Working with a wide range of texts, as well as movies and television, Auerbach locates vampires at the heart of our national experience and uses them as a lens for viewing the last two hundred years of Anglo-American cultural history. "[Auerbach] has seen more Hammer movies than I (or the monsters) have had steaming hot diners, encountered more bloodsuckers than you could shake a stick at, even a pair of crossed sticks, such as might deter a very sophisticated ogre, a hick from the Moldavian boonies....Auerbach has dissected and deconstructed them with the tender ruthlessness of a hungry chef, with cogency and wit."—Eric Korn, Times Literary Supplement"This seductive work offers profound insights into many of the urgent concerns of our time and forces us to confront the serious meanings that we invest, and seek, in even the shadiest manifestations of the eroticism of death."—Wendy Doniger, The Nation"A vigorous, witty look at the undead as cultural icons."—Kirkus Review"In case anyone should think this book is merely a boring lit-crit exposition...Auerbach sets matters straight in her very first paragraph. 'What vampires are in any given generation,' she writes, 'is a part of what I am and what my times have become. This book is a history of Anglo-American culture through its mutating vampires.'...Her book really takes off."—Maureen Duffy, New York Times Book Review

    How Stoker became the creator of the mysterious, seductive count from a castle (and coffin) in Transylvania was a story in and of itself. Over the past century, Dracula has never been out of print and has become its own cultural phenomena, starting with Bela Lugosi’s famed rendition in 1931, to Mel Brooks, Francis Ford Coppola, Christopher Lee, Buffy, Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and the hugely popular Twilight series. This generously illustrated documentary collection explores in full the scope of the Dracula phenomenon, from the folkloric origins of the vampire legend to its unending legacy as a vital influence on the literary and performing arts, not to mention the Romanian tourist industry. Nor does it overlook Bram Stoker himself, and includes his working notes and exceptional primary documents.

    Popular books, movies and television shows have cemented the city's connection to vampires in public imagination.Rumors swirled about the fate of the Casket Girls, a group of mysterious maidens traveling to the New World from France with peculiar casket-shaped boxes. A charismatic man who moved to the French Quarter in the early 1900s eerily resembled a European aristocrat of one hundred years prior bearing the same name. A pair of brothers terrorized the town with their desire to feed on living human blood during the Great Depression. Marita Woywod Crandle investigates the origins of these legends so intricately woven through New Orleans's rich history.

    Featuring a collection of images from the studios' own vaults, this book looks at the 'creature features' which continue to influence filmmakers today.

    Opening with the original Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, and his status as a national hero in Romania, he endeavors to winnow out truths from the complex legend and folklore. From Demons to Dracula tracks the evolution of the vampire as an icon and supernatural creature, drawing on classical Greek and Roman myths, witch trials and medieval plagues, Gothic literature, and even contemporary works such as Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire and Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian.  Beresford also looks at the widespread impact of screen vampires from television shows, classic movies starring Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, and more recent films such as Underworld and Blade.  Whether as a demon of the underworld or a light-fearing hunter of humans, the vampire has endured through the centuries, the book reveals, as powerfully symbolic figure for human concerns with life, death, and the afterlife.A wide-ranging and engrossing chronicle, From Demons to Dracula casts this blood-thirsty nightstalker as a remarkably complex and telling totem of our nightmares, real and imagined.

    At a time when the moral universe was shifting and advances in scientific knowledge promised humans dominion over that which had been God's alone, Mary Shelley envisioned a story of human presumption and its misbegotten consequences. Two centuries later, that story is still constantly retold and reinterpreted, from Halloween cartoons to ominous allusions in the public debate, capturing and conveying meaning central to our consciousness today and our concerns for tomorrow. From Victorian musical theater to Boris Karloff with neck bolts, to invocations at the President's Council on Bioethics, the monster and his myth have inspired everyone from cultural critics to comic book addicts. This is a lively and eclectic cultural history, illuminated with dozens of pictures and illustrations, and told with skill and humor. Susan Tyler Hitchcock uses film, literature, history, science, and even punk music to help us understand the meaning of this monster made by man.

    Featured titles:Nosferatu (1922)Phantom of the Opera (1925)Dracula (1931)Frankenstein (1931)Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931)The Mummy (1933)Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)The Wolf Man (1941)Cat People (1942)Them (1953)Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)Curse of Frankenstein (1957)Horror of Dracula (1958)House on Haunted Hill (1959)The Birds (1963)Black Sunday (1960)Pit and the Pendulum (1961)The Haunting (1963)Night of the Living Dead (1968)Rosemary's Baby (1968)The Exorcist (1972)Young Frankenstein (1976)Halloween (1978)The Shining (1980)The Thing (1982)A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)Beetlejuice (1988)Hocus Pocus (1993)Scream (1996)Get Out (2017)

    But the countless movies and books inspired by this child of the night who has a predilection for human blood are based on incidents recorded as fact in newspapers and judicial archives in the centuries preceding the works of Bram Stoker and other writers. Digging through these forgotten records, Claude Lecouteux unearths a very different figure of the vampire in the many accounts of individuals who reportedly would return from their graves to attack the living. These ancestors of the modern vampire were not all blood suckers; they included shroud eaters, appesarts, nightmares, and the curious figure of the stafia, whose origin is a result of masons secretly interring the shadow of a living human being in the wall of a building under construction. As Lecouteux shows, the belief in vampires predates ancient Roman times, which abounded with lamia, stirges, and ghouls. Discarding the tacked together explanations of modern science for these inexplicable phenomena, the author looks back to another folk belief that has come down through the centuries like that of the undead: the existence of multiple souls in every individual, not all of which are able to move on to the next world after death.

    Carol Clover argues, however, that these films work mainly to engage the viewer in the plight of the victim-hero - the figure, often a female, who suffers pain and fright but eventually rises to vanquish the forces of oppression.

    This ride has legions of devoted fans and influenced tributes, spinoffs and an entire entertainment genre: the seasonal haunted house. Why is this?Boundless Realm is a wry tour of the creaky old house on the hill, brushing aside cobwebs, uncovering obscure corners, and prying up the floorboards in search of the answer. Not just an attraction history, this critical appreciation - written with a connoisseur's eye for detail - encompasses American history, popular culture and folklore, and a sharp understanding of design to make a case for The Haunted Mansion as the 20th century's definitive haunted house. Entertaining and opinionated, Boundless Realm will give you a new appreciation for Disney's ultimate cult attraction.

    The now-legendary British company went on to make such classics as Dracula (and its many sequels), making international stars out of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, changing the face of horror cinema, and inspiring a generation of Hollywood filmmakers, including George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton.Now, for the first time, Hammer have given their active backing to an authorised history of the company, and have provided unlimited access to their archives.The Hammer Story provides a film-by-film dissection, dripping with rare promotional material and previously unpublished photographs.

    This detailed filmography covers these and 225 more. Section One provides an introduction and a brief history of the decade. Beginning with 1970 and proceeding chronologically by year of its release in the United States, Section Two offers an entry for each film. Each entry includes several categories of information: Critical Reception (sampling both '70s and later reviews), Cast and Credits, P.O.V., (quoting a person pertinent to that film's production), Synopsis (summarizing the film's story), Commentary (analyzing the film from Muir's perspective), Legacy (noting the rank of especially worthy '70s films in the horror pantheon of decades following). Section Three contains a conclusion and these five appendices: horror film cliches of the 1970s, frequently appearing performers, memorable movie ads, recommended films that illustrate how 1970s horror films continue to impact the industry, and the 15 best genre films of the decade as chosen by Muir.

    Includes: background on Stoker's classic, and the literary history of the vampire novel; commentary by leading contemporary writers; a selected filmography of major vampire films; and dozens of illustrations.

     Provides an overview of the most significant issues and debates in Gothic studies. Explains the origins and development of the term Gothic. Explores the evolution of the Gothic in both literary and non-literary forms, including art, architecture and film. Features authoritative readings of key works, ranging from Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto to Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. Considers recurrent concerns of the Gothic such as persecution and paranoia, key motifs such as the haunted castle, and figures such as the vampire and the monster. Includes a chronology of key Gothic texts, including fiction and film from the 1760s to the present day, and a comprehensive bibliography.

    In Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, Anne Boyd Rioux brings a fresh and engaging look at the circumstances leading Louisa May Alcott to write Little Women and why this beloved story of family and community ties set in the Civil War has resonated with audiences across time.