[ecrea] At home with horror? Terror on the small screen

There is just one week to the deadline for abstracts. We have received 
some wonderful abstracts, but there is still time to submit! *Deadline 
is **30th June*. ​

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/The Melodrama Research Group presents:/

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*At home with horror? Terror on the small screen*

27^th -28^th October 2017

University of Kent

*Keynote speaker: Dr Helen Wheatley (University of Warwick)*

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*CALL FOR PAPERS*

**

The recent horror output on TV and the small screen challenges what Matt 
Hills found to be the overriding assumption ‘that film is the [horror] 
genre’s ‘natural’ home' (Hills 2005, 111). Programmes such as /American 
Horror Story/, /Penny Dreadful/ and /The Walking Dead/ are aligned to 
‘‘quality TV’, yet use horror imagery and ideas to present a form and 
style of television that is ‘not ordinary’’ (Johnston 2016, 11). 
Developments in industrial practices and production technology have 
resulted in a more spectacular horror in the medium, which Hills argues 
is the ‘making cinematic’ of television drama (Hills 2010, 23). The 
generic hybridity of television programmes such as /Whitechapel/, and 
/Ripper Street/ allow conventions of the horror genre to be employed 
within the narrative and aesthetics, creating new possibilities for the 
animation of horror on the small screen. Series such as /Bates Motel/ 
and /Scream/ adapt cinematic horror to a serial format, positioning the 
small screen (including terrestrial, satellite and online formats) as 
the new home for horror.

The history of television and horror has often displayed a problematic 
relationship. As a medium that operates within a domestic setting, 
television has previously been viewed as incompatible with ‘authentic’ 
horror. Television has been approached as incapable of mobilizing the 
intense audience reactions associated with the genre and seen as a 
medium ‘restricted’ in its ability to scare and horrify audiences partly 
due to censorship constraints (Waller 1987) and scheduling arrangements. 
Such industrial practices have been seen as tempering the genre’s 
aesthetic agency resulting in inferior cinematic imitations or, 
‘degraded made-for-TV sequels’ (Waller 1987, 146). For Waller, the 
technology of television compounded the medium’s ability to animate 
horror and directed its initial move towards a more ‘restrained’ form of 
the genre such as adapting literary ghost stories and screening RKO 
productions of the 1940s (Ibid 1987). Inferior quality of colour and 
resolution provided the opportunity to suggest rather than show. Horror, 
then, has presented a challenge for television: how can the genre be 
positioned in such a family orientated and domesticated medium? As Hills 
explains, ‘In such a context, horror is conceptualised as a genre that 
calls for non- prime-time scheduling… and [thus] automatically excluded 
from attracting a mass audience despite the popularity of the genre in 
other media’ (Hills 2005, 118).

Helen Wheatley’s monograph, /Gothic Television/ (2006), challenges the 
approach of television as a limiting medium for horror, and instead 
focuses on how the domestic setting of the television set is key to its 
effectiveness. Focusing on the female Gothic as a domestic genre, 
Wheatley draws a lineage from early literary works, to the 1940s cycle 
of Gothic women films and Gothic television of the 1950s onwards. 
Wheatley argues for the significance of the domestic setting in 
experiencing stories of domestic anxiety for, ‘the aims of the Gothic 
drama made for television [are] to suggest a congruence between the 
domestic spaces on the screen and the domestic reception context’ 
(Wheatley 2006, 191).

Developments in small screen horror are not restricted to contemporary 
output. In his work on the cultural history of horror, Mark Jancovich 
argues that it was on television in the 1990s where key developments in 
the genre were taking place (Jancovich 2002). Taking Jancovich’s work as 
a cue, Hills develops his own approach to the significance of horror 
television of the 1990s. Hills cites /Buffy the Vampire Slayer/ and /The 
X Files/ as examples of programmes striving to mobilise the genre’s more 
graphic elements while existing as a ‘high-end’ cultural product: 
‘authored’ TV that targeted a niche fan audience (Hills 2005, 126).

Taking these recent developments into account, the aim of this 
conference is to engage with such advances. Can we say that it is on the 
small screen where critical and creative innovations in horror are now 
being made? How has the expansion of satellite television and online 
sites impacted the genre? How has the small screen format developed the 
possibilities of horror? Is the recent alignment with ‘quality TV’ 
evidence of horror’s new mainstream status? This conference will also 
reflect on seminal works on television horror and revisit the history of 
the genre. In addressing these questions the conference will underline 
the importance of the small screen for horror, within the study of the 
genre and of the medium, and ask: is the small screen now the home of 
horror?

Topics can include but are not limited to:

  * The seasons and horror on the small screen
  * Gothic television
  * Gender and horror
  * Historical figures and events in small screen horror
  * Small screen horror as an ‘event’
  * Adaptation from cinema to small screen ‘re-imaginings’
  * Production contexts
  * Censorship and the small screen
  * Serialisation and horror production
  * National television production of horror
  * The impact of Netflix and Amazon Prime
  * TV history and horror
  * Literary adaptations
  * Children’s TV and horror
  * Genre hybridity
  * Fandom
  * Teen horror
  * Stardom and horror

Please submit proposals of 400 words, along with a short biographical 
note (250 words) to (horrorishome /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(horrorishome /at/ gmail.com)>by *Friday 30th June*. We welcome 20 
minute conference papers as well as submissions for creative work or 
practice-as-research including, but not limited to, short films and 
video essays.

Conference organisers: Katerina Flint-Nicol and Ann-Marie Fleming

https://tvhomeofhorror.wordpress.com/

https://twitter.com/Homewithhorror


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