The book is an excellent resource for people who love the horror genre. It analyzes the elements of "art horror," in a step-by-step approach. The author strives to explore two questions- 1. why that which we know is not real still frightens us, and 2. why we like to be terrified. The author gives a history of art horror and focuses mainly on the classics (like Frakenstein, Nosferatu, The Shining, etc.) She writes an incredibly in depth primer discussing a very wide range of topics, all in great detail. My main problem with the text is that at times, it is way too in depth, and many times this drudgery is on irrelevant topics. For example, the author spends an entire chapter (80 pages) devoted solely to the purpose of defining horror. From a scholarly perspective, this explanation is great because it defines the art horror genre while leaving no stone unturned, and no gray areas about it. For the casual reader, the text can become dull and redundant. The book was created specially for the education of film students, so I would not recomend it for someone on the lookout for a vibrant and engrossing read.