The continuing popularity and success of the Gothic is in part an acknowledgement that there are whole areas of human existence about which realism has little or nothing to say: extreme psychological states and the limits of consciousness, for example; or profound existential, metaphysical, or spiritual questions; the paranormal and the supernatural.

Interesting surface analysis of horror viewed through overarching themes: monsters, occult & supernatural, the body, the mind and science. Its failing, in my opinion, is how very Western-minded it is. Asian and Hispanic horror cinema/literature merit a bare mention in "Afterword: Horror Since the Millennium" and nothing at all said about other regions of the world, not even a excuse of brevity.