Film, Horror and the Body Fantastic
by Linda Badley
Published: 1995
What I thought: This book has been fantastically helpful with my study but zombies make up barely 1% of the content of it! Under the banner of horror Badley looks at zombies, monsters, serial killers, slashers and a myriad of other horror characters and examines them through a series of psychological lenses such as Kristeva's abject, Freud's uncanny and Foucault's clinical gaze. Each chapter focuses on another topic and area of horror film but they aren't disconnected, each chapter melts into the next superbly and makes for an interesting read even for someone who isn't a film academic.
My Rating: 5/5
Writing, Horror and the Body: The Fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice
By Linda Badley
Published: 1996
What I thought: This book didn't really have any bearing on my studies, I picked it up because of the strength of Badley's original work. This book was equally interesting and detailed and moved the focus from horror film to horror literature. I don't think it would come as a surprise that Clive Barker's writing lends itself greatly to discussion in terms of the body and perhaps even Anne Rice, considering the sexualisation that vampires have encountered in fiction largely thanks to her novels. All three authors have several novels from across their writing careers (at time of publication) examined as to how the reflect or work with psychological and cultural theories on gender, body image and sexuality. An interesting read, academic but without the verbose and difficult language some theorists tend to favour.
My Rating: 4/5
