Is It Time for Gore Studies?

Call to mind your most recent nightmare. Chances are it involved a sweaty, panicked flight from some otherworldly monster, or perhaps hiding under the bed or in a closet, desperately holding your breath, muscles tensed, while a faceless killer stalks the room for you. With apologies to Freud, these terrors arising from the darkest recesses of the human imagination stem not from some childhood trauma but from the visual language of the modern horror film.