The Missing Suspense Episodes

PLEASE NOTE: This book is now out of date; please look for "The Suspense Collector's Companion" by this same author. It includes new research and much more information about the series and its missing programs.

Think you know everything there is to know about Hammer Films, the fabled "Studio that Dripped Blood?" The lowdown on all the imperishable classics of horror, like The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula and The Devil Rides Out? What about the company's less blood-curdling back catalog? What about the musicals, comedies and travelogues, the fantasies and historical epics--not to mention the pirate adventures? This lavishly illustrated encyclopedia covers every Hammer film and television production in thorough detail, including budgets, shooting schedules, publicity and more, along with all the actors, supporting players, writers, directors, producers, composers and technicians. Packed with quotes, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, credit lists and production specifics, this all-inclusive reference work is the last word on this cherished cinematic institution.

In this riveting thriller, a female police officer discovers that the serial killer she's tracking is a psychopath from her past--and she's next on his list. Absolutely gripping suspense.--Michael Connelly.

Introduced one hundred years ago, film has since become part of our lives. For the past century, however, the experience offered by fiction films has remained a mystery. Questions such as why adult viewers cry and shiver, and why they care at all about fictional characters -- while aware that they contemplate an entirely staged scene -- are still unresolved. In addition, it is unknown why spectators find some film experiences entertaining that have a clearly aversive nature outside the cinema. These and other questions make the psychological status of emotions allegedly induced by the fiction film highly problematic. Earlier attempts to answer these questions have been limited to a few genre studies. In recent years, film criticism and the theory of film structure have made use of psychoanalytic concepts which have proven insufficient in accounting for the diversity of film induced affect. In contrast, academic psychology -- during the century of its existence -- has made extensive study of emotional responses provoked by viewing fiction film, but has taken the role of film as a natural stimulus completely for granted. The present volume bridges the gap between critical theories of film on the one hand, and recent psychological theory and research of human emotion on the other, in an attempt to explain the emotions provoked by fiction film. This book integrates insights on the narrative structure of fiction film including its themes, plot structure, and characters with recent knowledge on the cognitive processing of natural events, and narrative and person information. It develops a theoretical framework for systematically describing emotion in the film viewer. The question whether or not film produces genuine emotion is answered by comparing affect in the viewer with emotion in the real world experienced by persons witnessing events that have personal significance to them. Current understanding of the psychology of emotions provides the basis for identifying critical features of the fiction film that trigger the general emotion system. Individual emotions are classified according to their position in the affect structure of a film -- a larger system of emotions produced by one particular film as a whole. Along the way, a series of problematic issues is dealt with, notably the reality of the emotional stimulus in film, the identification of the viewer with protagonists on screen, and the necessity of the viewer's cooperation in arriving at a genuine emotion. Finally, it is argued that film-produced emotions are genuine emotions in response to an artificial stimulus. Film can be regarded as a fine-tuned machine for a continuous stream of emotions that are entertaining after all. The work paves the way for understanding and, in principle, predicting emotions in the film viewer using existing psychological instruments of investigation. Dealing with the problems of film-induced affect and rendering them accessible to formal modeling and experimental method serves a wider interest of understanding aesthetic emotion -- the feelings that man-made products, and especially works of art, can evoke in the beholder.

How would you cope if your husband disappeared? One woman discovers just that in this bestselling domestic thriller debut. Kate and Pete have been the perfect couple ever since they were teenagers. Fifteen years later they have two young daughters, live in a beautiful London townhouse, and seem like they have it all. But one day, Pete leaves for work and never comes home. In a note Kate discovers, he confesses that he’s been unhappy for a long time and that he’s met someone else. Distraught, Kate later learns that he has left everything, including his mobile phone, behind and sets out to learn the truth about her husband’s disappearance. But is she prepared for what she will learn? When nothing is as it seems, who can you trust? “There is a lot to absorb and I soaked it all up like a sponge, round each twist and turn finding myself completely engrossed in the lives of this couple, both together and apart. This is beautifully and cleverly created, different to any other book I’ve read; expertly written—especially for a debut—I was hooked from the first word right up until the very last and it’s one of those novels which has played at the back of my mind ever since.” —Grace J Reviewerlady

The late 1950s and early 1960s were the golden years of horror television. Anthology series such as Way Out and Great Ghost Tales, along with certain episodes of Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, were among the shows that consistently frightened a generation of television viewers. And perhaps the best of them all was Thriller, hosted by Boris Karloff. In Thriller the horror was gothic, with a darker, bleaker vision of life than its contemporaries. The show's origins and troubled history is first discussed here, followed by biographies of such key figures as producer William Frye, executive producer Hubbell Robinson, writers Robert Bloch and Donald S. Sanford, and Karloff. The episode guide covers all 67 installments, providing airdate, production credits, cast, plot synopses and critical evaluations.

From million-copy bestsellling author Kiersten Modglin comes... "A terrifying combination of Lost, Lord of the Flies, and The Hunger Games... A perfect summer thriller!" They disappeared... That was just the beginning. When five strangers are abandoned on an island without any idea where they are or whom to trust, their nightmarish new reality begins to unfold. Someone is lying. Someone is hiding a terrible secret. They'd all do anything to get home... Wouldn't they? As the group struggles to uncover the truth about their mysterious whereabouts, only one thing is certain: every choice they make on the island will affect the others. And when they uncover a strange note with a chilling revelation, the group begins to question everything they thought they knew. If they want to make it off the island alive, they'll have to discover who brought them there and why...before it's too late.

“This new novel has more twists and fakeouts than an episode of Serial.” —Rolling Stone “An eerie, twisted thriller sure to shake up the most seasoned true crime die-hard." —Harper's Bazaar A Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Rolling Stone • CNN • E! Online • Buzzfeed • New York Post • Popsugar • Woman's Day • Crime Reads • Hello Giggles When her favorite true crime podcast host goes missing, an adrift young woman sets out to investigate and plunges headfirst into the wild backcountry of Northern California and her own dangerous obsession. Sera loves true crime podcasts. They give her a sense of control in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She's sure they are preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it's time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts. Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel's small hometown to begin her search. She's convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won't be the last... Rachel did try to warn her.