Shocking representation : historical trauma, national cinema, and the modern horror film /

Lowenstein (English and film studies, Univ. of Pittsburgh) offers a unique look at the allegorical representations of national trauma in horror films and how these allegories, though not always obvious to the viewer, reflect injustices, disgraces, and societal fears that would otherwise go unaddressed. He pinpoints the impact of WW II, Hiroshima, Vietnam, and 9/11 on the national psyches of France, Britain, Japan, the US, and Canada and convincingly makes the case that certain films--e.g., Eyes without a Face, Peeping Tom, Last House on the Left, and We Were Soldiers--are allegories of the trauma suffered through these tragic historical events. Unfortunately, the text is overloaded with jargon and redundancies, which means not only that it drags in places but also that Lowenstein's unusual perspective on national trauma and horror film gets lost in the shadows of unnecessary repetitiveness and tangled prose. Only those who can slouch through the rhetoric without losing interest stand a chance of benefiting from this book. ^BSumming Up: Optional. Graduate students and researchers. A. F. Winstead Our Lady of the Lake University