His surfer-blond hair was shaggy and kind of naturally feathered, and her black-black hair was arrow-straight, long enough to be caressing the gear shift, and both of them were still wearing whatever that day’s odd job had been: chaff and grass, woodchips and dust.

It reminded me a lot of Jack Halberstam’s comment in his Skin Shows (which I can’t wait to re-read for this list! The devoted horror buff will probably enjoy Clover’s initial analysis of horror films for its own sake, but reaching past this there is something more significant on offer. Clover also argued against the notion that the predominantly male audiences of the time identified with the (usually) male killer, stating that audience members identified across gender lines and with the surviving female character. Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. But, overall, a very insightful and very informative set of essays that definitely have me even looking at contemporary horror a bit differently.

This book offered so many interesting insights into gender in horror films, the final girl phenomena and the tale-revenge sub genre of horror. So I thought I would give another of the Tor originals a go and I have to say I really enjoyed this short story by Stephen Graham Jones (I so recognise that name I will have to go and read up on him now). Men, Women, and Chainsaws makes for an excellent Halloween read featuring revenge, female rage, and tons of references, so I would definitely recommend it to fans of the horror genre.

I read this as one of my "20 Books of Summer" challenge (to help clear at least a little of ypur TBR). I am also far too dumb and know nothing about film studies, so I don’t think I fully understand everything that was discussed. Here we see the solid emergence of a number of subgenres, and it’s interesting that she notes how many of these will likely die out, when we know more fully now the cyclical nature of many genres, including horror. She] argues that most horror films are obsessed with feminism, playing out plots which climax with an image of (masculinized) female power and offering visual pleasures which are organized not around a mastering gaze, but around a more radical "victim-identified' look. It is the fraught relation between the "tough girl" of horror and her male fan that Clover explores.

So it is through this ability towards self-help that female victims within the modern horror film are able to turn themselves into masculine final girl heroes.