Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which are in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length ... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society.
Vampire literature covers the spectrum of literary work concerned principally with the subject of vampires. The literary vampire first appeared in 18th-century poetry, before becoming one of the stock figures of gothic fiction with the publication of Polidori's The Vampyre (1819), which was inspired by the life and legend of Lord Byron. Later influential works include the penny dreadful Varney the Vampire (1847); Sheridan Le Fanu's tale of a lesbian vampire, Carmilla (1872), and the most well known: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). Some authors created a more "sympathetic vampire", with Varney being the first, and more recent examples such as Moto Hagio's series The Poe Clan (1972–1976) and Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire (1976) proving influential.
Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is a British film production company based in London. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic horror and fantasy films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Many of these involve classic horror characters such as Baron Victor Frankenstein, Count Dracula, and the Mummy, which Hammer reintroduced to audiences by filming them in vivid colour for the first time. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies, as well as, in later years, television series.
Kim James Newman is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. He is interested in film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternative history. He has won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award and the BSFA award.
Sam Youd was a British writer best known for science fiction written under the name of John Christopher, including the novels The Death of Grass, The Possessors, and the young-adult novel series The Tripods. He won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1971 and the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1976.
The Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman—named after Anno Dracula, the series' first novel—is a work of fantasy depicting an alternate history in which the heroes of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula fail to stop Count Dracula's conquest of Britain, resulting in a world where vampires are common and increasingly dominant in society. While Dracula is a central figure in the events of the series, he is a minor character in the books and usually appears in only a few climactic pages of each book. While many of the characters from Newman's Diogenes Club stories appear in the Anno Dracula novels, they are not the same as the ones in those stories, nor is the Diogenes Club itself the same.
Professor Abraham Van Helsing is a fictional character from the 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula written by Bram Stoker. Van Helsing is a Dutch polymath doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "MD, D.Ph., D.Litt., etc.", indicating a wealth of experience, education and expertise. He is a doctor, professor, lawyer, philosopher, scientist, and metaphysician. The character is best known through many adaptations of the story as a vampire slayer, monster hunter and the arch-nemesis of Count Dracula, and the prototypical and the archetypal parapsychologist in subsequent works of paranormal fiction. Some later works tell new stories about Van Helsing, while others, such as Dracula (2020) and I Woke Up a Vampire (2023) have characters that are his descendants.
I Was a Teenage Werewolf is a 1957 American science fiction horror film directed by Gene Fowler Jr., and starring Michael Landon as a troubled teenager, Yvonne Lime and Whit Bissell. Co-written and produced by cult film producer Herman Cohen, it was one of the most successful films released by American International Pictures (AIP).
Michael C. Lawrence is an English writer for children and young adults. His work most widely held in WorldCat libraries is the 2003 novel A Crack in the Line, first in a trilogy called The Aldous Lexicon, or Withern Rise in the United States. Much of the Jiggy McCue series of sixteen books is widely held in participating libraries. His only known website active in 2022 is that of the graphics artist McLaw.
Monster Force is a 13-episode animated television series created in April 9, 1994 by Universal Cartoon Studios and Canadian studio Lacewood Productions. The story is set in approximately 2020 and centers on a group of teenagers who, with help of high tech weaponry, fight off against classic Universal Monsters and spiritual beings threatening humanity. Some of the crew have personal vendettas, while others fight for mankind out of a sense of altruism. The series aired in syndication alongside another Universal animated series, Exosquad. Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the first seven episodes to DVD on September 15, 2009.
Vampires are frequently represented in popular culture across various forms of media, including appearances in ballet, films, literature, music, opera, theatre, paintings, and video games.
LGBTQ themes in horror fiction refers to sexuality in horror fiction that can often focus on LGBTQ+ characters and themes within various forms of media. It may deal with characters who are coded as or who are openly LGBTQ+, or it may deal with themes or plots that are specific to gender and sexual minorities.
Dracula is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is based on the vampire Count Dracula from the novel of the same name by author Bram Stoker. After the initial run of the series The Tomb of Dracula, the character has been depicted primarily as an antagonist to superheroes in the Marvel Universe.
Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, and the famous character of Frankenstein's monster, have influenced popular culture for at least a century. The work has inspired numerous films, television programs, video games and derivative works. The character of the Monster remains one of the most recognized icons in horror fiction.
Young Dracula is a British children's horror drama comedy television series which aired on CBBC, loosely based on Young Dracula, a 2002 children's book by Michael Lawrence. It is also based on the epistolary novel Dracula, written by Bram Stoker and published in 1897.
The character of Count Dracula from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, has remained popular over the years, and many forms of media have adopted the character in various forms. In their book Dracula in Visual Media, authors John Edgar Browning and Caroline Joan S. Picart declared that no other horror character or vampire has been emulated more times than Count Dracula. Most variations of Dracula across film, comics, television and documentaries predominantly explore the character of Dracula as he was first portrayed in film, with only a few adapting Stoker's original narrative more closely. These including borrowing the look of Count Dracula in both the Universal's series of Dracula and Hammer's series of Dracula, including the character's clothing, mannerisms, physical features, hair style and his motivations such as wanting to be in a home away from Europe.
Donald F. Glut is an American writer, motion picture film director, and screenwriter. He is best known for writing the novelization of the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back.
Lawrence StewartTalbot, also known as the Wolf Man, is a title character of the 1941 Universal film The Wolf Man and its sequels, created by Curt Siodmak. He was portrayed by Lon Chaney Jr. In the 2010 remake of the film, he is portrayed by Benicio del Toro. The Wolf Man was part of the Universal Monsters ensemble.
Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1946–1987 is a nonfiction book written by David Pringle, published by Grafton Books in 1988 in the United Kingdom and the following year by Peter Bedrick Books in the United States. The foreword is by Brian W. Aldiss.
This is complete list of works by American science fiction and fantasy author Fred Saberhagen.
