Published in 1992
272 pages
Carol Jeanne Clover is an American professor of film studies, rhetoric language and Scandinavian mythology at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been widely published in her areas of expertise. Her 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film achieved popularity beyond academia and she is credited with developing the “final girl” theory within the book, which changed both popular and academic conceptions of gender in horror films.
What is this book about?
Do the pleasures of horror movies really begin and end in sadism? So the public discussion of film assumes, and so film theory claims. Carol Clover argues, however, that these films work mainly to engage the viewer in the plight of the victim-hero, who suffers fright but rises to vanquish the forces of oppression.
Review from Lauryl on goodreads:
Okay, so at the moment, I’m actually halfway through it, but I’m enjoying it immensely, not least because it combines my love of horror movies with my love of analyzing the crap out of everything for its feminist implications. The writing is crisp and succinct and a bit less dry than reading, say, Laura Mulvey, but still dense with ideas and academic enough to satisfy the snob in me. Not too facile, I guess is what I mean to say. I also enjoy Clover’s willingness to ask more questions than she has answers for. She’s clearly interested in mining the material for what’s actually there rather than starting with an immovable thesis and tailoring her research and observations to fit.
