Examining how horror and science fiction films from the 1950s to the present invent and explore fictional "us-versus-them" scenarios, this book analyzes how such films employ allegory and/or satire to interrogate the causes and consequences of increasing polarization in American politics and society.

Martin Harris teaches in the American Studies program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is the author of Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America's Favorite Card Game (2019) and Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as Political Satire (2021).

Introduction: "Us vs. Them" in Society and on the Screen
1. Defending the American Way of Life Against Them!2. Surrendering Selfhood in Invasion of the Body Snatchers3. Legend or Monster? Judging The Last Man on Earth4. See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil: Racial Antipathy in Planet of the Apes5. Divided We Fall: Conflict and Crisis in Night of the Living Dead6. Quarantine, Containment, and Covering Up in The Crazies7. "Just Another Stage": Mainstreaming Feminism and the Backlash in The Stepford Wives8. The Enemy Within: Alien's Oppositions
9. A Cop Movie With Aliens: Self-Reflexivity in The Hidden10. "We All Sell Out Every Day": Trickle-Down Ideology in They Live 11. Foregrounding Fascism: Starship Troopers and Satirical Adaptation
12. In-Groups and Out-Groups: Monsters Within and Monsters Without in The Mist13. Cloverfield, 9/11, and the New Normal
14. Get Out and the Struggle to Escape America's Post-Racial Lie
15. Unity on the Surface, Division Underneath: Exploring American Discord in UsAppendix: Other "Us vs. Them" Horror Sci-Fi Films