From its first publication in 1992, Men, Women, and Chain Saws has offered a gro
undbreaking perspective on the creativity and influence of horror cinema since t
he mid-1970s. Investigating the popularity of the low-budget tradition, Carol Cl
over looks in particular at slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films. Although su
ch movies have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasures
to their mostly male audiences, Clover demonstrates that they align spectators
not with the male tormentor, but with the females tormented--notably the slasher
movie's "final girls"--as they endure fear and degradation before rising to sav
e themselves. The lesson was not lost on the mainstream industry, which was soon
turning out the formula in well-made thrillers.
