Brute Force: Animal Horror Movies

By Dominic Lennard

Book Overview

Considers how dangerous beasts in horror films illuminate the human-animal relationship.

It's always been a wild world, with humans telling stories of killer animals as soon as they could tell stories at all. Movies are an especially popular vehicle for our fascination with fierce creatures. In Brute Force, Dominic Lennard takes a close look at a range of cinematic animal attackers, including killer gorillas, sharks, snakes, bears, wolves, spiders, and even a few dinosaurs. Lennard argues that animal horror is not so much a focused genre as it is an impulse, tapping into age-old fears of becoming prey. At the same time, these films expose conflicts and uncertainties in our current relationship with animals. Movies considered include King Kong, Jaws, The Grey, Them , Arachnophobia, Jurassic Park, Snakes on a Plane, An American Werewolf in London, and many more. Drawing on insights from film studies, art history, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology, Brute Force is an engaging critical exploration-and appreciation-of cinema's many bad beasts.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1438476604
• ISBN13: 9781438476605
• Release Date: July 2020
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher