Film expert Dmitry Komm has been teaching a course on horror films at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg State University for many years. In his book, based on the materials of this course and a series of articles in the journal “The Art of Cinema,” he introduces the reader to the traditions of horror and thriller films, the diversity of schools and movements on different continents and in different sociocultural conditions, as well as the work of the most significant directors, who created the canons of horror: Alfred Hitchcock, Roger Corman, Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Brian De Palma and others. The book can be recommended to students of humanities universities, as well as to a wide range of film lovers.