I've only just subscribed to Screen-L so this suggestion may have already
done the rounds.
 
Surely Robin Wood's writing on the Horror film remains one of the most
perceptive and workable accounts of the genre, and might prove particularly
useful for undergraduates.
 
The key article is "The American Nightmare", though some of his subsequent
writing (On Larry Cohen, George Romero, the 80's horror film) is also
extremely good. The articles were originally published in Film Comment, a
number appear in a short book published in connection with the 1979 Toronto
Film Festival (also called "The American Nightmare" if I remember
correctly).
 
However, they are most readily accessible as chapters in Wood's book
"Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan" (New York; Columbia University Press,
1986).
 
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