How Horror Works in Books and Film

De: Shannon Scott, The Great Courses

Narrado por: Shannon Scott

Why are we scared of ghosts, zombies, vampires, demons, and monsters, when we know they are not real? Why do dark attics give us the creeps? How do writers and directors know exactly what anxieties to tap into, so that we break out in goosebumps, cover our eyes, and cringe?

Shannon Scott invites you into the spooky, creepy, and sometimes surprising world of the horror genre to examine how popular scary movies and books manipulate our collective and individual fears—not only to frighten us, but also to address taboo subjects, and to reflect and comment on the state of our society. More important, she examines what lessons we can learn from these fears.

Throughout this series, she will introduce you to the many facets of fear—the traditional monsters you are familiar with, as well as examples of apocalyptic and social horror, psychological horror, and ecohorror. Using well-known characters and settings, Shannon will show you how each case can—and does—reveal a lot about our personal fears and our cultural anxieties.

The things that go bump in the night are not always in your head, but it’s your head that makes you afraid of them.

©2022 Audible Originals LLC (P)2022 Audible Originals LLC

Great

Very insightful, a must read for any fan of horror or sci-fi. Highly recommend

How to suck all the fun out of horror

This dissects all horror as just metaphors for social ills and political problems. Tedious and sucks the fun out of some films that are just fun, good scares. Ok, if you view everything through a lens of social justice, then you might like this. But if you enjoy horror as an entertaining art form, then skip this one.

Excellent!

I really enjoyed this audiobook, learning about the dynamics of Horror really gave me a great insight into a wonderful and mesmerizing genre! The narration was excellent, she had a very pleasant and lucid tone. Plus, this wonderful gem was free and that never hurt!

Scary fun

Very interesting insightful. Never dull. Ideas I had never considered. Makes me want to see many of these movies again

Outstanding lecture on horror

If you are a purveyor of horror movies and literature, you will deeply enjoy this well-researched, comprehensive course on the genre. It is outstanding!

Too much plot summaries for my taste

I enjoyed it, but not as much as I'd hoped I would. Too much of it was "Here's a category, and now here are plot summaries of some books and movies that fit that category."

Disappointed

Not an evaluation of how horror works, but more of a synopsis of various horror movies and novels. To make it worse, the lecturer drops spoilers left and right for those movies and books I was interested in. Thanks…

Horror Convert

Honestly, Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist is as scary as I ever got. But Shannon Scott’s funny and knowledgeable lecture series held my hand while I ventured into darkness and discovered that I, too, had an appetite for fear. Five stars for this ghoulish gal!

Pretty entertaining

Great little lecture series. Short into the point. Lots of insight and thoughts on horror, movies.

Left wanting more

The amount of content left me slightly disappointed. The material mostly summarized and categorized a series of books and movies, yet it could have been much more. I would have wanted it to go deeper and more thorough into more content. Such as an entire chapter on beam Stoker’s Dracula and the questions redeeming a unbalanced or adulterous relationship. Commentary and analysis on more classics such as the alien series and more than just one slasher. It felt more like a fun high school course than a serious exploration one would expect at the university level. Nothing bad about what was there, just not enough of it.