Horror Noir: Where Cinema's Dark Sisters Meet - Softcover

Meehan, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786445971 ISBN 13: 9780786445974

Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2010

Synopsis

This critical survey examines the historical and thematic relationships between two of the cinema's most popular genres: horror and film noir. The influence of 1930s- and 1940s-era horror films on the development of noir is detailed, with analyses of more than 100 motion pictures in which noir criminality and mystery meld with supernatural and psychological horror. Included are the films based on popular horror/mystery radio shows (The Whistler, Inner Sanctum), the works of RKO producer Val Lewton (Cat People, The Seventh Victim), and Alfred Hitchcock's psychological ghost stories. Also discussed are gothic and costume horror noirs set in the 19th century (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hangover Square); the noir elements of more recent films; and the film noir aspects of the Hannibal Lecter movies and other serial-killer thrillers.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Meehan is the author of several books on science fiction, film noir and horror films, and a contributor to the Noir City Sentinel, the journal of the Film Noir Foundation and to The Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

From the Inside Flap

This critical survey examines the historical and thematic relationships between two of the cinema's most popular genres: horror and film noir. The influence of 1930s- and 1940s-era horror films on the development of noir is detailed, with analyses of more than 100 motion pictures in which noir criminality and mystery meld with supernatural and psychological horror. Included are the films based on popular horror/mystery radio shows (The Whistler, Inner Sanctum), the works of RKO producer Val Lewton (Cat People, The Seventh Victim), and Alfred Hitchcock's psychological ghost stories. Also discussed are gothic and costume horror noirs set in the 19th century (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hangover Square); the noir elements of more recent films; and the film noir aspects of the Hannibal Lecter movies and other serial-killer thrillers.

Reviews

Film historian Meehan follows Tech-Noir (2008), which explored the fusion of noir and science fiction and fantasy, with an equally engaging survey of films that blend horror and noir elements. Film noir, he explains, took from horror its visual style—the shadow motif, for instance—and much of its thematic core (psychological terror, blurring the line between good and evil). The contents break down into sections devoted to such important phenomena as horror noir of the 1930s (the Fredric March Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Tod Browning’s Freaks), the impact of producer Val Lewton (who, with only a handful of films, defined a subgenre), film spin-offs of radio shows (The Whistler, Inner Sanctum), the influence of gothic themes (Gaslight), the 1960s (Rosemary’s Baby), and the contemporary horror noir film (e.g., Silence of the Lambs). Meehan also explores the horror elements in the works of Alfred Hitchcock and early literary blendings of horror and noir themes, such as The Hound of the Baskervilles and the novels of Wilkie Collins. A fascinating study, indispensable for aficionados. --David Pitt

Edition details

• Publisher: McFarland & Company
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786445971
• ISBN 13: 9780786445974
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 310