The most basic and unanimous statement made in scholarship on horror films is that horror films are ‘about’ fear: the primary purpose of horror films is to scare viewers. Based on horror films from the 1970s until the present in which child gangs play a significant part, this essay advances a new theory of horror film, namely, that horror films primarily seek to elicit not fear but guilt. The analysis focuses on four topics: themes, camera angles, horror’s cinematic casting of ‘abnormality’ and the rift, unique to the horror genre, between audience ‘alignment’ and ‘allegiance’.
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