My reading in the area isn't very broad, Lara, but I do have a special
fondness for _Dreadful_Pleasures_:_An_Anatomy_of_Modern_Horror_ by James
B. Twitchell (1985 paperback, Oxford U. Press).  It's chockful of
detailed and very entertaining descriptions of horror films, and the
analysis, while a little bit too much in the traditional psychoanalytic
vein, is quite good, I thought.  It won an award for excellence in popu-
lar culture discussion.
 
A tidbit from Twitchell:
 
"Terror will pass, as in the Reign of Terror or acts of terrorism, but
horror will never disappear, no matter how rational we become about it.
In fact, just the opposite is true: the more rational we are, the more
exasperating it becomes.  Horror has no end, no closure, no conclusion;
terror always has an end.  Extended horror can become a ritual, an
endless loop.  This is why, I think, horror novels, horror movies,
horror myths are never really satisfying intellectually, for we never
get them under control."
 
My first response to this is to say, "But no!  Horror can be very satis-
fying--indeed, if it weren't so satisfying, I wouldn't spend so much
time with it" but then, the more I think it over, the more I realize
it's not an *intellectual* satisfaction, it's more of a primal emotional
satisfaction.  Do y'all agree?
 
Oh, and by the way, I have purchased, but not yet read, Noel Carroll's
_Philosophy_of_Horror_.  Wanna tell us more about it, Lara?  Your paper
topic sounds like a major fascinoma (that's a medical term for a fascin-
ating tumor (-:).
 
							--Fiona