The successful return of horror to our television screens in the post-millennial years, and across a multi-media range of platforms, demonstrates that this previously moribund genre is once again vibrant, challenging and long-lasting. The traditional TV audience of the past would have watched very few horror TV shows, because not many were made. But that has changed. Programme makers have tapped into their public's insatiable need - in these days of terrorism, violence and mayhem - to provide programmes that have high production values, engaging storylines, and plenty of frights and gore.
Horror TV offers a safety-valve for its audience, one that enables them to enter into it from the safety of their armchairs. The era of instant access, streaming, downloading and binge-watching whole seasons over a weekend, where fandom has blossomed into a cultural force, clearly shows horror as a vital part of today's TV scheduling.
This edited collection investigates the rising popularity of horror-television through deconstructing the gender roles within them via series of case studies including such programmes as Hannibal, American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, Penny Dreadful, Supernatural, The Exorcist and Bates Motel. By using a series of case studies and employing theoretical modes of close analysis, each chapter demonstrates how and why these TV shows are important in reflecting the changing gender roles within modern society.
Introduction; Steven Gerrard
Part One: The Monstrous Feminine
1. 'She's that kind of a woman': Tracing the gender and sexual politics of the female vampire via The Hunger and American Horror Story: Hotel; Chloe Benson
2. 'Is this a chick thing now?': The feminism of Z NATION between Quality and Trash TV; Nadine Dannenberg
3. Weeping Angels: Doctor Who's (De)Monstrous Feminine; Khara Lukancic
4. The Representation of Older Women in Twenty-First Century Horror: An Analysis of Characters Played by Jessica Lange in American Horror Story; Natasha Parcei
5. 'She was not like I thought': The Woman as a Strange Being in Masters of Horror; Erika Moreno Tiburcio
6. The Monster Within: Lily in Penny Dreadful; Kylie Boon
7. Final Girls and Female Serial Killers: A Review of the Slasher Television Series from a Gender Perspective; Víctor Hernández-Santaolalla
Part Two: The Monstrous Masculine
8. 'Is Hannibal in love with me?' Gender changes in the Television series Hannibal; Clare Smith
9. 'I'm pissed off, and I'm angry, and we need your permission to kill someone': Frustrated Masculinities in Charlie Brooker's Dead Set; Lauren Stephenson
10. The Problematic Relationship with Sympathetic Vampires in the TV series The Vampire Diaries; Fernando Canet
11. So Many Chick Flick Moments: Dean Winchester's Centrifugal Evolution; Susan Cosby Ronnenberg
Part Three: The Monstrous Other
12. Depictions of Gender, Homes and Families in the TV version of The Exorcist; Samantha Holland
13. How iZombie Rethinks the Zombie Paradigm; Dahlia Schweitzer
14. Damaged Survivors in the Walking Dead. Gender and the Narrative Arcs of Carol and Daryl as Protectors and Nurturers; Marta F. Suarez
15. 'Some normal apple-pie life': Gendering Home in Supernatural; Jessica George
16. Female Audiences' Reception of American Horror Story in Greece; Despina Chronaki and Liza Tsaliki
17. 'Mother, I've really had enough of this! You can't just leave me alone in this abyss where I can't find you!' Norman/Norma and Bates Motel; Steven Gerrard
Conclusion; Steven Gerrard
