Bad Seeds and Holy Terrors

The Child Villains of Horror Film

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by Dominic Lennard

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Horror

Keywords

horror, children

Publishing date

2015

Publisher

State University of New York Press

Collection

SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema

1st publishing

2014

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 195 pages
6 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-1-4384-5328-6

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Book Presentation:
Examines the complexities and contradictions that arise when the monsters in the movies are children.

Since the 1950s, children have provided some of horror's most effective and enduring villains, from dainty psychopath Rhoda Penmark of The Bad Seed (1956) and spectacularly possessed Regan MacNeil of The Exorcist (1973) to psychic ghost-girl Samara of The Ring (2002) and adopted terror Esther of Orphan (2009). Using a variety of critical approaches, including those of cinema studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and psychoanalysis, Bad Seeds and Holy Terrors offers the first full-length study of these child monsters. In doing so, the book highlights horror as a topic of analysis that is especially pertinent socially and politically, exposing the genre as a site of deep ambivalence toward—and even hatred of—children.

About the Author:
Dominic Lennard is Associate Lecturer in the Centre for University Pathways and Partnerships at the University of Tasmania, Australia.

Press Reviews:
"Adding unique insights while revising well-trodden critical ground, the value of Lennard's book is in its eloquent and well-researched consolidation of existing scholarship in the field, making it a useful introductory text for researchers and students. " — Screening the Past

"Deftly organized, elegantly written, and graced throughout with numerous stills and frame blowups, Bad Seeds and Holy Terrors has something to offer both the lay reader and the scholar. " — CHOICE

"This is impeccably well researched and presented. It holds its own at the top of film studies scholarship. Sprightly in its survey across key areas of cultural anxiety and able to draw on a range of lucid examples, Lennard produces sophisticated and complex extended analyses where necessary. A pleasure to read. " — Linda Ruth Williams, University of Southampton, United Kingdom

See the publisher website: State University of New York Press