Deformed and Destructive Beings

<p> Why are audiences drawn to horror films? Previous answers to that question have included everything from a need to experience fear to a hunger for psychotherapy. This critical text proposes that the horror film's primary purpose is to present monsters best understood as deformed and destructive beings. These monsters satisfy the audience's desire to know these beings in particular those beings too fantastic and dangerous to know in real life. The text illuminates many aspects of the horror film genre including epistemology ethics evaluation history monster taxonomy and filmmaking techniques.</p>