Ghosts and Vampires - anywhere but here!

Posted yesterday that ghost (and vampire) stories seem a little more Old World, less American - and a sequence of three early-20th century stories in "American Fantastic Tales" (Library of America) bears this out (I know I'm generalizing from a small sample): three stories set in Iceland, remote part of Italy, Africa. It's as if the exotic setting were necessary to make the ghost or vampire story credible: these things happen elsewhere, not here in America. Why is that? Is there something about ghosts and vampires that seems intrinsically antidemocratic, linked to old notions of social class and the linkage of church and state? Later in the 20th century, of course, ghosts and vampires were well integrated into American popular literature (and film); as noted in previous post, Stephen King led the way in showing how horror can be much more frightening in an unexpected setting, just as Hitchcock showed that an open space (a cornfield) can be a scarier place that a dark alley. Each of these foreign-setting ghost stories is quite good, by the way - I could picture any of them as a good short film or even a feature. The African-set story, about African magic/witch doctors, owes an obvious debt to Conrad: his method of narration, a bunch of old gents gathered in a club, or on ship deck, or wherever, and one launches into a long that he claims hardly to believe himself - the frame builds credibility for the story. An Ambrose Bierce story is also quite good, and shows some imaginative narrative technique, three sections, each for the POV of a different character - it's not exactly Rashomon, but you need all three sections to comprehend the full story.