry, by Kevin Heffernan
Chapter Five
Monster Factory: International Dynamics of the Australian Horror Movie 
Industry, by Mark David Ryan

Section Two
Film Content, Style, and Themes
Chapter Six
‘Bad Medicine’: The Psychiatric Profession’s Interventions into the 
Business of Postwar Horror, by Tim Snelson
Chapter Seven
Horror Film Atmosphere as Anti-Narrative (and Vice Versa), by Robert Spadoni
Chapter Eight
‘A Kind of Bacall Quality’: Jamie Lee Curtis, Stardom, and Gentrifying 
Non-Hollywood Horror, by Richard Nowell
Chapter Nine
‘New Decade, New Rules’: Rebooting the Scream Franchise in the Digital 
Age, by Valerie Wee

Section Three
Movie Marketing, Branding, and Distribution
Chapter Ten
‘Hot Profits Out of Cold Shivers!’: Horror, the First Run Market, and 
the Hollywood Studios, 1938-42, by Mark Jancovich
Chapter Eleven
Strange Enjoyments: The Marketing and Reception of Horror in the Civil 
Rights Era Black Press, by Mikal J. Gaines
Chapter Twelve
Bids for Distinction: The Critical-Industrial Function of the Horror 
Auteur, by Joe Tompkins
Chapter Thirteen
Low Budgets, No Budgets, and Digital-Video Nasties: Recent British 
Horror and Informal Distribution, by Johnny Walker
Chapter Fourteen
Hammer 2.0: Legacy, Modernization, and Hammer Horror as a Heritage 
Brand, by Matt Hills

Reviews
“Unearthing the industrial logics of the horror genre, Merchants of 
Menace provides lively case studies that expose the tactics of their 
production as well as unusual quirks in the process. These studies will 
reanimate and refashion our histories of the genre and the standard 
maxims about horror-film fabrication, cultural tastes, the films' 
heroines and heroes, and the audiences for these movies. An outstanding 
collection!”
- Janet Staiger, Professor Emeritus of Communication, University of 
Texas at Austin, USA

“A major advance in our understanding of the industrial underpinnings of 
horror cinema and of commercial filmmaking generally.”
– Robert E. Kapsis, Professor of Sociology and Film Studies, Queens 
College (CUNY), USA, and author of Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation

“As the first collection to explore the economics of horror movies from 
Dracula to Scre4m, Merchants of Menace offers a new and illuminating 
perspective on the history of the genre. Challenging the conventional 
accounts of horror movies as symptoms of cultural unease, the 
spectator’s unconscious or renegade politics, its contributors examine 
the commercial strategies that have shaped their production and 
marketing of fear for entertainment, and the audiences who have consumed 
horror for recreation.”
- Richard Maltby, Flinders University, Australia, and author of 
Hollywood Cinema

“Taking us through a century of Anglo-American horror production, 
Merchants of Menace illustrates how production strategies, target 
markets, product differentiation and brand identities have all impacted 
on the themes and preoccupations of this most vital and persistent of 
popular film genres. Packed with insightful historical research and 
analysis from some of the most influential scholars in contemporary 
horror film studies, this book highlights the importance of attending to 
the industrial and commercial factors that have shaped trends within the 
horror film from the height of the Hollywood studio system to the 
digital age. Shedding new light on the studios, production companies, 
star names, auteur directors, and canonical–and previously 
under-explored–films that characterise horror film history, Merchants of 
Menace asks us to look at the history of horror cinema–and the 
vicissitudes of horror production and distribution–from new and vital 
perspectives. Essential reading for horror film scholars and fans alike.”
- Kate Egan, Lecturer in Film Studies, Aberystwyth University, UK,


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