' Then the reworking or transformation of these motifs, especially the monster motif, in contemporary ' postmodern ' horror films like Hitchcock' s Psycho (1960) and Jonathan Demme' s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) will be discussed. First, the traditional, 19th-century literary-Gothic motifs (excess, monstrosity, transgression, and uncanny doubling) will be explored in the light of such psychoanalytic concepts as the uncanny, extimacy, and the ' subject-beyond-subjectivization. This essay looks at ' horror ' both as a narrative (literary and especially cinematic) genre and as a trans-genre, postmodern social and cultural milieu, one in which horror has become entangled with excessive, pathological fantasy and enjoyment. What do they reveal about us culturally, individually, as a community? What can we learn from them? This volume on monsters and monstrosity in 21st-century film and television sets the stage for future scholarship and asks us to consider how the monsters we know, love, and sometimes fear manage to reinvent themselves, slowly saturating popular culture with every new iteration.

In its entirety, this volume endeavors to examine how 21st-century media presents and contends with the body and mind of the monster. However, the notable shifts in how we engage monsters and monstrosity feature heavily in this text. This volume contains discussions and dissections of monsters across multiple media and geographical origins. The inherent mutability of the monster provides us with endless opportunities to reimagine, reenvision, and reencounter these creatures. In others, we bond over mutual desire to see it conquered, vanquished. In certain cases, we love to love the monster. With the undeniable proliferation of monsters across all platforms of media, how can we still question the cultural impact of the monster? Though we have left belief in the supernatural and “realness” of monsters in the past, we continue to craft monstrous narratives which delve into the depths of the human subconscious.

Monsters of the 21st century