Trade paperback. Language: English. Pages: 272. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 272 p. Contains: Illustrations. Do the pleasures of horror movies really begin and end in sadism? So the public discussion of film assumes and so film theory claims. Carol Clover argues however that these films work mainly to engage the viewer in the plight of the victim-hero who suffers fright but rises to vanquish the forces of oppression. Clover a medievalist had written extensively on the literature and culture of early northern Europe especially the Old Norse sagas. From her expertise in formulaic narrative grew her interest in contemporary cinema which is after all yet another form of oral storytelling. Men Women and Chain Saws investigated the appeal of horror cinema in particular the phenomenal popularity of those low genres that feature female heroes and play to male audiences: slasher occult and rape-revenge films. Such genres seem to offer sadistic pleasure to their viewers and not much else. Clover however argued the reverse: that these films are designed to align spectators not with the male tormentor but with the female tormented--with the suffering pain and anguish that the final girl as Clover calls the victim-hero endures before rising finally to vanquish her oppressor. The book has found an avid readership from students of film theory to major Hollywood filmmakers and the figure of the final girl has been taken up by a wide range of artists inspiring not just filmmakers but also musicians and poets.