The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (Texas Film Studies Series)

An undying procession of sons of Dracula and daughters of darkness has animated the horror film genre from the beginning. Indeed, in this pioneering exploration of the cinema of fear, Barry Keith Grant and twenty other film critics posit that horror is always rooted in gender, particularly in anxieties about sexual difference and gender politics. The book opens with the influential theoretical works of Linda Williams, Carol J. Clover, and Barbara Creed. Subsequent essays explore the history of the genre, from classic horror such as King Kong and Bride of Frankenstein to the more recent Fatal Attraction and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Other topics covered include the work of horror auteurs David Cronenberg, Dario Argento, and George Romero; the Aliens trilogy; and the importance of gender in relation to horror marketing and reception. Other contributors include Vera Dika, Thomas Doherty, Lucy Fischer, Christopher Sharrett, Vivian Sobchack, Tony Williams, and Robin Wood. Writing across a full range of critical methods from classic psychoanalysis to feminism and postmodernism, they balance theoretical generalizations with close readings of films and discussions of figures associated with the genre. The Dread of Difference demonstrates that horror is hardly a uniformly masculine discourse. As these essays persuasively show, not only are horror movies about patriarchy and its fear of the feminine, but they also offer feminist critique and pleasure.

Film critics of the 1990s contend that gender is central to understanding horror movies. As editor Barry Keith Grant writes, "Today gender roles are being tested, challenged, and redefined everywhere, and until such time as difference is no longer dreaded, this crucial aspect of the horror film will remain very important for us." The Dread of Difference is a solid starting place for exploring the idea of gender in horror cinema. It's a fat book with 21 scholarly (and reasonably lucid) essays, and plenty of black-and-white movie stills. The authors use a variety of theories to survey the history of horror/slasher movies and the work of individual directors, and offer "close readings" of a number of movies.

Related title: Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol Clover

In "The Dread of Difference," Barry Grant chooses about twenty-one essays that "deconstruct" the horror genre from a variety of points of view, like the Freudian, the post-modern, and the feminist/gendered (which, honestly, led me to think the subtitle a shade misleading because it limits what is a far more complex work). What emerges is a serious look at what horror films mean and what they are interpreted to mean, giving weight and gravitas to the "bastard child" of American cinema. True, all of the theory can, at times, be an eye-rolling slog. But generally, Grant chose essays readily accessible to any careful reader and often mercifully free of academic "newspeak." What emerges is something truly thought-provoking, even if you disagree with any given essayist's premise. And as one other reviewer noted, the "Alien" essay alone is worth the price of admission. It's a very fresh look at a masterpiece of film-making.

The press is also an excellent one. The University of Texas, in the late 1990's, put out a large quantity of very serious and very well done works on cinema and cinema history. At the time "Dread" came out, other works emerged at around the same time, all well worth the money. Whomever worked there at that time did superior editing and publishing work in this field, overall.

I think the book is also very useful from another perspective. Post-modern and feminist theory, just to name two, even when comprehensible, can be very intimidating. This would be a great "primer" for the graduate student in the liberal arts in order to get the "feel" of the main arguments that dominate in different schools of academic thought without becoming confused or - worse - bored to tears.

"Dread" is worth the money. I recommend it with enthusiasm, although as the three star reviewer notes, better care could have been taken with some details in the films under discussion, a very valid point. Still, the few errors are not fatal enough to compromise the overall work, in my opinion.

Excellent, thought provoking read.

The amount and diversity of the crictical opinions expressed in this book should give it at least 4 stars. Sadly two essayists works contain errors so blatantly ignorant of the source material I had to dock the whole barrel a single star. Carol J. Clover goes into incredible, albeit wincingly inaccurate, detail when describing the stabbing deaths of two characters in a hot tob in the film Halloween 2. However neither of these characters were stabbed in the actual scene, one was strangled and the other scalded. In another example, editor Barry K. Grant, in his essay on legendary horror auteur George A. Romero, continually confuses Dawn of the Dead with Day of the Dead and vice versa. One would think that after supposedly studying these films so closely the writers would get the titles and scenes correct in the texts. Error quibbles aside THE DREAD OF DIFFERENCE is a fascinating and mostly positive study of a genre that has been critically maligned (if not out and out ignored) for far too long.

For students of horror and film this book is indispensible. Taking horror film seriously is, many times, a losing proposition, but not for the writers here. The essays on the "Alien" films and David Cronenberg are worth the price alone. One of the best books on horror movies out there--intellectually satisfying and illuminating, worlds away from the tepid, incomplete "encyclopediac" fare usually published. My highest recommendations.