As the most despised and denigrated genre in all the narrative world, horror films nonetheless embody a wealth of issues both mythic and seemingly eternal as well as confront problems of a very recent nature.  We start with the major changes that came to horror in the 1970s as seen in Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We will then follow the development of the slasher in Halloween and the post modern SCREAM. After the midterm much of the class concerns how horror has dealt with the traumatic aspects of post 9/11 America.  This includes material on trauma theory in Cloverfield and the issue of American treatment of Mid Eastern prisoners in two torture/porn films.  We will also see a modern updating of four very old horror narrative tropes; the irrational mother, werewolves, horrible children and one very mad scientist.   

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