TV
Horror:Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen
by
Lorna Jowett and Stacey Abbott
I.B.
Taurus
270
pages
Paperback
ISBN:
978148856189
By
Adrian Smith
Television
can easily be dismissed as being an unsuitable medium for the horror genre,
having to please the moral majority and unable to be as red in tooth and claw
as those horrific offerings on the silver screen. Jowett and Abbott's new book
does its best to prove this argument wrong, demonstrating that in many ways
television has been able to explore the darker recesses of horror in far more
depth than can be done in a single two hour movie. Shows such as The
Twilight Zone and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have embraced the
limitations of the small screen to present some truly chilling, unsettling moments.
Long-running shows like The X-Files were able to have story arcs that
lasted several seasons, building complex characters and even more complicated
plots.
Jowett
and Abbott draw on examples from both American and British television, looking
at the grotesque excesses of comedy shows like The League of Gentlemen
and Psychoville, both of which draw heavily on a tradition of film
horror. We seem to be in something of a golden age of television horror right
now, from the gothic influences evident in Doctor Who to the extreme
violence and gore of Dexter or Hemlock Grove. The authors are
able to identify a recent shift in production practise which has to some extent
fragmented audiences, such as the advent of cable television production in the
States, or internet streaming services like Netflix who now produce original
programming. This means that more shows can be available, but are perhaps seen
by smaller numbers of people.
Although
the tone is a little dry, the book is a fascinating and indepth look at TV horror,
a genre often considered inferior to it's cinematic older sibling in most
writing, and it has been fairly neglected in academic evaluation until now.
Some of the examples here will bring joy to fans of television as well as
chilling reminders of some of the more difficult and nostalgic shows, with Dark
Shadows, Twin Peaks, Stephen King's It, Kingdom Hospital,
The Outer Limits, Boris Karloff's Thriller, Night Gallery,
The Quatermass Experiment and Blood Ties all getting a thorough
analysis.
Ultimately
books such as this offer the reader two things: an insight into the minds of
the authors, and an attempt to tell us something about the audiences who
consume all this material. Unless it is an encyclopedia, a single investigation
into TV horror is not going to cover everything. As such TV Horror:
Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen could potentially leave
some readers disappointed that their favourite show does not get a mention, but
Jowett and Abbott have covered considerable ground here, proving that the genre
is ready for reassessment. The small screen has offered up some seriously scary
programmes over the last sixty years, putting the forbidden and the frightening
right in your living room as an assault on all that we hold dear. This book
will help to explain why we need it there.
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