As the popularity of the genre increases and special effects are pushed to greater extremes of terror and cruelty, more and more people have begun to wonder, what is the attraction of horror films? Do they have any socially redeeming features? Rockett offers some surprising and provocative answers to these questions in his analysis of the cinema of cruelty. First commenting on our fascination with experiences that transcend the world of ordinary reality, he looks at film as a means of expressing the dark side of human nature. Next, he examines the essential ingredients that go into the...