The Horror Theory Reader

A comprehensive guide to the timeless, paradoxical appeal of horror


Why do we enjoy horror? The emotional responses the genre provokes—fear, dread, and disgust—are ones we typically seek to avoid, so what is the appeal of narratives and artistic representations that seek to scare, startle, shock, and repulse? In The Horror Theory Reader, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock assembles theorizations of the genre’s appeal from antiquity to the present day to explore the “paradox of horror” that has for mi...