The Book of Horror: The Anatomy of Fear in Film, Updated Edition - Hardcover

by Matt Glasby (Author), Barney Bodoano (Illustrator)

"... the definitive guide to what properly messes us up."
― SFX Magazine

"Glasby anatomises horror's scare tactics with keen, lucid clarity across 34 carefully selected main films - classic and pleasingly obscure. 4 Stars."
― Total Film​

The Book of Horror introduces the scariest movies ever made and examines what makes them so frightening.

Horror movies have never been more critically or commercially successful, but there's only one metric that matters: are they scary? Back in the silent era, viewers thrilled at Frankenstein and Dracula. Today, the monsters may have changed, but the instinct remains the same: to seek out the unspeakable, ride the adrenaline rush and play out our fears in the safety of the cinema.

The Book of Horror focuses on the most frightening films of the post-war era - from Psycho (1960) to Longlegs (2024) - examining exactly how they scare us across a series of key categories. Each chapter explores a seminal horror film in depth, charting its scariest moments with infographics and identifying the related works you need to see.

Including references to more than 100 classic and contemporary horror films from around the globe, and striking illustrations from Barney Bodoano, this is a rich and compelling guide to the scariest films ever made.

The films:
Psycho (1960), The Innocents (1961), The Haunting (1963), Don't Look Now (1973), The Exorcist (1973), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Who Can Kill a Child? (1976), Suspiria (1977), Halloween (1978), The Shining (1980), The Entity (1982), Angst (1983), Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990), Ring (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), The Others (2001), The Eye (2002), Ju-On: The Grudge (2002), Shutter (2004), The Descent (2005), Wolf Creek (2005), The Orphanage (2007), [Rec] (2007), The Strangers (2008), Lake Mungo (2008), Martyrs (2008), The Innkeepers (2011), Banshee Chapter (2013), Oculus (2013), The Babadook (2014), It Follows (2015), Terrified (2017), Hereditary (2018), It Chapter Two (2019), Host (2020), Talk to Me (2022), Longlegs (2024)

Author Biography

Matt Glasby is an international film journalist, author and member of the London Critics' Circle. His work appears in GQ, Total Film and SFX among other publications, and he the associate editor of Vera magazine. He has written two books: Britpop Cinema: From Trainspotting To This Is England (Intellect, 2019) and A-Z Great Film Directors (Cassell, 2015).