In the long-awaited American Gothic Jonathan Rigby tells
the story of the Hollywood horror lm from its 19th century beginnings through to the arrival of Vincent Price as a horror star in films like House of Wax and The Fly. This 60-year period encompasses the shadowy nightmares of the silent era, the breakthrough hits produced by Universal, Warner Bros and M-G-M in the early days of talkies, the thoughtful RKO chillers of the 1940s, and the post-war boom in lurid science- fiction shockers. Out of print for more than ten years, American Gothic has been extensively revised and expanded, and is now available in hardback for the first time.