Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film

by | May 21, 2012 | Reviews | 0 comments

Academic books are usually not much fun for non-eggheads to read. Typically loaded with jargon and excessive navel gazing, the circular (and circuitous), seemingly random transcribed loquacious ambling is beyond the realm of tedious for most people. As an unholy complement, these books are sometimes absurdly expensive. So, university press books often sell only a couple hundred copies to university libraries and that is the end of it.

Here is some good news: Dark Directions is a UP book that is interesting and engaging for horror film fans. Kendall R. Phillips gives straightforward, well thought-out analysis of underlying themes that tie together groups of films by three of the most highly regarded contemporary horror film directors who yet walk the earth. The troika is John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and George Romero.

Phillips proposes for each director a different fundamental element of analysis that their films seem to explore. For example, Romero focuses on the body and its relationship to reality. You can see this in his zombie movies which highlight reanimated corpses – the body violating presumed laws of nature. For Craven, his thread is the gothic, meaning the relationship (or transit between) the darkness and the light. Nightmare on Elm Street is an excellent example, but it is not the only Wes Craven movie with gothic sensibilities. And for Carpenter, it is desolation, especially of the environment. Think Escape from New York and The Thing. Phillips gives numerous examples from each director’s major films and provides lucid, plain-dealing arguments that show the connections more clearly. All this analysis is very entertaining because it helps you think in new ways about movies you have enjoyed over the years. The author also provides a concise filmography for the directors and relevant sources of other material in case you want look into their movies a little bit more. It is a tight little package that is better than the average pop book on the subject. Clocking in at just over two hundred pages, Dark Directions is great summer reading. Recommended.