Freudian theories on sexuality are (in)famous for their focus on male above female sexuality; Freud declared himself on many occasions, in fact, to be somewhat in the dark when it came to matters of female development. In this text, David Greven sets out to give a reading of femininity and its representation in film which is founded, like Freud's Oedipus theory, in classical mythology, and also takes into account queer perspectives. Greven takes for his model here the Homeric myth of Demeter and Persephone – Persephone's abduction by Hades and Demeter's subsequent search for her – to explore the struggle between both the maternal instinct to protect and keep possession of the child, and the daughter's (or queer son's?) battle between desire to return to the mother and the struggle for independence and sexual maturity.

The study follows a clear progression through from the opening chapter, which explores this concept of a “Persephone complex” before tracing these themes through classical Hollywood cinema in the “woman's film” genre of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s (films which focussed on the development of a central female character), with his discussion focussing on Irving Rapper's Now, Voyager (1942) and the theme of transformation. Greven then moves forward to look at modern horror, claiming that here the woman's film reemerges in an “underground” form (38). He examines two case studies of this reemergence in De Palma's Carrie (1976) and the Alien films (1979–97). In the final chapter he looks in more depth at the importance of queer theory and the relationship between nonnormative sexuality and monstrosity.

Greven notes that a key feature of the woman's film which is later picked up in modern horror is the way it subverts traditional representations of the female, for example a refusal to follow the traditional marriage plot, with the woman in many cases finding fulfilment in other ways than marriage. This does represent a source of tension with his persephonal model, and one area where the text also perhaps misses something is in taking into account the roots of modern horror which come through the Gothic and, in turn, the Romance genre – roots which it also subverts in terms of female representation and the marriage plot. He does, however, touch on the issue of melodrama, a relating concept between the two.

Though Greven is seeking to cover two broad areas of theory here – he states early on that the “project in this book, I want to make clear, is as feminist as it is queer” (41) – he generally manages this well. Often he breaks away with good insight from more traditional feminist readings, such as Creed's reading of the monstrous–feminine and abjection, which he challenges, and successfully so. He also uses the Demeter–Persephone model to draw strong connections between gay male sexuality and female sexuality, positing a “male Persephone complex” which he claims manifests itself in its normative form in gay men, unlike the “abnormal” form of the Oedipal complex as Freud suggested (142).

The argument is, for the most part, convincing and clearly and concisely explained. Greven examines the mythic material well, looking at different translations (though this is done much further into the text), and his reading of the ambivalence of the character of Persephone herself is fascinating. The case studies used, moreover, are well chosen. Even so, one might expect a little more focus on Cleopatra, which he names as the “apotheosis” of the woman's film (83), or on Psycho, considering the importance he affords them in the tradition as a whole (Psycho, he claims, is where the persephonal myth begins to be seen in its horror form). Of more concern, perhaps, is the fact that the text does not really focus on film noir, as the book's title may suggest; though this is discussed from time to time, particularly with reference to the image of the Fury, the heart of the discussion is focussed on the connections between the woman's film and modern horror. There is, finally, a slight issue with repetitiveness; at times the book reads as several papers put together which overlap at many points, and further editing here might well have been beneficial.

In spite of these minor issues, however, the book is well structured and clear, and Greven makes a strong case for the relationship between the modern horror film and earlier women's films in terms of the representations of femininity and sexuality in the two. His ideas are clearly explored and well backed up, and the text makes for an interesting and engaging read.