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Zusatztext Through detailed textual analysis and critical skill, Lester explores the consistently (and fascinatingly) complex relations between horror and children. Horror Films for Children is an authoritative study of an under-appreciated genre, and a major contribution to the study of both horror and children's media. Informationen zum Autor Catherine Lester is Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research centres on the intersections between the horror genre and children’s culture. She is the author of the monograph Horror Films for Children: Fear and Pleasure in American Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2021), as well as chapters and articles on Disney Princess films, animated horror and children’s horror television. Klappentext Children and horror are often thought to be an incompatible meeting of audience and genre, beset by concerns that children will be corrupted or harmed through exposure to horror media. Nowhere is this tension more clear than in horror films for adults, where the demonic child villain is one of the genre's most enduring tropes. However, horror for children is a unique category of contemporary Hollywood cinema in which children are addressed as an audience with specific needs, fears and desires, and where child characters are represented as sympathetic protagonists whose encounters with the horrific lead to cathartic, subversive and productive outcomes. Horror Films for Children examines the history, aesthetics and generic characteristics of children's horror films, and identifies the 'horrific child' as one of the defining features of the genre, where it is as much a staple as it is in adult horror but with vastly different representational, interpretative and affective possibilities. Through analysis of case studies including blockbuster hits ( Gremlins ), cult favourites ( The Monster Squad ) and indie darlings ( Coraline ), Catherine Lester asks, what happens to the horror genre, and the horrific children it represents, when children are the target audience? Vorwort This study explores the horror genre's aesthetics, pleasures and politics of representation when addressed to the unlikely audience of children Zusammenfassung Children and horror are often thought to be an incompatible meeting of audience and genre, beset by concerns that children will be corrupted or harmed through exposure to horror media. Nowhere is this tension more clear than in horror films for adults, where the demonic child villain is one of the genre’s most enduring tropes. However, horror for children is a unique category of contemporary Hollywood cinema in which children are addressed as an audience with specific needs, fears and desires, and where child characters are represented as sympathetic protagonists whose encounters with the horrific lead to cathartic, subversive and productive outcomes. Horror Films for Children examines the history, aesthetics and generic characteristics of children’s horror films, and identifies the ‘horrific child’ as one of the defining features of the genre, where it is as much a staple as it is in adult horror but with vastly different representational, interpretative and affective possibilities. Through analysis of case studies including blockbuster hits ( Gremlins ), cult favourites ( The Monster Squad ) and indie darlings ( Coraline ), Catherine Lester asks, what happens to the horror genre, and the horrific children it represents, when children are the target audience? Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction Chapter One: Frankenstein to Frankenweenie : the evolution of children’s horror in Hollywood cinema Chapter Two: Children Behaving Badly: representing and addressing the horrific child in Gremlins Chapter Three: No Grown-Ups Allowed: PG-13 and the horrific ‘Crazyspace’ of The Monster Squad
