Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters by Judith Halberstam

I think that the theory parts of this book are much better than the textual analysis. I found the introduction very interesting and the ideas original, but the actual chapters rather dense and boring. I didn't read the parts about film analysis (maybe they are better), simply because they would probably give me nightmares (they concern various horror movies like The Silence of the Lambs and Texas Chainsaw Massacre that I have never watched and will never watch because I would probably be sick). Halberstam spends a lot of time summarising what previous critics have said, then either agreeing or disagreeing with them, to the point where that completely takes over the text. I really appreciate that she explicitly disassociates herself from psychological readings and focusses instead on these readings as a cultural phenomenon (partially produced by the Gothic), and I really liked the refusal to have a 'unitary' approach, but overall, I didn't find insights about individual texts interesting enough. She didn't really say anything about these texts that hasn't already been said before, she does give it a different spin though. I would have wanted more 'close reading' of the texts, and less generalisation and references to other critics.