Technology, Monstrosity, and Reproduction in Twenty-first Century Horror

Dealing with a variety of twenty-first century horror films, Jackson examines how the technologically produced and reproduced image functions as a site of monstrous birth. These monsters, threatening and ominous as they may be, represent the possibility for a renewed belief in the reality of the world and humanity's place within it. Through a wide spectrum of horror sub-genres, this book examines how the current state of horror - its sense of being at an end, its increasing self-awareness, and its concern with the relationship between media and message - reflects these anxieties in Western culture. Horror films bring them to a mass audience and offer ever new figures for the nameless faceless 'antagonist' that plagues us. At the same time, horror provides material with which to build a different understanding of ourselves, its monsters representing ends but also beginnings.

Kimberly Jackson is Associate Professor of English at Florida Gulf Coast University, USA. She has published articles on contemporary horror films, reality television, popular music, and nineteenth century gothic literature.