Focusing primarily on cinema but encompassing literature television radio popular music history and folklore The Companion provides a secret history of the horror genre from its pre-cinema beginnings in the 18th century gothic novel and the Victorian ghost story through a hundred years of film spotlighting the great artists like Boris Karloff and Edgar Allan Poe as well as humble toilers like Edward D Wood and John Carradine.In addition to entries on actors directors writers and technicians and entries on horror-themed films and television series the book provides insightful essays on classic horror characters like Frankenstein and Dracula on recurrent situations like Decapitation and Body-Snatching even on often-horrific portions of the body like Eyes and Brains.