Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-252) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: haunted screens -- Shocks to the system: how we watch/play/browse horror -- I'M SCREEEEEEEEAMING!!!!: the lowly art of the jump scare -- The blackest eyes... the devil's eyes--horror's first person camerawork, part 1: killer POV -- The blackest eyes... the devil's eyes--horror's first person camerawork, part 2: the searching camera -- The monster function -- Monsters and the viewers who love them -- Monster stories: storied monsters -- Epilogue: three ways of looking at horror in 2017.
Summary:
"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? Horror offers us a connection to fears that are otherwise unspeakable, even inconceivable, so why do we seek it out? Monstrous Forms offers a theory of horror that works through the genre across a broad range of contemporary moving-image media: film, television, videogames, 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, videogames 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. Horror, Film Studies, New Media, Digital Media, Game Studies, Television Studies, Monsters and Monstrosity, Gifs, YouTube, Netflix, Spectatorship"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.