ABSTRACT

Characterized as it is by its interest in and engagement with the supernatural, psycho-social formations, the gothic, and issues of identity and subjectivity, horror has long functioned as an allegorical device for interrogations into the seamier side of cultural foundations. This collection, therefore, explores both the cultural landscape of this recent phenomenon and the reasons for these television series’ wide appeal, focusing on televisual aesthetics, technological novelties, the role of adaptation and seriality, questions of gender, identity and subjectivity, and the ways in which the shows’ themes comment on the culture that consumes them. Featuring new work by many of the field’s leading scholars, this collection offers innovative readings and rigorous theoretical analyses of some of our most significant contemporary texts in the genre of Horror Television.

chapter |15 pages

Introduction

Binging on Horror

chapter 1|13 pages

Pigeons from Hell

Anthology Horror on American Television in the 1950s and 1960s

chapter 2|16 pages

“Where It Belongs”

Television Horror, Domesticity, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents

chapter 3|17 pages

The Thing “Chants Out Between Two Worlds”

Surreal Latency in the Twin Peaks Universe

chapter 4|14 pages

“If I Could Have Feelings at All, I’d Have Them for Deb”

Love, Law, and Loss in Showtime’s Dexter

chapter 6|14 pages

“The World Is Changing Again”

Bodies, Interpretation, and the Monotony of the Drive in The Walking Dead

chapter 7|16 pages

Family Ties and Maternal Things

Bates Motel as Family Romance for the Post-Oedipal Era

chapter 8|15 pages

Masters of Mise-En-Scène

The Stylistic Excess of Hannibal

chapter 11|15 pages

Slashing through the Bonds of Blood

Queer Family and Scream: The TV Series

chapter 12|11 pages

Resurrection

Ash vs Evil Dead, Network Television, and the Cult Horror Film Revival

chapter 13|15 pages

“Welcome to the Upside Down”

Nostalgia and Cultural Fears in Stranger Things