The Monster Returns

Jeremy thought he'd seen the last of his monster when he sent him away with a one-way bus ticket. But suddenly there's a knock on the door . . . and the monster has returned! Jeremy tries to decide what to do. Is it possible that the monster is in need of a friend? Peter McCarty brings his popular monster back in style, with a sequel that will have kids drawing their own little monsters in no time.

The monsters of the horror genre never remain dead - they invariably return in new and terrifying shapes for another installment. In this study Christian Knöppler explores the phenomenon of horror film remakes. He argues that even though these derivative films typically earn little praise from critics, their constant refiguration of monsters and horror scenarios serves to access and update otherwise obscure cultural fears. With an in-depth examination of six sample sequences of films and remakes, this book aims to shed new light on a much maligned and often neglected type of film and promises fresh insights to scholars and aficionados alike.

Monsters are fragmentary, uncertain, frightening creatures. What happens when they enter the realm of the theatre? The Monster in Theatre History explores the cultural genealogies of monsters as they appear in the recorded history of Western theatre. From the Ancient Greeks to the most cutting-edge new media, Michael Chemers focuses on a series of ‘key’ monsters, including Frankenstein’s creature, werewolves, ghosts, and vampires, to reconsider what monsters in performance might mean to those who witness them. This volume builds a clear methodology for engaging with theatrical monsters of all kinds, providing a much-needed guidebook to this fascinating hinterland.

"A superlative, riveting history" (BookPage) of Mary Shelley's creation of Frankenstein and the personal and poetic background behind the story. One murky night in 1816, on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron, famed English poet, challenged his friends to a contest--to write a ghost story. The assembled group included the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; his lover (and future wife) Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont; and Byron's physician, John William Polidori. The famous result was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a work that has retained its hold on the popular imagination for almost two centuries. Less well-known was the curious Polidori's contribution: the first vampire novel. And the evening begat a curse, too: Within a few years of Frankenstein's publication, nearly all of those involved met untimely deaths. Drawing upon letters, rarely tapped archives, and their own magisterial rereading of Frankenstein itself, Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler have crafted a rip-roaring tale of obsession and creation.

Two years after the events of The Monster Inside, Kayla is once again up against a faceless, merciless killer intent on leaving her and everyone around her dead. It is up to her and a new group of friends to fight for their lives and learn the shocking identity and motives of this new menace. Featuring characters old and new, it is a wild ride from start to finish.

At Terezín, many children sang for the Nazi officials and the Red Cross. They were used as propaganda tools, between 1943 and 1944, to make the world believe that Hitler had given a "paradise" to the Jews. Only around 100 of the 15,000 innocent people who passed through this transit camp survived. Ela Stein Weissberger, deported at the age of 11, is one of the few survivors. In Hans Krása's opera Brundibár (The Bumblebee) performed at the camp, she played the role of the Cat, the rebellious animal who attacks the mustached monster in the hope of winning the war! Her poignant testimony gives voice once again to the courageous, hopeful children who left 4,500 drawings, diaries and poems at Terezín. Like an internal road movie, the author offers a parallel narrative—she looks back on her own family history, her search for Ela, her anecdotes from the shooting of a documentary film, and she speaks up for all children targeted by hatred. Writer, journalist, director and stage director, Henriette Chardak has written biographies of Kepler, Pythagoras, Leonardo da Vinci... and an investigation into the health effects of sweeteners (Le light c'est du lourd, Max Milo, 2018).

This book views late Victorian femininity, the New Woman, and gender through literary representations of the figure of the monster, an appendage to the New Woman. The monster, an aberrant occurrence, performs Brecht’s “alienation effect,” making strange the world that she inhabits, thereby drawing veiled conclusions about the New Woman and gender at the end of the fin-de-siècle. The monster reveals that New Women loved one another complexly, not just as “friend” or “lover,” but both “friend” and “lover.” The monster, like the fin-de-siècle British populace, mocked the New Woman’s modernity. She was paradoxically viewed as a threat to society and as a role model for women to follow. The tragic suicides of “monstrous” New Women of color suggest that many fin-de-siècle authors, especially female authors, thought that these women should be included in society, not banished to its limits. This book, the first on the relationship between the figure of the monster and the New Woman, argues that there is hidden complexity to the New Woman. Her sexuality was complicated and could move between categories of sexuality and friendship for late Victorian women, and the way that the fin-de-siècle populace viewed her was just as multifarious. Further, the narratives of her tragedies ironically became narratives that advocated for her survival.

From vampires and demons to ghosts and zombies, interest in monsters in literature, film, and popular culture has never been stronger. This concise Encyclopedia provides scholars and students with a comprehensive and authoritative A-Z of monsters throughout the ages. It is the first major reference book on monsters for the scholarly market. Over 200 entries written by experts in the field are accompanied by an overview introduction by the editor. Generic entries such as 'ghost' and 'vampire' are cross-listed with important specific manifestations of that monster. In addition to monsters appearing in English-language literature and film, the Encyclopedia also includes significant monsters in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, African and Middle Eastern traditions. Alphabetically organized, the entries each feature suggestions for further reading. The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters is an invaluable resource for all students and scholars and an essential addition to library reference shelves.