Creatures of the Night: In Search of Ghosts, Vampires, Werewolves and Demons

221 Pages·2012·10.44 MB·English

by  Gregory L. Reece

Gregory L. Reece is an independent Alabama-based writer and scholar
with special interests in new religious movements and cult beliefs. His
previous books include Elvis Religion: The Cult of the King (2006), UFO
Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Cultures (2007) and Weird Science
and Bizarre Beliefs (2008), all published by I.B.Tauris.
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Creatures of the Night
In Search of Ghosts, Vampires,
Werewolves and Demons
Gregory L. Reece
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Published in 2012 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © 2012 Gregory L. Reece
The right of Gregory L. Reece to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part
thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978 1 84885 385 0
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset in Caslon by JCS Publishing Services Ltd, www.jcs-publishing.co.uk
Printed and bound in Sweden by ScandBook AB
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Oz the Great and Terrible 1
1 The Holy Ghost and Fire 23
2 It Was a Dark and Stormy Night 55
3 Oh Grandmother, What Big Teeth You Have! 97
4 This Little Piggy 127
5 Speak of the Devil 155
Conclusion: Out of the Whirlwind 189
Bibliography 199
Index 203
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This book is for my parents
Henry Floyd Reece (1928–1989)
and
Mary Corinne Fain Reece (1931–2011)
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Illustrations
1 Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz
(1939) 2
2 Dorothy and the flying monkeys in Baum’s The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz 4
3 The cover of Ten Tales Calculated to Give You Shudders (1972) 7
4 Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times (1936) 8
5 A scene from Abel Gance’s J’Accuse! (1919) 10
6 Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera (1925) 11
7 Condie’s door at the University of Montevallo, Alabama 24
8 ‘Fairy Offering Posy of Harebells to Elsie’ (1917) 33
9 Medium Mary Ann Marshall materializes the likeness of Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle (1932) 35
10 The ‘Brown Lady’ of Raynham Hall, Norfolk, England (1936) 38
11 Poster for The House on Haunted Hill (1959) 46
12 Poster for The Legend of Hell House (1973) 47
13 Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1980) 48
14 Natasha Richardson and Gabriel Byrne in Ken Russell’s Gothic
(1986) 61
15 Vlad Tepes, Dracula, as depicted in a sixteenth-century
painting 74
16 Max Schreck as Count Orlok in Nosferatu: A Symphony of
Horror (1922) 76
17 Christopher Lee and Melissa Stribling in a publicity shot for
Dracula (1958) 77
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