Why Horror Seduces

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20004405
AutoresMathias Clasen (0000-0003-0830-0078, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Páginas224
Fecha de publicación2017-10-19
Open AccessNo
TipoBOOK
RevistaWhy Horror Seduces (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780190666507.001.0001
OpenAlexW4245925663
Open LibraryOL28640257M
ISBN9780190666507
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas23

This book explains the appeals and functions of horror entertainment by drawing on cutting-edge findings in the evolutionary social sciences, showing how the horror genre is a product of human nature. It is the first book to integrate the study of horror with the sciences of human nature and to offer a sustained analysis of the ways in which our evolutionary heritage constrains and directs horror in literature, film, and computer games. The central claim of the book is that horror entertainment works by targeting ancient and deeply conserved neurobiological mechanisms. We are attracted to horrifying entertainment because we have an adaptive tendency to find pleasure in make-believe that allows us to experience negative emotions at high levels of intensity within a safe context. This book offers a detailed theoretical account of the biological underpinnings of the paradoxically and perennially popular genre of horror. The theoretical account is bolstered with original analyses of a range of well-known and popular modern American works of horror literature and horror film to illustrate how these works target evolved cognitive and emotional mechanisms to fulfill their function of absorbing, engaging, and horrifying audiences: I Am Legend (1954), Rosemary’s Baby (1967), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Jaws (1975), The Shining (1977), Halloween (1978), and The Blair Witch Project (1999). The book’s final chapter expands the discussion to include interactive, highly immersive horror experiences offered through horror video games and commercial haunted attractions

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Entertainment · Legend · Literature · Pleasure · Visual arts · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Psychology · 20th century · American · American fiction · American fiction, history and criticism · American Horror tales · American literature · History and criticism · Horror tales · Horror tales, history and criticism · Literary Criticism · Psychological aspects