
It makes us jump. It makes us scream. It haunts our nightmares. So why do we watch horror? Why do we play it? What could possibly be appealing about a genre that tries to terrify us? Why would we subject ourselves to shriek-inducing shocks, or spend dozens of hours watching a television show about grotesque flesh-eating monsters? Monstrous Forms offers a theory of horror that works through the genre across a broad range of contemporary moving-image media: film, television, video games, YouTube, gifs, streaming, virtual reality. This book analyzes our experience of and engagement with horror by focusing on its form, paying special attention to the common ground, the styles and forms that move between mediums. It looks at the ways that moving-image horror addresses its audiences, the ways that it elicits, or demands, responses from its viewers, players, browsers. Camera movement (or "camera" movement), jump scares, offscreen monsters-horror innovates and perfects styles that directly provoke and stimulate the bodies in front of the screen. Analyzing films including Paranormal Activity, It Follows, and Get Out, video games including Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Layers of Fear, and Until Dawn, and TV shows including The Walking Dead and American Horror Story, Monstrous Forms argues for understanding horror through its sensational address, and dissects the forms that make that address so effective.
This book investigates the fundamental question of why audiences seek out horror media and how specific formal techniques across various platforms effectively elicit visceral physical and psychological responses. Adam Charles Hart, a scholar of media and film, utilizes a comparative framework to analyze how horror functions as a sensational address. He argues that the genre's power lies in its ability to innovate and standardize specific formal strategies—such as camera movement and jump scares—that directly stimulate the viewer's body regardless of the medium.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars and critics recognize this work as a significant contribution to media studies for its cross-platform approach to genre analysis. Readers frequently note the clarity with which Hart connects technical formal elements to the visceral experience of the audience.
Page Count:
272
Publication Date:
2019-12-02
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190916230
ISBN-13:
9780190916237
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