British Horror Research Articles

The Symbolization of Violence Aesthetic and Cultural Integration in One Piece: A Case Study of the Thriller Bark Chapter

Postmodernism in the 20th century gradually developed "violence" into an artistic aesthetic, and due to different understandings of "violence" in various countries, it has spawned a variety of branches. In order to disseminate its works to audiences from different cultural backgrounds, One Piece combines Japanese indigenous violence aesthetics with the violent cultures of various cultures, making it a successful example of cross-cultural communication on a global scale. To understand the process of symbolic re-encoding of Japanese native violence aesthetics and British violence aesthetics in One Piece, as well as the way in which values are integrated, this study selects the Thriller Bark Chapter (episodes 337 to 380) in One Piece as a case for analysis. The study extracts references to British culture and Japanese native culture within the text as "cultural symbols," a unit of visual analysis, and further divides them into four major categories: natural symbols, artificial symbols, character symbols, and language symbols. Statistical analysis reveals that, due to the close relationship between British horror violence culture and the development of its Gothic literature, the author has incorporated a large number of Gothic cultural symbols in the Thriller Bark Chapter. Meanwhile, the work consistently upholds the fundamental principles of Japanese native culture while also revitalizing its own cultural identity.

Specters of Brexit in Recent British Horror

This article considers a new series of uncanny films by UK filmmakers for their connections with the classics of the “folk horror” series of the 1970s and for their implicit commentary on ecology, gender, and postcolonialism in the post-Brexit context. Critical attention focuses primarily on two films—Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men (2022) and Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter (2022)—with secondary emphasis on a new “cycle” or “mini-wave” of folklore-inflected horror films set in liminal British spaces, including Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth (2021), Charlotte Colbert’s She Will (2021), Lee Haven Jones’s The Feast (Welsh: Gwledd, 2021), and Alex Garland’s Men (2022).

Less Punk, More Splatter: Heavy Metal, Horror Video, and the Literary Nasties of Shaun Hutson

Less Punk, More Splatter: Heavy Metal, Horror Video, and the Literary Nasties of Shaun Hutson

The Hidden Work of Women: Commissioning and Development in British Television Drama

ABSTRACT The British horror television series Bedlam (2011–2012) was made by RED Productions and created and written by a trio of male screenwriters, David Allison, Neil Jones, and Chris Parker, with RED’s Richard Fee as Script Editor. However, this team was supported through the development process, from initial idea to final broadcast, almost exclusively, by women. Drawing on original interviews with practitioners, this article explores the creative contributions of the women working in commissioning and development roles on Bedlam, including Anne Mensah (Vice President of Content UK, Netflix), Caroline Hollick (Head of Drama, Channel 4), Nicola Shindler (Chief Executive, Quay Street Productions) and Claudia Rosencrantz (former Controller of Entertainment, ITV). This research illuminates the work of women who carry out a hidden labour of commissioning and development almost never recognised beyond the television industry itself.

Lindsey Decker, Transnationalism and Genre Hybridity in New British Horror Cinema

Lindsey Decker, <i>Transnationalism and Genre Hybridity in New British Horror Cinema</i>

Transnationalism and Genre Hybridity in New British Horror, Lindsey Decker (2021)

Review of: Transnationalism and Genre Hybridity in New British Horror, Lindsey Decker (2021) Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 270pp., ISBN: 9781786836984 (pbk), $57

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know? Hoodies in Contemporary British Horror Cinema

The late 2000s and early 2010s saw the rise of a new subgenre in British horror cinema now often referred to as hoodie horror. Government and media campaigns against antisocial behaviour or Broken Britain under Blair and Cameron’s premierships undoubtedly helped revive the stereotype of a rebellious and dangerous youth, also a great cinematic trope, which culminated with the summer riots of 2011. The enemy image of the hoodie thus gelled on and off screen around the powerful symbol of that garment. Because of the possibilities offered by genre films, the often claimed “feral” nature of these creatures is sometimes taken in a literal sense and young people from sink estates are presented as amoral and bloodthirsty monsters causing the general collapse of society. These gangs of predators appear to be fascinated by their own evil image that they proudly advertise through the use of social media. Hoodies are thus othered, but they also ironically reclaim that enemy image. Hoodie horror has sometimes been criticised because of its perceived conservative or even reactionary and/or racist overtones. Allegedly feeding on and fuelling moral panic, it may perpetuate clichés about a so-called new underclass, thereby further blurring the thin boundary between reality and fantasy for spectators. As a by-product of neoliberalism, it is deemed to depoliticise or deny the wider social context in order to better essentialise evil through the construction of a new folk devil. To a certain extent, this cycle of films does reinforce the horrific character of poor British youths, presenting them not only as culturally but also biologically different. However, this interpretation has to be mitigated. Many of these films play with the conventions of a subgenre inspired by several American models in order to somehow subvert and question the enemy image given to hoodies as they implicitly point to the society that generates, to better demonise, these new evil hordes. By putting the media and their effects into perspective, by looking at the other side i.e. the victims of hoodies (Middle England, “us”, spectators) and questioning their own values and attitudes, these films finally advocate sotto voce a discourse that is quite pessimistic but not as cynical and hostile towards these youths as expected. The worst enemy of the nation may be the excommunicators.

Sameness and difference in narrative modes and narrative sense making: The case of Ramsey Campbell’s “The Scar”

Abstract The article discusses basic questions of narrative studies and definitions of narrative from a historical and conceptual perspective in order to map the terrain between different narratologies. The focus is placed on the question of how fiction interacts with other realms of our lives or, more specifically, how reading fiction both involves and affects our everyday meaning making operations. British horror writer Ramsey Campbell’s (b. 1946) short story “The Scar” (1967) will be used as a test case to show how both narrative modes of representation and the reader’s narrative sense making operations may travel between art and the everyday, from fiction to life and back. We argue that the cognitively inspired narrative studies need to pair up with linguistically oriented narratology to gain the necessary semiotic sensitivity to the forms and modes of narrative sense making. Narratology, in turn, needs to explore in detail what it is in the narrative form that enables it to function as a tool for reaching out and making sense of the unfamiliar. In our view, reading fictional narratives such as “The Scar” can help in learning and adopting linguistic resources and story patterns from fiction to our everyday sense making efforts.

The Dark Side of British Horror Fiction: Politics, Taboos and Censorship

Nearly two and a half centuries have passed since the first British Gothic novels began to attract attention with their pages full of monstrous characters, excessive violence, explicit sexual content and all kinds of horrific scenes. For the most part, the reception of this type of literature has been very positive, though not exempt from controversies. This paper seeks to show how, beyond the alluring mystery, inventive plots and attraction of the dark side, British horror fiction appeals to the reader’s inner desires and imagination by means of transgressive political, religious or sexual contents that often defy taboos and social decorum. To illustrate this argument, three well-known authors and texts from three different periods will be discussed: Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk (1796), Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” (1872) and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962).

\u201cCycles upon cycles, stories upon stories\u201d: contemporary audio media and podcast horror\u2019s new frights

During the last ten years the ever-fertile horror and Gothic genres have birthed a new type of fright-fiction: podcast horror. Podcast horror is a narrative horror form based in audio media and the properties of sound. Despite association with oral ghost tales, radio drama, and movie and TV soundscapes, podcast horror remains academically overlooked. Podcasts offer fertile ground for the revitalization and evolution of such extant audio-horror traditions, yet they offer innovation too. Characterized by their pre-recorded nature, individualized listening times and formats, often “amateur” or non-corporate production, and isolation from an ongoing media stream more typical of radio or TV, podcasts potentialize the instigation of newer audio-horror methods and traits. Podcast horror shows vary greatly in form and content, from almost campfire-style oral tales, comprising listener-produced and performed content (Drabblecast; Tales to Terrify; NoSleep); to audio dramas reminiscent of radio’s Golden Era (Tales from Beyond the Pale; 19 Nocturne Boulevard); to dramas delivered in radio-broadcast style (Welcome to Night Vale; Ice Box Theatre); to, most recently, dramas, which are themselves acknowledging and exploratory of the podcast form (TANIS; The Black Tapes Podcast; Lime Town). Yet within this broad spectrum, sympathies and conventions arise which often not only explore and expand notions of Gothic sound, but which challenge broader existing horror and Gothic genre norms. This article thus demonstrates the extent to which podcast horror uses its audio form, technology and mediation to disrupt and evolve Gothic/horror fiction, not through a cumulative chronological formulation of podcast horror but through a maintained and alternately synthesized panorama of forms. Herein new aspects of generic narration, audience, narrative and aesthetic emerge. Exploring a broad spectrum of American and British horror podcasts, this article shows horror podcasting to utilize podcasting’s novel means of horror and Gothic distribution/consumption to create fresh, unique and potent horror forms. This article reveals plot details about some of the podcasts examined.

The Script, The Séance And The Censor: Writing Night Of The Demon (1957)

In his memoirs, screenwriter Charles Bennett reflects upon writing the British horror film Night of the Demon (1957, Jacques Tourneur). He reveals his lack of fondness for the film’s executive producer, commenting ‘Hal Chester, if he walked up my driveway right now, I’d shoot him dead’. Chester rewrote elements of Bennett’s script to focus attention on the fire demon, and arranged additional filming after Tourneur had completed directing duties. This much of Night of the Demon’s production history is well documented. However, drawing upon extensive research at BFI Special Collections and the BBFC, this article offers an alternative reading of the film. Focusing on creative process, I utilize draft screenplays, reader reports and letters to piece together how the original writer envisaged Night of the Demon and how various institutional pressures impacted upon the final script. Crucially, by examining the séance – the act two midpoint – I provide a revisionist account of the film, one that draws away from the now-standard discussion of whether Bennett and Tourneur knew the fire demon would be shown at the film’s beginning and end. Instead, this article is a consideration of the power of storytelling to generate fear.

Johnny Walker, Contemporary British Horror Cinema: Industry, Genre and Society

Johnny Walker, Contemporary British Horror Cinema: Industry, Genre and Society

Putting the Brit into Eurohorror: Exclusions and Exchanges in the History of European Horror Cinema

British horror cinema is often excluded from critical work dealing with European horror cinema or, as it is frequently referred to, Eurohorror. This article argues that such exclusion is unwarranted. From the 1950s onwards there have been many exchanges between British and continental European-based horror production. These have involved not just international co-production deals but also creative per- sonnel moving from country to country. In addition, British horror films have exerted influence on European horror cinema and vice versa. At the same time, the exclusion of British horror from the Eurohorror category reveals limitations in that category, particularly its idealisation of continental European horror production.

How to Write a Horror Film: The Awakening (2011) and Development Practices in the British Film Industry

This article reveals how screenwriter Stephen Volk‘s idea for a sequel to The Innocents (1961, Jack Clayton) became, over the course of fifteen years, the British horror film The Awakening (2011, Nick Murphy). It examines practitioner interviews to reflect on creative labour in the British film industry, while also reorientating the analysis of British horror film to the practices of pre-production, specifically development. The research reveals that female protagonist Florence Cathcart was a major problem for the project and demonstrates how the Florence character changed throughout the development process. Repeatedly rewritten and ultimately restrained by successive male personnel, her character reveals persistent, problematic perceptions of gender in British horror filmmaking.

Poetics of early Hammer horror films: a statistical style analysis

This paper investigates the construction of the first seven horror films produced by British film Studio, Hammer, in the years 1957–1960. It is a poetic study using statistical stylistic analysis. The Hammer films are compared with a control sample of seven independently produced British horror films from the same period. Each of the 14 films is analysed shot-by-shot and data recorded for a range of formal technical aspects, each considered to be ‘under the control of the director’: average shot length, shot size camera movement, shot angle. Inferences are then drawn from this data to address the problem: on a formal level, what constitutes a Hammer horror film?

The feminine appeal of British horror cinema

When Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964, Bryan Forbes) was set for release, cinema managers were advised that ‘feminine appeal’ was a strong angle for publicity, and the film went on to be a critical and commercial success. Yet, it is relatively unknown in existing academic histories of horror cinema. The female lead, spiritualist premise and psychological horror make it an uneasy bedfellow with existing accounts of 1960s British horror films, which focus on the sexualised colour-saturated violence of Hammer Studios and its associated offspring. This article reverses this trend by revealing a cycle of 1960s black-and-white British horror films whose primary textual address is to women, manifested through complex female characters, interiority and stories of motherhood, stillbirth and child murder. Utilising Mary Ann Doane's work on maternal melodrama, the article explores the parallels between this cycle and the woman's film, and draws upon reception analysis in order to consider how the critics responded to the female-centred films. It is suggested that not only have film historians failed to note that this cycle exists, but more importantly they have also failed to understand how frightening the films could be for a female audience.

The wonder of stories: An interview with British horror novelist Simon Clark

Abstract

The Seventeenth Century on Film: Patriarchy, Magistracy, and Witchcraft in British Horror Films, 1968-1971

Cet article soutient qu’une série de films faits entre 1968 et 1971 et dont l’action se déroule au dix-septième siècle, marque l’arrivée d’une transformation, non seulement du cadre typique du film d’horreur britannique, mais aussi de la façon dont est représentée l’autorité patriarcale dans les oeuvres d’horreur britanniques. Alors que les films à l’étude ont souvent été lus comme véhiculant et assurant la défense de différents courants de la contreculture, reflétant ainsi le mécontentement social typique des années soixante à travers le prisme déformant du dix-septième siècle, cet article endosse la position contraire. Il entend montrer que situer l’action des films au dix-septième siècle a permis aux réalisateurs de films d’horreur qui travaillaient pour la petite compagnie de production Tigon d’endosser à nouveau une forme de patriarcat que les studios Hammer, les plus gros d’Angleterre, remettaient en question.

A Wilderness of Horrors? British Horror Cinema in the New Millennium

In the concluding section of the first edition of English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema, Jonathan Rigby stated that ‘like all things, the British horror cinema emerged, flowered briefly, decayed and then died’ (2000: 245). Although a number of independently produced, lowbudget horror films, did emerge amid the success of Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Trainspotting (1996) and The Full Monty (1997), controversies surrounding the alleged Child’s Play 3 (1990)-inspired murder of James Bulger and the press furore sparked by the likes of Crash (1996) did not provide the most welcoming environment for indigenous horror production. As Steve Chibnall and Julian Petley have argued, no one in their right mind would have produced a British ‘video nasty’ equivalent at this time, ‘and just imagine what would happen were a film company to even suggest making a film about, say, Fred and Rosemary West . . . or the Bulger murder’ (2002: 7–8). Despite the premature publication of its obituaries, however, horror has become one of the most prolific British film genres of the twentyfirst century, with hundreds of films having been produced either in

‘Alien Nation’, Northumbria University, 20–21 July 2011

In July 2011, Northumbria University hosted the first major conference on British science fiction, horror and fantasy television, organised by James Leggott and Alison Peirse. Drawing delegates from beyond the UK– including presenters from Canada and South Korea – this two-day event encompassed 45 papers, three keynote speeches, a round-table discussion on definitions of British telefantasy and screening events involving creative personnel and bloggers. The spread of papers, which covered a broad range of subjects from music and authorship to adaptation and fandom, was in many ways representative of continuing and emerging areas of scholarship. The high number of presentations on contemporary programmes, from the unavoidable Doctor Who and its spin-offs (already analysed and anthologised in some detail) to as yet less discussed programmes such as Being Human, Outcasts and Lost in Austen, offered a clear acknowledgement of a recent renaissance in British telefantasy. Many of these papers engaged with the complex generic, cultural or transmedia contexts of these recent programmes; for example, Tom Phillips’ discussion of the online world of Psychoville, Faye Woods’ situation of Misfits within trends in British youth television and Catherine Spooner’s reading of The Mighty Boosh as a Goth comedy. Although there was occasional discussion of programmes from the 1980s and 1990s, such as the fondly remembered vampire drama Ultraviolet (discussed by Lorna Jowett), far more attention was given to output from the 1960s and 1970s, from canonical shows such as Space 1999 and Survivors to more obscure work such as the almost entirely forgotten dystopian drama 1990 (as analysed by Andrew Butler). A notable cluster of papers, across the twelve panels, dealt with