Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender, Sexuality and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema, by Rhona J. Berenstein Published in 1996 by Columbia University Press. Part of the Film and Culture Series edited by John Belton. Attack of The Leading Ladies is a book-length study of the gender dynamics of 1930s American horror films. Close textual analysis is combined with a theoretical look at film spectatorship, as well as the close study of marketing materials (e.g., Press Books), film reviews and censorship files to offer a complex portrait of films such as King Kong, Dracula, and Bride of Frankenstein. This is the first study of Hollywood's classic 1930s horror films that moves beyond the assumption that horror cinema is a domain of sadistic men and helpless, masochistic women, to argue for movements between and beyond those positions. In classic horror, gender is both stable and unstable, sexuality is both heterosexual and homo- and bi-sexual, and spectators are invited to perform their own gender identities with gusto and enthusiasm.

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