No popular genre has proven more reflective of America's unpredictable cultural mood swings than the horror movie. At the same time, no popular genre has proven more conducive to the expression of idiosyncratic nightmare visions than the horror movie. If these claims seem contradictory, even vaguely paradoxical, that is hardly surprising. For the horror genre consists of a group of texts as diverse as they are numerous, as controversial as they are popular, as conservative (or progressive) in their overt messages as they are progressive (or conservative) in their subtler implications. But although the horror genre may be lacking in firm boundaries or essential features, its rich and storied history, which spans the entire twentieth century, exhibits a remarkable degree of coherence. There are at least three reasons why this is so. For one thing, what appear at first to be utterly dissimilar entries often turn...