A review by christytidwell
The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart by Noël Carroll

3.0

Although this is a useful approach to the horror genre, addressing significant questions - what is horror? why do we have such strong emotional responses to things we know to be false? why would we want to have such responses? - and proposing interesting responses to these questions, the book could be cut by at least half if the author removed all repetitions of his points. That is to say, Carroll's arguments could be made just as clearly, thoroughly, and convincingly in less than half the time and space. To conclude, I wish Carroll's editor had been ruthless in ordering Carroll to eliminate the repetitions and rephrasings and revisitings; I'm glad I read it, but it shouldn't have taken so long.