"Horror is often dismissed as mass art or lowbrow entertainment that produces only short-term thrills. Horror films can be bloody, gory, and disturbing, prompting people to argue that they have bad moral effects, inciting viewers to imitate cinematic violence or desensitizing them to atrocities. In The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror, Cynthia A.

Freeland seeks to counter both aesthetic disdain and moral condemnation by focusing on a select body of important and revealing films, demonstrating how the genre is capable of deep philosophical reflection about the existence and nature of evil - both human and cosmic. In exploring these films, the author argues against a purely psychoanalytic approach and opts for both feminist and philosophical understandings. She looks at what it is in these movies that serves to elicit specific reactions in viewers and why such responses as fear and disgust are ultimately pleasurable.

The author is particularly interested in showing how gender figures into screen presentations of evil."--BOOK JACKET.