Rating: 
Summary: Slumming academics
Review: It's amazing that horror films, of all the genres, have undergone such 'serious' analysis in the academic film studies arena. It tells you a lot--considered to be a kind of low art form, it attracts serious scholars who, rather than applying common sense or rational thinking, literally invent whole vocabularies to disguise their utter lack of knowledge and general cluelessness with regards to these staples of 'pop' culture for the 'little people'.
It's classic academic constructs. It's obvious that Clover, and she's not alone, is either incapable or unwilling to just say what she means. Instead, and in order for a university press to pick these things up, the ideas have to be draped in dense, unreadable, and often laughable language.
Are there interesting ideas here? Yes, certainly. Are they easy to understand? They can be, but not here. You may feel like a moron after reading about your favorite slasher, but don't worry--you haven't been exposed to the careerism and isolation of the cinematic ivory tower yet.
The book can be half as long if they tried to make it accessible to the people who actually WATCH horror films, but it is instead geared toward people who want to study the people who watch horror films, from a detached perspective, armed with a dictionary and a black turtleneck.
I would actually recommend this book for horror fans, but with reservations. It does try to get at what is happening in this genre, and why we watch these movies. But don't feel bad if you laugh at some of it--that's part of the real world.
Rating: 
Summary: One-sex theory? Anal birth?
Review: Really doesn't sound like the beginnings of a discussion of horror films. The language used in this book is so far over my head that I begin to feel stupid, and that what I thought I knew about movies (which is more than most people I know) must certainly not be enough to even be allowed to watch them. What's disappointing is that I want to agree with the theories in the book. Clover's premise is that watching horror movies is not a sadistic act, and that the young men who watch them are really identifying with the female victim-hero, instead of just gawking at boobies. I like the idea that the viewer identifies with the monster and the victim. But I don't think the author can really identify with... humanity! The word 'psychobabble' does come to mind. It makes me wonder what she's hiding from, or who she's trying to impress. I don't think she has any grasp at all of these films or why I watch so many of them.It just seems to me like this woman has put every word she knows into a theory I think I can sum up in less than fifty pages. Sentences don't need to be that long to get a point across. To sum up, if you are a horror film fan with an IQ of 160 or less, do not read this book! It was written for high-brow, academic types who are fascinated by the rituals and habits of us lower creatures, but wouldn't be caught dead in a theatre with less than eighteen screens. However, if you are a high-brow, academic type who is fascinated by the rituals and habits of us lower creatures, but wouldn't be caught dead in a theatre with less than eighteen screens, you might like it.
Rating:
Summary: Good in spite of itself
Review: The author is obviously an academic, and seeks to dignify her pop-culture subject with ludicrous rhetorical tropes borrowed from the grad school version of pop psychoanalysis. She says "gender" when she means sex. She is capable of writing phrases like "the killer's phallic purpose. . ." and sentences like "What -is- clear is that where there is -Wiederholungszwang- there is historical suffering --- suffering that has been more or less sexualized as 'erotogenic masochism.'" Clarity, it seems, ain't what it used to be. Charlatans like Gilles Deleuze and hatemongers like Susan Brownmiller appear in the bibliography, and the book is obviously addressed to an audience that has not yet learned to laugh at them.
Still, the central thesis of the book is in fact a cogent analysis of the ritual of the 1980s variety "slasher" film, and if you overlook the bogus jargon she gets it mostly right. The book convincingly goes through the rituals involved in this highly stereotypical variety of film. Even the vaguely radical academic version of sexual politics has some purpose in this: these slasher films, like all accepted exercises in gore and the temporary suspension of tabooed subjects, attempt to justify their existence by claiming in some obscure way to reinforce social norms. It would be a much better book if it were written in workaday English, but it is nevertheless an interesting read, and insightful almost despite itself.
Rating: 
Summary: Essential, unique reading
Review: This book is one of my all-time favorites. Beyond a detailed and thorough investigation into gender and the horror film, Ms. Clover is able to get at a universal theme (in film, art, etc.) of urgency in battling the dominant culture; and, as such, is stunning in her analyses concerning even the most fringe of gore movies. Don't believe Denver, CO: allowing a little persistence, this book will ravish you...
Rating:
Summary: Great title, dull book
Review: While Carol Clover has some interesting ideas, especially concerning the the identification of the audience with the screen villains and victims, this is a less than interesting book in spite of the subject matter. The academic approach may be great for impressing some, but I found that the life was sucked out of this topic. In other words, some kill with knives. Others kill with boredom. (And at least Jim Thompson knew how to make that second killer interesting.)
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