Tooth and Claw: A Field Guide To "Nature Run Amok" Horror Movies

by Dan Whitehead

It's no surprise, then, that the animal kingdom looms large in the popular horror culture. Ephemeral phantoms, undead ghouls and masked maniacs can be safely set aside from real life. The threat posed by the beasts around us, however, remains worryingly plausible. Few of us have been pursued around a summer camp by a hockey-masked killer, but we've all encountered an animal that for a brief moment reminded us what it was like to be just another creature fighting for survival.

That's where movies come in, of course, and film was quick to seize on our fascination and fear as a way to lure in the crowds. From the early safari flicks through to modern blockbusters, killer animals are a reliable fixture.

Call it “nature run amok” or “eco-horror”, but the animal attack genre has created some of the best movies ever made and some of the absolute worst. It echoes our most primal fears of a world we hold at arms length, and says much about how we view ourselves in the process.

This book is your field guide to the menagerie of real world beasts that have stalked us across the years, across land, sea and air, across screens both big and small.

Genres: Nonfiction

308 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Tim Kretschmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short reviews of a lot of the significant films in this genre. I enjoyed the reviews, but the poor editing with bad punctuation and sometimes clearly typos took me out of fully enjoying the book.

[Zach Klinefelter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A handy guide for fans of the "nature vs. man" film sub-genre, I recommend this to fans of films like "Grizzly", "The Food of the Gods", and "Piranha". On the downside, don't expect good grammar or any pictures.