Urban Legends: and the Cultural Geography of Horror (Horror Studies)

Explores the particular significance of the physical spaces that are haunted by urban legends. Blending folklore studies, media theory, horror criticism, and cultural geography, this collection charts an unprecedented map of urban-legend storytelling, from haunted cemeteries to pixelated backrooms. Across three themed sections, international scholars trace how tales of hook-handed killers and countless other specters migrate through oral tradition, cinema, television, board games, and video games, to continually reshape the fears and identities of the communities that share them. By foregrounding space—the cemetery, the highway, the small town, the livestreamed haunted house—as a dynamic agent rather than passive backdrop, this book reveals how legends build cultural memory, police social boundaries, and critique neoliberal landscapes. Interdisciplinary, globally-scoped, and media-agnostic, Urban Legends: and the Cultural Geography of Horror moves beyond folkloric catalogues and genre surveys to show precisely where horror lives today—and why those locations matter.