TV Horror: Investigating the Darker Side of the Small Screen (Investigating Cult TV Series) - Tapa dura

From Twin Peaks to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Dark Shadows to The Simpsons, check the index with the lights on, because your favorite show is probably lurking in here somewhere. This thorough, thoughtful and entertaining look at horror on television deserves to be devoured by writers, analysts and fans. You will definitely find something in here to make your pulse jump and your eyes open wide.' Jane Espenson, writer/producer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time. 'Alert to horror's histories and hybridities on TV, Lorna Jowett and Stacey Abbott cast a forensic gaze over this previously dark continent. From aesthetics to "kitchen sink gothic" to monster fans, TV Horror bristles with brilliant ideas and analyses a wealth of examples. Then: horror on TV was often dismissed as all sizzle and no steak. Now: challenging old debates over authenticity, Jowett and Abbott prove themselves to be the new (scholarly) masters of horror.' Matt Hills, author of The Pleasures of Horror and Triumph of a Time Lord.

Horror is one of the most pervasive of contemporary TV genres with shows like True Blood, Being Human, The Walking Dead and American Horror Story making a bloody splash across our television screens. Yet not too long ago critics and horror writers claimed that television and horror were incompatible bedfellows. TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen explores the often contradictory relationship between horror and television and shows how this most adaptable genre has continued to be a part of the broadcast landscape, unsettling audiences and pushing the boundaries of acceptability. Lorna Jowett and Stacey Abbott demonstrate how TV horror continues to provoke and terrify audiences by bringing the monstrous and the supernatural into the home, whether through adaptations of Stephen King and classic horror novels, or by reworking the gothic and surrealism in Twin Peaks and Carnivale. They uncover the omnipresence of horror in mainstream television from procedural dramas to children's television and, through close analysis of landmark TV auteurs including Rod Serling, Nigel Kneale, Dan Curtis and Steven Moffat, as well as case studies of Dark Shadows, Dexter, The League of Gentlemen, Pushing Daisies, Torchwood, and Supernatural. They expand debates about the nature of horror by exploring its evolution on television. The historical breadth of the discussion, alongside detailed analysis of an exciting and diverse selection of television series, makes this book a must-have for those studying TV genre, as well as for anyone with a taste for the gruesome and the macabre.