Book Review – The Book of Horror

The Book of Horror: The Anatomy of Fear in Film by Matt Glasby
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though the introduction suggests that this is an attempt to draw universal conclusions about horror movies, the rest of the book reflects the author’s personal tastes more than the genre as a whole. It must have taken a lot of work to carefully map out scary moments on a minute-by-minute timeline for each entry, though I admire Matt Glasby’s passion more than his proofreading. Here and there his tastes intersect with mine; for the most part I enjoy a good Asian ghost story. But oh so many of the films on the list dwell exclusively or primarily on serial killers and other forms of crass, misogynist violence. Those entries consistently left me unpersuaded. The result is a catalog of the author’s loves, a reasonably accurate snapshot of the genre in the 2010s, and a showcase for some fun illustrations by Barney Bodoano.

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