Focusing primarily on the cinema, but encompassing literature, television, radio, popular music, history and folklore, this text 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 100 years of film. In addition to entries on actors, directors, writers, technicians, entries on horror-themed films and television series, the book provides essays on classic horror characters like Frankenstein and Dracula, and on recurrent situations like decapitation and body-snatching.