Kendall Phillips admits in the dedication of his book to being a life-long fan of the horror genre. While non-fans may not identify with his preferences, most should find this an interesting work nonetheless. Phillips analyzes ten unusually popular and enduring horror films, beginning with 1931’s Dracula and concluding with 1999’s The Sixth Sense. He relates each film to the cultural, political and economic climate surrounding its release date to explain why these films resonated so strongly with the filmgoing public. Using the not unfamiliar theory that monsters represent cultural fears, Phillips shows a progression from the supernatural (and culturally foreign) Dracula through the home-grown maniacs of the slasher films (Psycho, Halloween, The Silence of the Lambs) to the ghosts that can only be seen by one special little boy in The Sixth Sense. The demons, it seems, keep getting closer.

Particularly interesting is Phillips’ chapter on director John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), a simple, low-budget slasher film that, perhaps not coincidentally, starred Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter of Psycho star Janet Leigh. Halloween spawned numerous sequels and imitations and remains one of the more influential horror films of the late twentieth century. What Phillips claims made Halloween unique at the time of its release was that it turned the classic horror formula inside out. While the monsters of previous generations, from Dracula to the cannibalistic rednecks of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, were inhuman outsiders threatening to invade the normal world, Halloween’s Michael Myers is a vengeful child who functions to impose order in a chaotic world. The parents in Halloween’s suburban Haddonfield are absent or too distracted to pay close attention to their teenage children. Instead it is Michael who punishes those who engage in sexual activity or drug use. Only Curtis’s character, Laurie the babysitter, who functions as the “good mother” of the film, is spared. The formula used in Halloween would dominate the horror films of the 1980s and, Phillips writes, “Carpenter’s simple, condensed version of the American horror genre fit with the simplistic condensed version of cultural politics promoted in the 1980s.”

Kendall Phillips is Associate Professor in the department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. His book is not only good Halloween reading, but may also give you some ideas about what to watch while handing out candy.