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 spectres 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, the book reveals how legends build cultural memory, police social boundaries and critique neoliberal landscapes. Interdisciplinary, globally-scoped and media-agnostic, this volume moves beyond folkloric catalogues and genre surveys to show precisely where horror lives today – and why those locations matter.