Routledge Companion to Global Horror

Stacey Abbott is Professor of Film at Northumbria University and a member of their Horror Studies Research Group. She is a recognized authority on the vampire and zombie across film and television. She is the author of Celluloid Vampires (2007), Undead Apocalypse: Vampires and Zombies in the 21 st Century (2016), the BFI’s Film Classic on Near Dark (2020), and co-wrote TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen (2012), and co-edited Global TV Horror (2021), both with Lorna Jowett. She is currently writing a monograph on Horror Animation for Edinburgh University Press.Adam Lowenstein is the Founding Director of the Horror Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also serves as Professor of English and Film & Media Studies. He is the author of Horror Film and Otherness, Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media, and Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film, all published by Columbia University Press. Lowenstein is a member of the board of directors for the George A. Romero Foundation.Roger Luckhurst is the Geoffrey Tillotson Chair of Nineteenth Century Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. He is the author of several books on Gothic fiction and horror film, including Gothic: An Illustrated History and Graveyards: A History of Living with the Dead.Kristopher Woofter, PhD, is a faculty member of the English Department at Dawson College, Montréal. He is Editor-in-chief of the journal Monstrum. His other work as editor includes The Weird: A Companion (2025), American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper (2021), and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Shirley Jackson: A Companion (2021). His most recent book is Archival Anxiety in Documentary and Mockumentary Horror (2026).

• Introduction: Shaping Global Horror StudiesStacey Abbott, Adam Lowenstein, Roger Luckhurst and Kristopher WoofterPART I:Transnational Histories and Transmedial Forms Literature Chapter 1: Prehistory: Tragedy and HorrorEdmund P. CuevaChapter 2: Terror and Horror in the Long Eighteenth CenturySam HirstChapter 3: Horror ‘from Germany’: Circuits of Translation Between Britain, Germany, France, and the US around 1800.Barry MurnaneChapter 4 Horror and the Small PressesJames MachinChapter 5 The Ghost Story as Transcultural TropeJen BakerChapter 6 Vectors of Terror: Concepts of Horror in the Pulp Magazines, 1896-1953Jess NevinsChapter 7 Paperback Writer: Stephen King and The Horror Paperback BoomCarl SederholmChapter 8 Discovering a Tradition of African American Horror Poetry in the United StatesLinda D. AddisonHorror CinemaChapter 9 Horror in Silent Cinema Across the GlobeKendall R. PhillipsChapter 10 Phantom Powered: Hollywood Horror and the Early Talkie, 1927-1930Gary D. RhodesChapter 11 Global Horror in the Studio Horror Era 1930-1970Kieran FosterChapter 12 Fearsome Families, Horror Cinema 1968-1979Jason MiddletonChapter 13 The Slasher Film as an International GenreWickham ClaytonChapter 14 Millennial Nightmares: Horror in the Twenty-first CenturyAviva BriefelChapter 15 Horror Stars and PerformanceIan OlneyChapter 16 Short Films and Women in Horror Film FestivalsClaire HenryTV Horror Chapter 17 Sight, Sound, Mind: The Horror Anthology’s Influence on US TelevisionErin GianniniChapter 18 TV Movie/Monster-of-the-WeekClayton DillardChapter 19 Monsters, Murder and Melodrama, the Rise of Korean Horror TelevisionKatarzyna AncutaChapter 20 Yokai of Yesteryear: Japan's Early TV Horror and Yokai Hingen Bem (1968)Selma PuracChapter 21 Prestige TV HorrorGodze ErdoganChapter 22 Ghostly Visitors and Haunting Returns: Twin Peaks, Riget and Art-Horror TVAndreas HalskovChapter 23 Trash TV HorrorJames Rendell and Andrew RaymentChapter 24 Children’s Television Horror: Safety and Danger in a Global TraditionCatherine LesterTransmedial Horror Chapter 25 Theatre and Horror: Contemporary Paranormal Theatre in Britain: Liveness and HauntingRebecca JanickerChapter 26 Music and HorrorSteve HalfyardChapter 27 Radio HorrorRichard HandChapter 28 Horror Podcasting: True Crime and HorrorStella GaynorChapter 29 Fine Art and Body Horror: The Body in Fragments in Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 and Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity PoolMarcus PrasadChapter 30 Splatter in Black and White: Independent Comics of the Late 1980s and Early 1990sJohnny WalkerChapter 31 Microhorror and the Genealogy of the Video GameJean-Charles Ray and Bernard PerronChapter 32: The (New) Medium is the Monster: Networked Digital HorrorJoe OndrakChapter 33 Strange Folk and Weird Rituals: Folk Horror as Transnational and Transmedia TropeNina K. MartinChapter 34 Preserving Horror: The Horror Studies Collection at the University of Pittsburgh Library SystemBen RubinPART TWOThe Seven Continents of Horror: Snapshots from around the worldIntroductionStacey Abbott, Adam Lowenstein, Roger Luckhurst and Kristopher WoofterContributors1. Nordic HorrorChrister Bakke Andresen2. Nollywood Horrors: Witchery and Religiosity in African CinemaSaheed Adesumbo Bello3. Turkish Horror: The (Nation) State of the HybridTugce Bicakci-Syed4. Local Frights and Universal Themes in Kourosh Ahari’s The Night Max Bledstein5. Where Evil Lurks in Argentinian ContextMaria Belen Caparros6. Everyday Gothic in the Global SouthManuela Coppola and Kartik Nair7. Whispers from the Horn: Ethiopian Supernatural Literature as a Gap in ‘African Horror’Dawit Dibekulu Alem8. Egypt: Hyphen-horror Picture ShowsRoxanne Douglas9. Hyperlocal EcoGothic: E. F. Benson’s ‘The Man Who Went Too Far’Michael Dunn10. The Tropical Gothic of Cali in Colombia: An IntroductionGiovanni Festa11. From Israel with FrightOlga Gershenson12. Antarctic HorrorRune Grauland13. Making Heart Eyes at AotearoaErin Harrington14. South African horror(s): four theses: An overview of RebirthMélanie Joseph-Vilain15. I Must Fear—Fear is the Life-SaverSami Ahmad Khan16. Ukrainian Horror: Identity GamesSerhii Ksaverov17. Transnational Mutations of the Feline Other: Horror Philosophy in The Black Cat and Legend of the Demon CatFang Liu18. Hands off my Wendigo!Jenni Makahnouk19. The Reluctant Traveller: South African Homebody-Horror Cinema and Global CirculationAlan Muller20. Arctic Horror CinemaLorna Piatti-Farnell21. Hardly a vampire in sight? On the dearth of horror films in Croatia and Yugoslavia Antonija Primorac22. The Returned: A Borderland HorrorEduardo A. Russo23. Horror and World-Systems TheoryStephen Shapiro24. Slavery and Global HorrorMark Storey25. Horror-Worlds: Impure Hells and the Cosmopolitics of the Confines in Latin American Women’s Horror FictionAlejandra Bottinelli WolleterPART THREE TheoryConceptual Frames Chapter 35 Horror and AdaptationSimon BrownChapter 36 Cultural Approaches to Horror StudiesCraig Ian MannChapter 37 Horror Cinema and TraumaXavier Aldana ReyesChapter 38 Supernatural or Super Unnatural? An examination of Post-Colonial HorrorShiv RamdasChapter 39 Horror and World CinemaRosalind GaltChapter 40 Horror and ReligionAren Roukema and Per FaxneldChapter 41 Horror and PhilosophyPatricia MacCormackChapter 42 Medical Humanities, the Gothic and International HorrorGordon BatesChapter 43 Eco-Horror: Weird(ed) WorldKristopher WoofterIntersections of Identity Chapter 44 Class and HorrorMark BouldChapter 45 No Gods, No Masters: Resistance in Contemporary Argentine Horror Films by WomenValeria Villegas-LindvallChapter 46 Race and HorrorRecovering Evelda: The Africanist Presence in Hannibal (2001)Mikal J. GainesChapter 47 Sex in Horror FilmSteve JonesChapter 48 Children’s Horror and Queer Self-FashioningBrian JohnsonChapter 49 Critical Disability Studies and HorrorAngela Marie SmithChapter 50 Whiteness and HorrorRoger LuckhurstChapter 51 Psycho as the Jewish Mother of Modern HorrorAdam LowensteinChapter 52 Analyzing Indigenous Horror: Some Thoughts and ApproachesKali SimmonsChapter 53 Feminist and Post-Feminist Horror and Theory Anne Young