Edited by Aviva Briefel and Sam J. Miller
Horror after 9/11 argues that post-9/11 horror cinema should not be read as a simple allegory in which monsters merely “stand for” terrorists or terrorism. Instead, the collection treats horror as a genre especially suited to exploring the broader cultural atmosphere after September 11: fear, surveillance, torture, xenophobia, nationalism, consumerism, militarized masculinity, and the uneasy relation between real violence and cinematic spectacle.
The book asks why horror continued to flourish after an event that some commentators thought would make fictional horror obsolete. Its answer is that horror became more, not less, relevant because it could process fears that official political and memorial culture often suppressed or sanitized.