In the 2000s, horror cinema experienced a new bloody spring. Unprecedented and terrible fears have flourished in the world: terrorism, Covid, war, climate apocalypse. Many authors have poured them onto the screen in a form of exaltation and exorcism. From It Follows to The Witchpassing through Hereditary And Midsommarto get to M. Night Shyamalan And Julia Ducournauthe book tackles the horror of the present, does an autopsy on the scariest titles and chases the most significant trends of the genre. An investigation into what scares us today and how horror is represented by contemporary directors, in the impossible ambition of solving one of the greatest enigmas of man and cinema: the mystery of fear. “Fear is one of the most subjective sensations that exist, but one that everyone has felt, feels and will feel. Even at the cinema, even watching a film. Having reached this point we have experienced unprecedented and terrible chills, such as Covid and the new war, but also climate change which now causes catastrophes every day. There’s enough to be afraid of. And the great thrills have always been reflected in the mirror of cinema, which is a deforming surface, but can help us understand something more, better, profound.”
New Horror Cinema
Emanuele Di Nicola
Mimesis Editions
ISBN: 9791222312071
page €180 – €18.00