Dark Forces at Work: Essays on Social Dynamics and Cinematic Horrors (Research in Horror Studies). This item is unavailable.Dark Forces at Work: Essays on Social Dynamics and Cinematic Horrors (Research in Horror Studies)

Dark Forces at Work examines the role of race, class, gender, religion, and the economy as they are portrayed in, and help construct, horror narratives across a range of films and eras. These larger social forces not only create the context for our cinematic horrors, but serve as connective tissue between fantasy and lived reality, as well.



While several of the essays focus on “name” horror films such as IT, Get Out, Hellraiser, and Don’t Breathe, the collection also features essays focused on horror films produced in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and on American classic thrillers such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Key social issues addressed include the war on terror, poverty, the housing crisis, and the Time’s Up movement. The volume grounds its analysis in the films, rather than theory, in order to explore the ways in which institutions, identities, and ideologies work within the horror genre.

Cynthia J. Miller is senior faculty at the Emerson College Institute for the Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies.

A. Bowdoin Van Riper is a historian who specializes in depictions of science and technology in popular culture.

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns is Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he teaches courses on international horror film. He also serves on the editorial board of New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film (Intellect), Director of the horror cinema research group "Grite," and Director of the Spanish horror studies series "Terror: Estudios Críticos" (Universidad de Cádiz).

Alissa Burger is Associate Professor of English at Culver-Stockton College, USA. She teaches courses in research, writing, and literature, specializing in gender, horror, and the Gothic. She is the author of IT, Chapters One & Two (2023), The Quest for the Dark Tower: Genre and Interconnection in the Stephen King Series (2021), Teaching Stephen King: Horror, The Supernatural, and New Approaches to Literature (2016) and The Wizard of Oz as American Myth: A Critical Study of Six Versions of the Story, 1900-2007 (2012).