Terrifying Texts

Essays on Books of Good and Evil in Horror Cinema

A Bowdoin Van Riper editor Cynthia J Miller editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:McFarland & Co Inc

Published:14th Sep '18

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Terrifying Texts cover

From Faust (1926) to The Babadook (2014), books have been featured in horror films as warnings, gateways, prisons and manifestations of the monstrous. Ancient grimoires such as the Necronomicon serve as timeless vessels of knowledge beyond human comprehension, while runes, summoning diaries, and spell books offer their readers access to the powers of the supernatural--but at what cost?
 This collection of new essays examines nearly a century of genre horror in which on-screen texts drive and shape their narratives, sometimes unnoticed. The contributors explore American films like The Evil Dead (1981), The Prophecy (1995) and It Follows (2014), as well as such international films as Eric Valette's Malefique (2002), Paco Cabeza's The Appeared (2007) and Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (1981).

“When I came across this title, I was immediately intrigued by it because, strangely enough, I didn’t know of anybody else who had tackled this subject matter before. In fact, the more I read through it, I was amazed at the fact that because there are more movies that deal with this subject than I had thought. It’s one of those that has you reading and they mention another movie, you immediately think, ‘Oh yeah...I forgot about that one!’ Needless to say, I really enjoyed this one! As a book person myself, this had me right from the opening Introduction…. It has been a long time that I found a book so interesting in what it was covering. This volume will definitely have you thinking about certain movies a little more.”—Kitley’s Krypt

ISBN: 9781476671307

Dimensions: 254mm x 178mm x 14mm

Weight: 445g

268 pages