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

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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