Richard Dyer is Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at King's College, London, and Professorial Fellow in Film Studies at the University of St Andrews, UK. He has been honoured by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies, and Turku and Yale Universities, and is a Fellow of the British Academy. His many books include Stars (1979), White (1997), The Culture of Queers (2002), Nino Rota (BFI, 2010) and In the Space of a Song (2012), and he is the author of BFI Film Classics on 'Se7en' (1999), Brief Encounter (2002, 2015) and La Dolce Vita (2017).

Preface.- ISSUES.- 1. The Phantom Menace.- 2. Is it a Serial Killer?.- 3. The Same Over and Over.- 4. Procuring Extraordinary Sensations.- 5. Motives Less Adequate.- 6. Action! Kill! Cut!.- CASES.- 7. Serial Killing in European Cinema.- 8. 'Jack the Ripper'.- 9. From Haarman to Hitler to Hannibal.- 10. Anything, and More, for the Family.- Bibliography.- Filmography.- Index.