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Home Invasion Horrors
A History and Analysis of Cinematic Break-Ins
by Ryan Izay
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Book Presentation:
Film audiences are familiar with the term “home invasion horror” due to its common use by film critics, reviewers, and studios promoting releases, not to mention the prevalence and popularity of the narratives themselves. Despite this, surprisingly little has been written about the sub-genre. There has been an explosion of home invasion films in the twenty-first century, with over 100 released in the 2010s alone, but this book represents the first major exploration into the sub-genre, establishing the elements crucial to the narratives, tracing the history of each variety, and analyzing both cinematic and societal influences responsible for an increase in releases during specific periods.
Home invasion narratives have been around nearly as long as cinema itself, first popularized by the silent era’s “race-to-the-rescue” and classic Hollywood’s “gangster raid” films, influenced by the slasher and stalker sub-genres, and evolving into a fully formed sub-genre following the success of major releases like The Strangers (2008) and The Purge (2013). This book includes a comprehensive list of home invasion films while also examining the reasons for their popularity and potential allegorical readings of the narratives. Breaking the subgenre up into subdivisions based on varieties of invaders, both commonalities and differences are found in the criminal, stalker, and psychopath home invasion films, in addition to the inverted and hybrid releases that revise established narratives.
About the Author:
With over 20 years of experience as a film critic and journalist, Ryan Izay started as the Los Angeles representative covering press junkets and red carpets for the UK-based website, Real Movie News, in addition to working as a features writer for Screen Rant, developing list-based articles for Total Nerd at Ranker, and as a staff writer for the horror genre magazine Girls and Corpses. He is a senior adjunct professor in the cinematic arts and theater departments at Azusa Pacific University and works remotely for Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida.
See the publisher website: McFarland & Co
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The Family in the American Horror Film
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The Screen Chills Companion, 1931–1939 (2025)
Films of the Golden Age of Hollywood Horror
The Screen Chills Companion, 1940–1946 (2025)
Films of the Golden Age of Hollywood Horror
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