Vanity Fear

Justin blogged earlier about the Hitchcock photo spread in the current issue of Vanity Fair, but yesterday I read the following feature:

KILLER INSTINCTS
The modern horror movie slashed its way to box-office glory in the 1970s. Jason Zinoman speaks to the masters—from Wes Craven to John Carpenter—who unleashed a billion-dollar tide of faceless madmen and shrieking babes.

It’s not written for an audience of horror fans, obviously, so I didn’t learn a lot, however, writer Jason Zinoman is thorough and gets some great quotes (there are some amusing anecdotes from David Hess about Last House on the Left, for example) from a number of notable horror personalities, including Romero, Carpenter, Hooper, Craven, etc. Although it feels like he could’ve used double the word count to really get into the meat of it, it’s still a well-rounded piece on how the modern American horror film came to be.

It’s well worth a read, but it’s not online, so snag it before it’s gone.