Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film

Contents

vii Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Auteur, Genre, and the Rhetorics of Horror 1 Part One. Unconstrained Bodies in the Films of George Romero 17 1. The Body as Contrast: Romero’s Living Dead 22 2. The Body as Site of Struggle: The Crazies, Monkey Shines, The Dark Half, Bruiser 43 3. Romero’s Mythic Bodies: Martin and Knightriders 59 Part Two. Gothic Dimensions in the Films of Wes Craven 73 4. Craven’s Gothic Form: Nightmares, Screams, and Monsters 77 5. Gothic Technologies: The Serpent and the Rainbow, Deadly Friend, Swamp Thing, Red Eye, Shocker 97 6. Gothic Families: The People under the Stairs, The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left 109 Part Three. Desolate Frontiers in the Films of John Carpenter 123 7. Sites under Siege: Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing, Village of the Damned 127 8. Forbidden Thresholds: The Fog, Ghosts of Mars, Halloween, Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness 137 Contents viii 9. Drifters in Desolation: Big Trouble in Little China, Vampires, They Live, Escape from New York, Escape from L.A. 149 Conclusion 169 Filmography 177 Notes 191 Selected Bibliography 203 Index 207 ...