For halloween our intrepid heroes delve deep into the gothic with a look at Layers Of Fear. Beneath the game’s beautiful exterior lurks a dark, worm-ridden subtext, but like the best of the genre there’s a perverse pleasure in coming back for one more taste…

Spoilers for Layers Of Fear and its Inheritance DLC.

References and Recommended reading:

Carol J. Clover. Men, Women and Chainsaws; Gender in Modern Horror Film

Vivian Sobchack.  ‘Child/Alien/Father: Patriarchal Crisis and Generic Exchange.’ in Close Encounters: Film, Feminism, and Science Fiction

Barbara Creed.  ‘Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine; An Imaginary Abjection.’ in  The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis

Linda Williams.  ‘When the Woman Looks.’ in Horror, the Film Reader

Barbara Creed.  ‘Dark Desires; Male Masochism in the Horror Film.’ in Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in the Hollywood Cinema

Peter Hutchings. ‘Masculinity and the Horror Film.’ in You Tarzan: Masculinity, Movies and Men

Brigid Cherry. ‘Refusing to Refuse to Look; Female Viewers of the Horror Film.’ in Horror, the Film Reader

Dale Townshend (Editor), Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination