Horror Unmasked: A History of Terror from Nosferatu to Nope

Horror-movie fans will be absorbed by this photo-packed overview of more than a century of horror on celluloid. Although the subtitle claims to note films from 1922’s Nosferatu to 2022’s Nope, Weismann (Lost in the Dark: A World History of Horror Film) unearths a dozen earlier films dating back to 1896. This is not an encyclopedia of horror films, but the author’s knowledge is all-embracing. He writes in an informed but conversational style and divides his massive topic into fast-paced chapters. Starting with horror in short and silent movies, the book covers Universal’s monsters in the 1930s and 1940s and the atomic age ones of the 1950s. A-list directors joined the mix in 1960 with Hitchcock’s Psycho and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom. Hammer Film’s “blood and bosoms” approach sexualized movie monsters in the 1960s, and the 1970s brought The Exorcist, John Carpenter, and Wes Craven. Val Lewton, Roger Corman, William Castle, and David Cronenberg are each given their own chapters. The book offers strong sections on Italian, Spanish, and Asian films. A bibliography, glossary, and index are helpful for researchers.