Horror and Monstrosity Studies Series – serie

Contributions by Novia Shih-Shan Chen, Elizabeth Rae Coody, Keri Crist-Wagner, Sara Durazo-DeMoss, Charlotte Johanne Fabricius, Ayanni C. Hanna, Christina M. Knopf, Tomoko Kuribayashi, Samantha Langsdale, Jeannie Ludlow, Marcela Murillo, Sho Ogawa, Pauline J. Reynolds, Stefanie Snider, J. Richard Stevens, Justin Wigard, Daniel F. Yezbick, and Jing ZhangMonsters seem to be everywhere these days, in popular shows on television, in award-winning novels, and again and again in Hollywood blockbusters. They are figures that lurk in the margins and so, by contrast, help to illuminate the center - the embodiment of abnormality that summons the definition of normalcy by virtue of everything they are not.Samantha Langsdale and Elizabeth Rae Coody's edited volume explores the coding of woman as monstrous and how the monster as dangerously evocative of women/femininity/the female is exacerbated by the intersection of gender with sexuality, race, nationality, and disability. To analyze monstrous women is not only to examine comics, but also to witness how those constructions correspond to women's real material experiences.Each section takes a critical look at the cultural context surrounding varied monstrous voices: embodiment, maternity, childhood, power, and performance. Featured are essays on such comics as Faith, Monstress, Bitch Planet, and Batgirl and such characters as Harley Quinn and Wonder Woman.This volume probes into the patriarchal contexts wherein men are assumed to be representative of the normative, universal subject, such that women frequently become monsters.

Contributions by Novia Shih-Shan Chen, Elizabeth Rae Coody, Keri Crist-Wagner, Sara Durazo-DeMoss, Charlotte Johanne Fabricius, Ayanni C. Hanna, Christina M. Knopf, Tomoko Kuribayashi, Samantha Langsdale, Jeannie Ludlow, Marcela Murillo, Sho Ogawa, Pauline J. Reynolds, Stefanie Snider, J. Richard Stevens, Justin Wigard, Daniel F. Yezbick, and Jing ZhangMonsters seem to be everywhere these days, in popular shows on television, in award-winning novels, and again and again in Hollywood blockbusters. They are figures that lurk in the margins and so, by contrast, help to illuminate the center - the embodiment of abnormality that summons the definition of normalcy by virtue of everything they are not.Samantha Langsdale and Elizabeth Rae Coody's edited volume explores the coding of woman as monstrous and how the monster as dangerously evocative of women/femininity/the female is exacerbated by the intersection of gender with sexuality, race, nationality, and disability. To analyze monstrous women is not only to examine comics, but also to witness how those constructions correspond to women's real material experiences.Each section takes a critical look at the cultural context surrounding varied monstrous voices: embodiment, maternity, childhood, power, and performance. Featured are essays on such comics as Faith, Monstress, Bitch Planet, and Batgirl and such characters as Harley Quinn and Wonder Woman.This volume probes into the patriarchal contexts wherein men are assumed to be representative of the normative, universal subject, such that women frequently become monsters.

Through American history, often in times of crisis, there have been periodic outbreaks of obsession with the paranormal. Between 2004 and 2019, over six dozen documentary-style series dealing with paranormal subject matter premiered on television in the United States. Combining the stylistic traits of horror with earnest accounts of what are claimed to be actual events, "paranormal reality" incorporates subject matter formerly characterized as occult or supernatural into the established category of reality TV.Despite the high number of programs and their evident popularity, paranormal reality television has to date received little critical attention. Ghost Channels: Paranormal Reality Television and the Haunting of Twenty-First-Century America provides an overview of the paranormal reality television genre, its development, and its place in television history. Conducting in-depth analyses of over thirty paranormal television series, including such shows as Ghost Hunters, Celebrity Ghost Stories, and Long Island Medium, author Amy Lawrence suggests these programs reveal much about Americans’ contemporary fears. Through her close readings, Lawrence asks, "What are these shows trying to tell us?" and "What do they communicate about contemporary culture if we take them seriously and watch them closely?"Ridiculed by nearly everyone, paranormal reality TV shows—with their psychics, ghost hunters, and haunted houses—provide unique insights into contemporary American culture. Half-horror, half-documentary realism, these shows expose deep-seated questions about class, race, gender, the value of technology, the failure of institutions, and what it means to be American in the twenty-first century.

Through American history, often in times of crisis, there have been periodic outbreaks of obsession with the paranormal. Between 2004 and 2019, over six dozen documentary-style series dealing with paranormal subject matter premiered on television in the United States. Combining the stylistic traits of horror with earnest accounts of what are claimed to be actual events, "paranormal reality" incorporates subject matter formerly characterized as occult or supernatural into the established category of reality TV.Despite the high number of programs and their evident popularity, paranormal reality television has to date received little critical attention. Ghost Channels: Paranormal Reality Television and the Haunting of Twenty-First-Century America provides an overview of the paranormal reality television genre, its development, and its place in television history. Conducting in-depth analyses of over thirty paranormal television series, including such shows as Ghost Hunters, Celebrity Ghost Stories, and Long Island Medium, author Amy Lawrence suggests these programs reveal much about Americans’ contemporary fears. Through her close readings, Lawrence asks, "What are these shows trying to tell us?" and "What do they communicate about contemporary culture if we take them seriously and watch them closely?"Ridiculed by nearly everyone, paranormal reality TV shows—with their psychics, ghost hunters, and haunted houses—provide unique insights into contemporary American culture. Half-horror, half-documentary realism, these shows expose deep-seated questions about class, race, gender, the value of technology, the failure of institutions, and what it means to be American in the twenty-first century.

Contributions by Amylou Ahava, Jeff Ambrose, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Daniel P. Compora, Penny Crofts, Keith Currie, Erin Giannini, Diganta Roy, Hannah Lina Schneeberger, Shannon S. Shaw, Maria Wiegel, and Margaret J. YankovichFirst published in 1986, Stephen King’s novel IT forever changed the legacy of the literary clown. The subject of a TV miniseries and a two-part film adaptation and the inspiration for a resurgence of the evil clown figure in popular culture, IT's influence is undeniable, yet scholarship to date is almost exclusively devoted to the adaptations rather than the novel itself.Encountering Pennywise: Critical Perspectives on Stephen King’s "IT" considers the pronounced cultural fluctuations of IT's legacies by centering the novel within the theoretical frameworks that animate it and ensure its literary and cultural persistence. The collection explores the ways the novel, so like its antagonist, replicates (or disavows) the icons of various canons and categories in order to accomplish specific psychological and cultural work.Gathering the work of scholars from diverse professional and disciplinary vantage points, editor Whitney S. May has curated an anthology that spans discussions of American surveillance culture, intergenerational conflict, the legacies of settler colonialism and Native American representation, serial-killer fanaticism, and more. In this volume, we read the protagonists’ constellations of countermoves against Pennywise as productive outlines of critique effectuated by the richness of the clown’s reflective power. The essays are therefore thematically arranged into a series of four categories of "counter"—countercurrents, countercultures, counterclaims, and counterfeits—where each supplies a specific critical lens through which to view Pennywise’s disruptions of both culture and cultural critique.

Contributions by Amylou Ahava, Jeff Ambrose, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Daniel P. Compora, Penny Crofts, Keith Currie, Erin Giannini, Diganta Roy, Hannah Lina Schneeberger, Shannon S. Shaw, Maria Wiegel, and Margaret J. YankovichFirst published in 1986, Stephen King’s novel IT forever changed the legacy of the literary clown. The subject of a TV miniseries and a two-part film adaptation and the inspiration for a resurgence of the evil clown figure in popular culture, IT's influence is undeniable, yet scholarship to date is almost exclusively devoted to the adaptations rather than the novel itself.Encountering Pennywise: Critical Perspectives on Stephen King’s "IT" considers the pronounced cultural fluctuations of IT's legacies by centering the novel within the theoretical frameworks that animate it and ensure its literary and cultural persistence. The collection explores the ways the novel, so like its antagonist, replicates (or disavows) the icons of various canons and categories in order to accomplish specific psychological and cultural work.Gathering the work of scholars from diverse professional and disciplinary vantage points, editor Whitney S. May has curated an anthology that spans discussions of American surveillance culture, intergenerational conflict, the legacies of settler colonialism and Native American representation, serial-killer fanaticism, and more. In this volume, we read the protagonists’ constellations of countermoves against Pennywise as productive outlines of critique effectuated by the richness of the clown’s reflective power. The essays are therefore thematically arranged into a series of four categories of "counter"—countercurrents, countercultures, counterclaims, and counterfeits—where each supplies a specific critical lens through which to view Pennywise’s disruptions of both culture and cultural critique.

Contributions by Donald L. Anderson, Brian Brems, Eric Brinkman, Matthew Edwards, Brenda S. Gardenour Walter, Andrew Grossman, Lisa Haegele, Gavin F. Hurley, Mikel J. Koven, Sharon Jane Mee, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Émilie von Garan, Connor John Warden, and Sean WoodardThe giallo (yellow) film cycle, characterized by its bloody murders and blending of high art and cinematic sleaze, rose to prominence in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning with Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), giallo films influenced the American slasher films of the 1980s and attracted an increasingly large fandom. In Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad, contributors explore understudied aspects of gialli. The chapters introduce readers to a wide range of films, including masterpieces from Argento and overlooked gems, all of them examined in close detail. Rather than understanding giallo as focalized exclusively in Italy in the 1970s, this collection explores the extension of gialli narratives abroad through different geographies and times. This book examines Italian gialli of the 1970s as well as American neo-gialli, French productions, Canadian horror films of the 1980s, and Asian rewritings of this "yellow" cycle of crime/horror films. Bloodstained Narratives also features interviews with two giallo film directors, including cult favorite Antonio Bido. Rather than fading from the cinematic stage, gialli serves as a precursor and steady accomplice to horror-thriller films through the twenty-first century.

Contributions by Donald L. Anderson, Brian Brems, Eric Brinkman, Matthew Edwards, Brenda S. Gardenour Walter, Andrew Grossman, Lisa Haegele, Gavin F. Hurley, Mikel J. Koven, Sharon Jane Mee, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Émilie von Garan, Connor John Warden, and Sean WoodardThe giallo (yellow) film cycle, characterized by its bloody murders and blending of high art and cinematic sleaze, rose to prominence in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning with Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), giallo films influenced the American slasher films of the 1980s and attracted an increasingly large fandom. In Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad, contributors explore understudied aspects of gialli. The chapters introduce readers to a wide range of films, including masterpieces from Argento and overlooked gems, all of them examined in close detail. Rather than understanding giallo as focalized exclusively in Italy in the 1970s, this collection explores the extension of gialli narratives abroad through different geographies and times. This book examines Italian gialli of the 1970s as well as American neo-gialli, French productions, Canadian horror films of the 1980s, and Asian rewritings of this "yellow" cycle of crime/horror films. Bloodstained Narratives also features interviews with two giallo film directors, including cult favorite Antonio Bido. Rather than fading from the cinematic stage, gialli serves as a precursor and steady accomplice to horror-thriller films through the twenty-first century.

In this groundbreaking work, author David Scott Diffrient explores largely understudied facets of cinematic horror, from the various odors permeating classic and contemporary films to the wetness, sliminess, and stickiness of these productions, which, he argues, practically scream out for a tactile mode of textural analysis as much as they call for more traditional forms of textual analysis. Dating back to Carol Clover’s and Linda Williams’s pioneering work on horror cinema, film scholars have long conceptualized this once-disreputable category of cultural production as a "body genre." However, despite the growing recognition that horror serves important biological and social functions in our lives, scholars have only scratched the surface of this genre with regard to its affective, corporeal, and sensorial appeals.Diffrient anatomizes horror films in much the same way that a mad scientist might handle the body, separating and recombining constitutive parts into a new analytical whole. Further, he challenges the tendency of scholars to privilege human over nonhuman beings and calls into question ableist assumptions about the centrality to horror films of sight and sound to the near exclusion of other forms of sense experience. In addition to examining the role that animals—living or dead, real or fake—play in human-centered fictions, this volume asks what it means for audiences to consume motion pictures in which actors, stunt performers, and other creative personnel have put their own bodies and lives at risk for our amusement. Historically grounded and theoretically expansive, Body Genre: Anatomy of the Horror Film moves the study of cinematic horror into previously unchartered waters and breathes life into a subject that, not coincidentally, is intimately connected to breathing as our most cherished dividing line between life and death.

In this groundbreaking work, author David Scott Diffrient explores largely understudied facets of cinematic horror, from the various odors permeating classic and contemporary films to the wetness, sliminess, and stickiness of these productions, which, he argues, practically scream out for a tactile mode of textural analysis as much as they call for more traditional forms of textual analysis. Dating back to Carol Clover’s and Linda Williams’s pioneering work on horror cinema, film scholars have long conceptualized this once-disreputable category of cultural production as a "body genre." However, despite the growing recognition that horror serves important biological and social functions in our lives, scholars have only scratched the surface of this genre with regard to its affective, corporeal, and sensorial appeals.Diffrient anatomizes horror films in much the same way that a mad scientist might handle the body, separating and recombining constitutive parts into a new analytical whole. Further, he challenges the tendency of scholars to privilege human over nonhuman beings and calls into question ableist assumptions about the centrality to horror films of sight and sound to the near exclusion of other forms of sense experience. In addition to examining the role that animals—living or dead, real or fake—play in human-centered fictions, this volume asks what it means for audiences to consume motion pictures in which actors, stunt performers, and other creative personnel have put their own bodies and lives at risk for our amusement. Historically grounded and theoretically expansive, Body Genre: Anatomy of the Horror Film moves the study of cinematic horror into previously unchartered waters and breathes life into a subject that, not coincidentally, is intimately connected to breathing as our most cherished dividing line between life and death.

Contributions by Kathleen Alcalá, Sarah Amira de la Garza, Sarah De Los Santos Upton, Moises Gonzales, Luisa Fernanda Grijalva-Maza, Leandra H. Hernández, Spencer R. Herrera, Brenda Selena Lara, Susana Loza, Juan Pacheco Marcial, Amanda R. Martinez, Diana Isabel Martínez, Diego Medina, Cathryn J. Merla-Watson, Arturo "Velaz" Muñoz, Eric Murillo, Saul Ramirez, Roxanna Ivonne Sanchez-Avila, ire’ne lara silva, Lizzeth Tecuatl Cuaxiloa, and Bianca Tonantzin ZamoraMonsters and Saints: LatIndigenous Landscapes and Spectral Storytelling is a collection of stories, poetry, art, and essays divining the contemporary intersection of Latinx and Indigenous cultures from the American Southwest, Mexico, and Central and South America. To give voice to this complicated identity, this volume investigates how cultures of ghost storytelling foreground a sense of belonging and home in people from LatIndigenous landscapes. Monsters and Saints reflects intersectional and intergenerational understandings of lived experiences, bodies, and traumas as narrated through embodied hauntings.Contributions to this anthology represent a commitment to thoughtful inquiry into the ways storytelling assigns meaning through labels like monster, saint, and ghost, particularly as these unfold in the context of global migration. For many marginalized and displaced peoples, a sense of belonging is always haunted through historical exclusion from an original homespace. This exclusion further manifests as limited bodily autonomy. By locating the concept of "home" as beyond physical constructs, the volume argues that spectral stories and storytelling practices of LatIndigeneity (re)configure affective states and spaces of being, becoming, migrating, displacing, and belonging.

Contributions by Kathleen Alcalá, Sarah Amira de la Garza, Sarah De Los Santos Upton, Moises Gonzales, Luisa Fernanda Grijalva-Maza, Leandra H. Hernández, Spencer R. Herrera, Brenda Selena Lara, Susana Loza, Juan Pacheco Marcial, Amanda R. Martinez, Diana Isabel Martínez, Diego Medina, Cathryn J. Merla-Watson, Arturo "Velaz" Muñoz, Eric Murillo, Saul Ramirez, Roxanna Ivonne Sanchez-Avila, ire’ne lara silva, Lizzeth Tecuatl Cuaxiloa, and Bianca Tonantzin ZamoraMonsters and Saints: LatIndigenous Landscapes and Spectral Storytelling is a collection of stories, poetry, art, and essays divining the contemporary intersection of Latinx and Indigenous cultures from the American Southwest, Mexico, and Central and South America. To give voice to this complicated identity, this volume investigates how cultures of ghost storytelling foreground a sense of belonging and home in people from LatIndigenous landscapes. Monsters and Saints reflects intersectional and intergenerational understandings of lived experiences, bodies, and traumas as narrated through embodied hauntings.Contributions to this anthology represent a commitment to thoughtful inquiry into the ways storytelling assigns meaning through labels like monster, saint, and ghost, particularly as these unfold in the context of global migration. For many marginalized and displaced peoples, a sense of belonging is always haunted through historical exclusion from an original homespace. This exclusion further manifests as limited bodily autonomy. By locating the concept of "home" as beyond physical constructs, the volume argues that spectral stories and storytelling practices of LatIndigeneity (re)configure affective states and spaces of being, becoming, migrating, displacing, and belonging.

Pregnancy, birth, and postpartum recovery are challenging experiences that impact women’s physical, mental, and emotional health in ways that have been historically minimalized, dismissed, or neglected. A mother’s body becomes a public body, physically and politically not her own, instead shared by her spouse, her children, and those around her. Her body, therefore, makes the perfect vessel for an invasive presence—or possession. The Sinful Maternal: Motherhood in Possession Films examines the role of mothers and motherhood in ten possession films, including Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Babadook, and Hereditary. Chapters discuss the work of such directors as James Wan, Jennifer Kent, Robert Eggers, and Ari Aster to address how their cinematic approaches to these films produce rich possession narratives that explore different facets of motherhood and women’s agency.Working at the intersections of gender studies, architectural theory, trauma studies, and monster theory, with a particular focus on the treatment of (often unruly) female bodies, author Lauren Rocha investigates the ways in which motherhood is a fertile state for possession and how possession acts to influence, destabilize, and reshape identity and the self. Placing the films in chronological order, she closely analyzes the ways in which sociocultural influences create different roles women and mothers are expected to perform. Ultimately, Rocha demonstrates how possession offers a way to challenge performative motherhood to free the self.

Pregnancy, birth, and postpartum recovery are challenging experiences that impact women’s physical, mental, and emotional health in ways that have been historically minimalized, dismissed, or neglected. A mother’s body becomes a public body, physically and politically not her own, instead shared by her spouse, her children, and those around her. Her body, therefore, makes the perfect vessel for an invasive presence—or possession. The Sinful Maternal: Motherhood in Possession Films examines the role of mothers and motherhood in ten possession films, including Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Babadook, and Hereditary. Chapters discuss the work of such directors as James Wan, Jennifer Kent, Robert Eggers, and Ari Aster to address how their cinematic approaches to these films produce rich possession narratives that explore different facets of motherhood and women’s agency.Working at the intersections of gender studies, architectural theory, trauma studies, and monster theory, with a particular focus on the treatment of (often unruly) female bodies, author Lauren Rocha investigates the ways in which motherhood is a fertile state for possession and how possession acts to influence, destabilize, and reshape identity and the self. Placing the films in chronological order, she closely analyzes the ways in which sociocultural influences create different roles women and mothers are expected to perform. Ultimately, Rocha demonstrates how possession offers a way to challenge performative motherhood to free the self.

Global Indigenous Horror is a collection of essays that positions Indigenous Horror as more than just a genre, but as a narrative space where the spectral and social converge, where the uncanny becomes a critique, and the monstrous mirrors the human. While contentions swirl around the genre category, this exploratory anthology is the first critical edited collection dedicated solely to ways of theorizing and analyzing Indigenous Horror literature. The essays, curated by scholar Naomi Simone Borwein, ask readers to consider what Global Indigenous Horror is—and to whom.The volume opens with a preface by international bestselling horror writer Shane Hawk (enrolled Cheyenne-Arapaho, Hidatsa, and Potawatomi descent), followed by an overview of Global Indigenous Horror trends, aesthetics, and approaches. The carefully selected contributions explore Indigenous Horror literature and mixed-media narratives worldwide, unraveling the intricate dynamics between the local and global, traditional and contemporary, and human and monstrous. Contributor chapters are grouped not by geographical or cultural variation, but along a spectrum, from a strong emphasis on ways of knowing to a critical inspection of Horror through Indigenous Gothic aesthetics across cultural boundaries and against and beyond nation states.Contributions by Katrin Althans, Jayson Althofer, Naomi Simone Borwein, Persephone Braham, Krista Collier-Jarvis, Shane Hawk, Jade Jenkinson, June Scudeler, and Sabrina Zacharias.

Global Indigenous Horror is a collection of essays that positions Indigenous Horror as more than just a genre, but as a narrative space where the spectral and social converge, where the uncanny becomes a critique, and the monstrous mirrors the human. While contentions swirl around the genre category, this exploratory anthology is the first critical edited collection dedicated solely to ways of theorizing and analyzing Indigenous Horror literature. The essays, curated by scholar Naomi Simone Borwein, ask readers to consider what Global Indigenous Horror is—and to whom.The volume opens with a preface by international bestselling horror writer Shane Hawk (enrolled Cheyenne-Arapaho, Hidatsa, and Potawatomi descent), followed by an overview of Global Indigenous Horror trends, aesthetics, and approaches. The carefully selected contributions explore Indigenous Horror literature and mixed-media narratives worldwide, unraveling the intricate dynamics between the local and global, traditional and contemporary, and human and monstrous. Contributor chapters are grouped not by geographical or cultural variation, but along a spectrum, from a strong emphasis on ways of knowing to a critical inspection of Horror through Indigenous Gothic aesthetics across cultural boundaries and against and beyond nation states.Contributions by Katrin Althans, Jayson Althofer, Naomi Simone Borwein, Persephone Braham, Krista Collier-Jarvis, Shane Hawk, Jade Jenkinson, June Scudeler, and Sabrina Zacharias.

Contributions by Julien Achemchame, Julie Assouly, David Church, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, Hélène Frazik, Pierre Jailloux, Nicolas Labarre, Sophie Lécole-Solnychkine, Janice Loreck, Stella Louis, Kingsley Marshall, Krista Mitchell, Karen D. Thornton, and Arnaud Widendaële Best known for Night of the Living Dead (1968) and its sequels, George A. Romero (1940–2017) was a writer, editor, director, producer, and influential pioneer of the horror film genre. Beyond Zombie Politics: The Art of George A. Romero’s Cinema gathers a group of contributors to explore Romero’s work beyond the Living Dead films with two parallel but complementary tendencies within twenty-first-century film studies: the renewed interest in horror aesthetics and the emphasis on filmmaking as a collaborative practice. Opening with an original interview with Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, who shares her views on the late director’s craft and influence, the anthology is divided into three sections that deal with genre, visual and musical motifs, and the (re)creative process. Each chapter adopts fresh methodologies to focus on an area that has received little academic study. Contributors investigate the films’ relation to subgenres like the counterculture movie or the witchcraft film; their debt to slapstick comedy or the recurrence of specific visual motifs like hands; the editing and the handling of space; the use of make-up and music; the films’ relation to comics; and their adaptation into other media. Authored by established and up-and-coming experts of horror and the Fantastic, the chapters in Beyond Zombie Politics aim to offer fresh insights into an important body of work, to contribute to current studies of the evolution of horror aesthetics, and to map the borders between exploitation, independent, and mainstream film.

Contributions by Julien Achemchame, Julie Assouly, David Church, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, Hélène Frazik, Pierre Jailloux, Nicolas Labarre, Sophie Lécole-Solnychkine, Janice Loreck, Stella Louis, Kingsley Marshall, Krista Mitchell, Karen D. Thornton, and Arnaud WidendaëleBest known for Night of the Living Dead (1968) and its sequels, George A. Romero (1940–2017) was a writer, editor, director, producer, and influential pioneer of the horror film genre. Beyond Zombie Politics: The Art of George A. Romero’s Cinema gathers a group of contributors to explore Romero’s work beyond the Living Dead films with two parallel but complementary tendencies within twenty-first-century film studies: the renewed interest in horror aesthetics and the emphasis on filmmaking as a collaborative practice.Opening with an original interview with Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, who shares her views on the late director’s craft and influence, the anthology is divided into three sections that deal with genre, visual and musical motifs, and the (re)creative process. Each chapter adopts fresh methodologies to focus on an area that has received little academic study. Contributors investigate the films’ relation to subgenres like the counterculture movie or the witchcraft film; their debt to slapstick comedy or the recurrence of specific visual motifs like hands; the editing and the handling of space; the use of make-up and music; the films’ relation to comics; and their adaptation into other media. Authored by established and up-and-coming experts of horror and the Fantastic, the chapters in Beyond Zombie Politics aim to offer fresh insights into an important body of work, to contribute to current studies of the evolution of horror aesthetics, and to map the borders between exploitation, independent, and mainstream film.

Since his first arrest in 1975, Ted Bundy has been the most ubiquitous serial killer in US popular culture. He is the subject of seven feature films or miniseries, several televised documentaries and podcasts, numerous true crime books, and myriad other texts trading in the saga of a man who kidnapped, raped, and murdered at least thirty white women and girls in the Pacific Northwest, Utah, Colorado, and Florida. The Bundy Archive: Genealogies of White Masculinity is the first scholarly study to investigate the deep, unsettling allure of Bundy within the public imagination. Working at the intersection of cultural criticism, true crime, and memoir, author Bryan J. McCann argues that Bundy’s ubiquity is not a function of his depravity and strangeness, but of his familiarity and resonance. McCann considers cultural artifacts, rhetoric, and popular texts surrounding Bundy—collectively constructing what he terms "the Bundy archive"—and demonstrates how these elements reveal public anxieties about and investments in white masculinity and gendered violence. The Bundy Archive maps the pervasive and disturbing ways that white masculinity is intertwined with sadistic violence, urging readers to confront the anxieties and societal investments that perpetuate this brutal legacy. McCann's work is a critical examination of how public culture grapples with the dark specter of white male violence, offering profound insights into the intersections of race, gender, and violence in modern America.

Since his first arrest in 1975, Ted Bundy has been the most ubiquitous serial killer in US popular culture. He is the subject of seven feature films or miniseries, several televised documentaries and podcasts, numerous true crime books, and myriad other texts trading in the saga of a man who kidnapped, raped, and murdered at least thirty white women and girls in the Pacific Northwest, Utah, Colorado, and Florida. The Bundy Archive: Genealogies of White Masculinity is the first scholarly study to investigate the deep, unsettling allure of Bundy within the public imagination. Working at the intersection of cultural criticism, true crime, and memoir, author Bryan J. McCann argues that Bundy’s ubiquity is not a function of his depravity and strangeness, but of his familiarity and resonance. McCann considers cultural artifacts, rhetoric, and popular texts surrounding Bundy—collectively constructing what he terms "the Bundy archive"—and demonstrates how these elements reveal public anxieties about and investments in white masculinity and gendered violence. The Bundy Archive maps the pervasive and disturbing ways that white masculinity is intertwined with sadistic violence, urging readers to confront the anxieties and societal investments that perpetuate this brutal legacy. McCann's work is a critical examination of how public culture grapples with the dark specter of white male violence, offering profound insights into the intersections of race, gender, and violence in modern America.

The story of La Llorona—the weeping spirit everyone recognizes but no one wants to face—has been passed down orally for hundreds of years, spanning nearly all of Latin America and tracing its origins to Mesoamerican myths. Yet despite her prevalence, La Llorona is far from the region’s only folkloric monster. Others, such as the Pishtaco, the Qarqacha, or the Curupira, have haunted Latin American cinema throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Lloronas, Chupacabras, and Other Creatures: Latin American Folklore on Screen traces the representation of these creatures in Latin American horror films. Author Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodríguez analyzes how filmmakers translate oral folkloric legends into Latin American horror and the socio-political implications of a continent often portrayed as "monstrous." Focusing on different regions of Latin America, Eljaiek-Rodríguez looks at the ways filmmakers use folklore to preserve local traditions and confront colonial legacies. Through their depictions of local monsters, directors amplify decolonial narratives. They denounce gender violence, expose exploitation, and reclaim cultural pride. Compared to local perspectives, US and Eurocentric media often portrays these same creatures as signs of superstition, underdevelopment, or cultural inferiority, as in Chupacabra films and series like The X-Files, Supernatural, and Grimm. Positioned within the expanding field of global horror studies, this volume bridges film analysis, folklore, and cultural history, revealing how Latin American horror transforms folkloric monsters into vehicles of cultural critique, political resistance, and global storytelling.

The story of La Llorona—the weeping spirit everyone recognizes but no one wants to face—has been passed down orally for hundreds of years, spanning nearly all of Latin America and tracing its origins to Mesoamerican myths. Yet despite her prevalence, La Llorona is far from the region’s only folkloric monster. Others, such as the Pishtaco, the Qarqacha, or the Curupira, have haunted Latin American cinema throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Lloronas, Chupacabras, and Other Creatures: Latin American Folklore on Screen traces the representation of these creatures in Latin American horror films. Author Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodríguez analyzes how filmmakers translate oral folkloric legends into Latin American horror and the socio-political implications of a continent often portrayed as "monstrous." Focusing on different regions of Latin America, Eljaiek-Rodríguez looks at the ways filmmakers use folklore to preserve local traditions and confront colonial legacies. Through their depictions of local monsters, directors amplify decolonial narratives. They denounce gender violence, expose exploitation, and reclaim cultural pride. Compared to local perspectives, US and Eurocentric media often portrays these same creatures as signs of superstition, underdevelopment, or cultural inferiority, as in Chupacabra films and series like The X-Files, Supernatural, and Grimm. Positioned within the expanding field of global horror studies, this volume bridges film analysis, folklore, and cultural history, revealing how Latin American horror transforms folkloric monsters into vehicles of cultural critique, political resistance, and global storytelling.

At the end of the Cold War, America no longer had the cultural demon it had terrorized itself with for decades. In 1992, the void was quickly filled by the culture wars and free-market economic policies that would forever change American society. Horror movies naturally responded to this change. Monsters in God’s Country argues that the union of politically driven policy and markets created a new breed of horror that still haunts the United States. Moving away from traditional psychoanalytical interpretations, this volume shows how national fear was manufactured and commodified by the American system itself. Monsters in the 1990s did not hide under the bed, in the closet, or in the shadows. Instead, they were the brokers of power who took public office, ran large companies, commanded the military, and made the most money. Through incisive case studies of four films—Needful Things, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Ravenous, and American Psycho—author Matthew W. Jarvis shows how morality was rewritten around cultural value and how the system others its victims in its cruelest acts of monstrosity. Monsters in God’s Country reclaims what has been characterized as a "lost decade" of horror by showing that the movies were diagnostics of active systemic decay. These films tell not a story about end-of-millennium America, but they offer a horrifying explanation about the monsters of the present day.