Educational Institutions in Horror Film : A History of Mad Professors, Student Bodies, and Final Exams

An exploration of how educational institutions have been portrayed in horror film, this book examines the way that scary movies have dealt with the issue of school violence, focusing on movies set in high schools, colleges, and summer camps.

Educational Institutions in Horror Film is a comprehensive history of the use of educational institutions as a setting for horror films, concentrating on what scary movies can tell us about the history of school violence. Specifically examining horror films set in high schools, colleges and universities, and summer camps, the book presents a history of the variety of ways that horror films have depicted traumatic issues experienced by American youth, including issues of bullying, hazing rituals, and other forms of school violence. It also includes an in-depth discussion of the three most famous professors in horror film-Drs. Victor Frankenstein, Abraham Van Helsing, and Henry Jekyll. Grunzke examines how these figures embodied complex cultural attitudes about the intellectual during an era in which the expansion of higher education was increasingly luring intellectuals to conduct their research at colleges and universities.