"When we think of horror films' settings, the first locations that come to mind will likely be fog-strewn manors, quiet American suburbia, claustrophobic forests or macabre rural lairs. Very rarely do we think of cities, the places home to over half of humanity, as being an effective setting for horror cinema.
The canon of horror is synonymous with those aforementioned locations, which often rely on their isolation and eerie, 'unknown' emptiness for their unnerving nature. Cities offer something different. They can be used as potent metaphors for mental collapse, as places of ironic isolation or as explorations of brutal inequalities.
This list moves chronologically from films made in Hollywood's Golden Age to those that reflect the postmodern, digitized disconnect of the contemporary world. En route it attempts to forge a canon of the horror films that reveal something about the urban experience."
