Monstrous Beings and Media Cultures: Folk Monsters, Im/materiality, Regionality (Horror and Gothic Media Cultures)

Monstrous Beings of Media Cultures examines the monsters and sinister creatures that spawn from folk horror, Gothic fiction, and from various sectors of media cultures. The collection illuminates how folk monsters form across different art and media traditions, and interrogates the 21C revitalization of “folk” as both a cultural formation and aesthetic mode. The essays explore how combinations of vernacular and institutional creative processes shape the folkloric and/or folkoresque attributes of monstrous beings, their popularity, and the contexts in which they are received. While it focuses on 21C permutations of folk monstrosity, the collection is transhistorical in approach, featuring chapters that focus on contemporary folk monsters, historical antecedents, and the pre-C21st art and media traditions that shaped enduring monstrous beings. The collection also illuminates how folk monsters and folk “horror” travel across cultures, media, and time periods, and how iconic monsters are tethered to yet repeatedly become unanchored from material and regional contexts. Monstrous Beings and Media Cultures examines the monsters and sinister creatures that spawn from folk horror, Gothic fiction, and from various sectors of media cultures. The collection illuminates how folk monsters form across different art and media traditions, and interrogates the 21C revitalization of folk as both a cultural formation and aesthetic mode. The essays explore how combinations of vernacular and institutional creative processes shape the folkloric and/or folkoresque attributes of monstrous beings, their popularity, and the contexts in which they are received. While it focuses on 21C permutations of folk monstrosity, the collection is transhistorical in approach, featuring chapters that focus on contemporary folk monsters, historical antecedents, and the pre-C21st art and media traditions that shaped enduring monstrous beings. The collection also illuminates how folk monsters and folk horror travel across cultures, media, and time periods, and how iconic monsters are tethered to yet repeatedly become unanchored from material and regional contexts. Table of Contents 5 List of Figures 7 Acknowledgements 9 Introduction: Folk Monsters and Monstrous Media 11 1 The Momo Challenge as Urban Legend 33 2 “Every Imaginable Invention of the Devil” 63 3 The Forest and the Trees 81 4 Mark Duplass as Mumblegore Serial Killer 103 5 Monsters in the Forest 121 6 A Mother’s Milk 145 7 Documenting the Unheard 173 8 Reimagining the Pontianak Myth in Malaysian Folk Horror 191 9 An Uncommon Ancestor 217 10 The Folk Horror “Feeling” 241 Works Cited 269 Mediagraphy 297 Index 303