2024 the best horror tv shows review

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Featuring a new Afterword by the author.

Illuminating the dark side of the American century, The Monster Show uncovers the surprising links between horror entertainment and the great social crises of our time, as well as horror's function as a pop analogue to surrealism and other artistic movements.

With penetrating analyses and revealing anecdotes, David J. Skal chronicles one of our most popular and pervasive modes of cultural expression. He explores the disguised form in which Hollywood's classic horror movies played out the traumas of two world wars and the Depression; the nightmare visions of invasion and mind control catalyzed by the Cold War; the preoccupation with demon children that took hold as thalidomide, birth control, and abortion changed the reproductive landscape; the vogue in visceral, transformative special effects that paralleled the development of the plastic surgery industry; the link between the AIDS epidemic and the current fascination with vampires; and much more.

Now with a new Afterword by the author that looks at horror's popular renaissance in the last decades, The Monster Show is a compulsively readable, thought-provoking inquiry into America's obsession with the macabre.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition (October 15, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0571199968
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571199969
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.55 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches
Reviewer: Jean F. Boggs
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great resource
Review: Of all the books I received at Christmas I can’t put this one down. Being a monster kiD this fills in the gaps I missed so many times. Wonderful!Did anyone else’s notice the quality of the printing?The script is not centered on the page and it seems the last sentence may be cut off. And not a great paper stock. I guess that helps the cost. Still I am enjoying it very much!

Reviewer: Louise Radanovich
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very Thorough Text
Review: Lots of film history and behind-the-scenes information. Highly recommended. The author, David Skall, was killed by a careless, possfibly drunk driver, not too long ago. What a loss.

Reviewer: Stephen Schicker
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Horror among the High Brows.
Review: A very good introduction to Horror films and their evolution in American Cinema with a special nod to German Expressionism. He does a good job of registering Tod Browning's importance as Horror auteur. He explains quite well, within the context of Depression Era America, the attraction to the Horror Film and Bela Lugosi's success (I hadn't realized that Dracula, the novel, was one of the most read paperbacks among GIs during WWII, and that Bela Lugosi was an immediate success on the War Bond circuit during the War). I wish he would have gone into more detail about the Wolf-Man series, but the background history or myth about Wolves was fascinating. For those interested in Camp, he has a wonderful section on Vampira and her relationship with James Dean(catch the photo of Dean in his Frankenstein makeup). His writing is witty, smart, entertaining, and non-academic (no conflating or foregrounding in his prose). This is a welcome addition to anyone's cinematic history collection. Stephen Schicker

Reviewer: mrliteral
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Madness of Movie Monsters
Review: It sometimes seems that the history of horror films began with Universal's Frankenstein and Dracula, with an occasional nod to some silent film. It doesn't make much research to find out that there is much more to this history, as David Skal illustrates in The Monster Show. In fact, it is till almost the one-third point in the book that these landmark films are really discussed.What happened earlier were such crucial films as Nosteratu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Phantom of the Opera. Skal also relates stories of early figures, including Lon Chaney and Tod Browning and some of the literary and dramatic predecessors to the horror film. Only after laying this foundation does Skal really get into the iconic movies of Dracula and Frankenstein. There were other horror landmark films in this era, including The Mummy, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Island of Lost Souls, and between the early 1930s and 1940s, others would appear as well, most prominently the Wolf Man.These films are quite tame by today's standards, but to many overly sensitive and self-righteous souls of the era, these movies practically heralded the end of civilization, leading to de facto censorship. The genie, however, was out of the bottle, and like any good movie monster, it could never be truly killed.Skal zips from this era to the age of early television, when a new audience got to see these movies (often introduced by figures like Vampira) and the fan base expanded to a new, ardent generation. Then it's on to the era of more modern horror, ushered in by Psycho: not only is horror more gruesome (the result of better special effects and more relaxed ratings standards). As earlier films could be allegories for war or the Depression, newer films could provide symbols for AIDS and birth control. And new or old, sex and religion were always entangled in the themes.This book is subtitled A Cultural History of Horror, but as fascinating as it often is, perhaps it should be a Cultural History of American Horror made by Major Studios. There is a lot that is omitted here that should be found in any reasonable history of cinematic horror. Val Lewton, the influential horror producer of the 1940s, has only one of his movies really described (Cat People) and only gets a couple pages of text. Roger Corman and his Poe movies are hardly mentioned at all. Most glaringly, Hammer Films, which reinvented horror in the 1950s (when American horror was at its nadir), is discussed in little more than a couple of scattered sentences (let alone any non-English films after the initial German movies).Despite these omissions, this is still a pretty decent book, but the flaws keep it from earning more than four stars. If you're a horror movie fan, this is worth reading. Skal is pretty knowledgeable on the subject and can add an extra level of appreciation for this film genre.

Reviewer: Lexi C
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Entertaining and Informative
Review: I ordered Skal's THE MONSTER SHOW as a required text for a University course, and I have to say, it's one of the few required books I genuinely enjoyed reading and sometimes even looked forward to. David Skal does an excellent job of explaining the history of horror in comparison to the current events occurring at the time of his respective subjects. The prose is informative but hardly dense, and Skal offers his own interesting insight in accompaniment to the facts. A truly great read for horror fans, film buffs, and historians alike.

Reviewer: Avid Reader and Book Collector
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Amazing Book on Horror as Cultural Statement
Review: If you're a true horror fan and like to think on the deeper meanings reflected in popular horror films of different times, this is for you.

Reviewer: Susan Girardi
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Best Horror History Ever!
Review: This is the best book on the subject of horror movies that I have ever read. The author explains in detail the events of an era, the political environment and the mood of the public are related to horror movies of each period. I've read it several times and will probably read it many more times in the future.

Reviewer: MateoDLR
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: This is one of the best books I have ever read
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read, it is a fantastic and heartfelt illustration into the world of the weird. It is a great historical document for those interested in how the affairs of the state often control the masses and what they find at the movies.

Reviewer: Jules
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: My one star is not because of the content of the book (David Skal is great and I'm a great fan), but because of the quality of the edition. The resolution of the images was extremely bad. The quality of the paper, horrible.For 16 euros, you can expect decent images that don't look like low-quality photocopies, and pages with margins.I would accept this edition for 6 euros, but for 16 is a joke.