Horror Television in the Age of Consumption

Binging on Fear

Kimberly Jackson, Linda Belau, Kimberly Jackson, Linda Belau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351716277
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Storia e critica della televisione

Characterized as it is by its interest in and engagement with the supernatural, psycho-social formations, the gothic, and issues of identity and subjectivity, horror has long functioned as an allegorical device for interrogations into the seamier side of cultural foundations. This collection, therefore, explores both the cultural landscape of this recent phenomenon and the reasons for these television series' wide appeal, focusing on televisual aesthetics, technological novelties, the role of adaptation and seriality, questions of gender, identity and subjectivity, and the ways in which the shows' themes comment on the culture that consumes them. Featuring new work by many of the field's leading scholars, this collection offers innovative readings and rigorous theoretical analyses of some of our most significant contemporary texts in the genre of Horror Television.

1 Pigeons from Hell

Anthology Horror on American Television in the 1950s and 1960s

Peter Hutchings

Framing TV Horror

Lizzie Borden’s sister makes an unexpected appearance on television near the beginning of the horror film Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016). This is in the context of a film in which television is an important, if background and unobtrusive, feature that helps to establish both the film’s predominantly domestic milieu and its historical period. The film is set in 1967, so television news reports on the space program are apposite while also serving as a counterpoint to the increasingly claustrophobic supernatural drama playing out in the house that provides Ouija: Origin of Evil’s main location. The film’s invocation via television of Lizzie Borden, one of America’s most notorious alleged murderers, is different, however; it is clearly designed to be noticed in its own right. The brief sequence that we are shown depicts a female journalist confronting Lizzie Borden’s sister. It bears an obvious relevance to the film’s drama, which also turns on a murderous relationship between two sisters, albeit this time one mediated through the theme of supernatural possession. Because this sequence appears prior to the onset of the film’s horrifying events, it essentially functions as a generic portent of the horror to come (with one of the sisters, now possessed, later shown watching yet another sequence from the same story, this time featuring Lizzie Borden herself). While Ouija: Origin of Evil does not present the television as in itself a portal through which horror invades the house in the manner, say, of Poltergeist (1982), nevertheless television as a medium is here figured, if only briefly, as a site for and of potential horror.

Although it is not obvious from the film, the Borden sequences actually come from “The Older Sister,” a 1955 episode of the television anthology show Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962) (which continued until 1965 under the title The Alfred Hitchcock Hour). As we will see, this series occasionally presented horror-themed episodes, especially in its later stages, but “The Older Sister” is not one of these. Instead, this episode offers a low-intensity crime drama bereft of horror iconography in which Lizzie Borden’s sister is revealed as the perpetrator of the murders for which Lizzie Borden herself was tried (and eventually acquitted). Ouija: Origin of Evil’s appropriation of the episode thus entails a generic reframing of it, literally a reframing via a television screen framed within a cinema screen, to signify something that is horror-related. This is made easier by the fact that the story of Lizzie Borden sits comfortably both in the crime genre (with its central idea of the unsolved murders of Lizzie’s father and stepmother) and in the horror genre (with the excessive violence involved in the murders themselves). It is also made easier by the anthology format itself, which, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, tended to be more generically indeterminate than is sometimes acknowledged, with freestanding episodes within anthologies capable of being viewed and appreciated in terms of more than one genre.

This chapter engages with the anthology show as a key formative stage in the development of horror on American television from the mid-1950s through to the mid-1960s. As has been noted elsewhere, this is where horror on American television begins.¹ At the same time, the chapter acknowledges that in this period, there is no series which is specifically and exclusively horror-based. This applies even for what is often thought of now as the premier anthology horror show of the early 1960s, Thriller (1960–1962), which was hosted by venerable horror star Boris Karloff and which has been described by Stephen King as “probably the best horror series ever put on TV” (255). In his study of Thriller, Alan Warren also considers it as “the very model of a successful horror series” (25). Yet at the same time, he notes of the series that “although approximately half of its 67 episodes could be categorized as horror, an equal number were unmistakably crime orientated, leading to an inevitable quandary among viewers confused by the program’s apparently random alteration between two distinctly different genres” (5). For Warren, this produced a “near schizophrenic attitude toward subject matter” that potentially limited the series’ success with audiences (5).

If this were generic schizophrenia, the condition was widespread for other anthologies that mixed horror material with crime or stories from other genres. Most notable here was the aforementioned Alfred Hitchcock Presents, where horror episodes were decidedly in the minority in relation to crime narratives. However, a similar generic mix can be found in another Karloff-hosted series, The Veil (1958), which was abandoned during production and never broadcast at the time but which for its short existence oscillated between crime and horror, and Suspense (1949–1954), in which an indefatigable Karloff guest-starred on several occasions. One Step Beyond (1959–1961) was more consistent in its adherence to the supernatural as a theme, but its documentary-style approach limited opportunities for suspenseful and horrifying effects. An earlier science-fiction anthology, Tales of Tomorrow (1951–1953), featured adaptations of “Frankenstein” (1953) and, perhaps more surprisingly, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1953). By contrast, The Twilight Zone (1959–1964) and The Outer Limits (1963–1965), while sometimes viewed as series existing wholly or in part in relation to the horror genre, also functioned as science-fiction and as fantasy, with The Twilight Zone in particular managing to draw on other genres as well, among them war movies, westerns, and domestic melodramas.

One can add to this those anthology shows that had no overarching generic identity but which occasionally offered what today look like horror-based episodes. For example, the live daytime series NBC Matinee Theater (1955–1958) presented versions of “Dracula” (1956) and “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1956) alongside the witchcraft drama “Dark of the Moon” (1957). Similarly, the non-supernatural drama anthology Bus Stop (1961–1962) doubtless startled its audience with an unexpected diversion into supernatural drama with the disturbing ghost story “I Kiss Your Shadow” (1962).

The anthology format as it had developed on American television throughout the 1950s was driven, in part at least, precisely by a desire to produce variety in a manner that had the potential to destabilize clear generic designations. By the late 1950s, the association of the anthology with prestigious live drama, in effect plays-of-the-week of the kind produced for the likes of Studio One (1948–1958), had dissipated. However, a looseness and range in terms of the kinds of stories being told was carried over into anthology shows shot on film, some of them more obviously genre-based. It follows that horror as such did not exist as a distinctive and clearly delineated industrial or market category on American television of the 1950s and the first part of the 1960s. Put another way, horror existed on television in this period only in dispersed and fragmented forms. This does not mean that it was hidden or obscure, or that it was never recognizable to audiences in its various manifestations as horror, but it does suggest that it was present more tentatively and more provisionally than is sometimes supposed, embedded as it generally was in non-horror formats and contexts.

In their study of television horror, Lorna Jowett and Stacey Abbott have argued that it has often been the fate of horror on television, and not just in the 1950s and 1960s, to be undeniably present but also invisible or buried under other categories (23). While such a view seems reasonable in itself, it does raise the question of how precisely horror on television might be recognizable as horror rather than as something else. To give a specific instance, to what extent does an identification of horror on American television as a distinctive body of work in the 1950s and 1960s entail a retrospective reshaping of the material that reflects our current understanding of what horror is? Is there not a risk here of overstating the importance and centrality of horror in our desire to identify and characterize its nature and significance?

In an account of Gothic television, another category not used much by the television industry, Helen Wheatley defends the value of retrospective and critically driven accounts of genre:

none of this precludes us from discussing the Gothic as a recognizable and separate category of television fiction. As the example of film noir has shown within cinema studies, a genre may indeed be identified or generated through critical activity.

(2)

The slippage evident here between the identification of a cultural or generic category that presumably is in existence prior to critical engagement with it and the generation of a category achieved via that critical activity is potentially problematic, with horror in particular seemingly capable of falling into both of these realms. It is interesting in this regard that in their book on television horror, Jowett and Abbott label Thriller as straightforwardly horror when, as we have already seen, there are other ways of categorizing it (26). This post hoc placing of the series clearly reflects the fact that its status and influence is now overwhelmingly horror-based; in effect, Thriller has already been written into a broader generic history. Yet elsewhere, Jowett and Abbott display considerable sensitivity to historical and industrial designations of generic identity.

It is difficult to avoid “framing” a historical subject in some way or other. Sometimes the nature, distinctiveness, and importance of whatever it is that we are exploring only becomes evident in the light of what has happened subsequently. In the case of American television horror of the 1950s and the first part of the 1960s, we can now see elements within it that anticipate and contribute to later developments in the genre, with this only detectable retrospectively. At the same time, however, the qualities and characteristics of horror in this period are very much bound up with specific historical and industrial circumstances. The dispersal of horror across different programs is of particular importance in this regard, with no obvious center of horror production or core generic identity. This too has implications for an understanding of how horror-based stories are developed and function in these years. Consequently, what follows distinguishes between identifying the self-conscious ways in which program-makers fashioned their work on various anthology shows in relation to the models of horror available to them at the time, and a consideration of the broader significance and value of achievements in this period, while recognizing that these two elements are, in practice, not readily separable.

Generating Horror in the 1950s and 1960s Anthology Show

Radio drama provided a key antecedent to horror television, with radio horror shows such as The Hermit’s Cave (1930–1944), The Witch’s Tale (1931–1938), and Lights Out! (1934–1947) associating horror stories with an anthology format, developing the idea of the horror host who would frame horrifying events for listeners, and introducing notions of horror into the domestic setting of radio’s reception. As Matthew Killmeier has pointed out, what we now think of as horror radio shows often incorporated crime mysteries and other generic material as well in the manner of later television anthology shows. Killmeier goes on to suggest that a general emphasis on sensationalist narratives and effects served to underpin this ostensible generic impurity or hybridity.²

However, the main model of horror available to television program-makers during the 1950s and the first part of the 1960s was provided by horror cinema. Classic American horror films from the 1930s and 1940s were by the late 1950s a regular feature on late-night television, and from 1957 onwards, the British Hammer company revived in color and gory detail monster stories such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Mummy, with the likes of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror of Dracula (1958). What is interesting is how little horror episodes of American anthology shows drew upon this kind of material for inspiration. In part, this might reflect a medium-specific discomfort with some of the explicit horror imagery associated in particular with the Hammer product: as Jowett and Abbott note more generally of horror on television, “TV itself is assumed to be a mainstream medium that cannot sustain the graphic nature (visual or thematic) of horror’s subject matter” (23). For much the same reason, the very graphic American horror comics available in the first half of the 1950s had no influence whatsoever on television horror at this time. Yet, with a few minor exceptions (some of which have been mentioned above), television horror from this period rarely attempted even watered down or sanitized versions of vampires, werewolves, mummies, or Frankenstein’s monsters.

It does not follow that horror cinema bore no influence in this area, however. The presence of eminent horror star Boris Karloff both as a series host and as an actor in episodes across a range of anthologies made a direct and obvious connection with the horror film. (It is worth pointing out, though, that Karloff also starred in non-horror television series, for example, the British crime drama Colonel March of Scotland Yard (1956–1957); his presence alone did not automatically bestow horror status). In addition, some anthology episodes also picked up on narratives that had developed in cinema. For example, both Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone offered a series of episodes dealing with ventriloquism—“And So Died Riabouchinska” (1956) and “The Glass Eye” (1957) from Alfred Hitchcock Presents and “The Dummy” (1962) and “Caesar and Me” (1964) from The Twilight Zone. In their association of the subject with the mental instability of the ventriloquist, they all clearly owed something to the ventriloquist segment from the British horror film anthology, Dead of Night (1945). “The Glass Eye” brought an added level of grotesquery to the proceedings through revealing that the ventriloquist was actually the dummy, with a midget ventriloquist masquerading as a dummy, while “The Dummy” offered the disturbing spectacle of the dummy and the ventriloquist changing places in a quasi-supernatural manner. To this could be added expressive stylistic devices associated more with cinema than with television in this period. Examples include canted camera angles in “The Dummy,” the Twilight Zone’s “The Howling Man” (1960), and Thriller’s “Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook” (1961) to convey states of extreme mental disturbance, the use of subjective camerawork in Thriller’s “The Purple Room” (1960) and Alfred Hitchcock Present’s “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole” (1957), and atmospheric chiaroscuro lighting in numerous Thriller episodes.

At the same time, horror cinema could also be a negative influence, with television program-makers, with varying degrees of explicitness, distancing themselves from cinematic horror. This is most evident in “The Greatest Monster of them All” (1961) from Alfred Hitchcock Presents and “The Sign of Satan” (1964) from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, both of which take as their subject the production of a horror film. In the case of the former, an old horror star from the classic period is brought out of retirement to star in what turns out to be a tawdry and cynical low-budget horror movie; eventually the star goes mad and murders the director. Here the psychological realism of the drama taking place away from the movie set clearly trumps the silly, derivative form of genre product from which “The Greatest Monster of them All” wishes to distance itself.

The more ambitious “The Sign of Satan,” which stars real-life horror actor Christopher Lee, takes horror cinema more seriously. It begins with a shot of what looks like a sequence from the Italian Gothic horror films that were popular at the time—with graveyard settings, satanic sacrifices and copious dry-ice mist—before pulling back to reveal that this is a film being watched by some American filmmakers searching for a star for their planned horror film. In effect, this reverses the cinematic framing of television found in Ouija: Origin of Evil by having cinema itself here framed by television. This is carried through in the remainder of the drama, with an emphasis on showing those elements excluded from or marginal within Gothic horror cinema but central to this form of television genre drama, most particularly a psychological realism played out in relation to the quotidian settings of contemporary American life. However, the supernatural reasserts itself in the episode’s conclusion in which Christopher Lee’s character, by now murdered by a satanic cult, makes a spectral appearance on the film set during filming. What is striking about this is that it is revealed that the film camera failed to capture this appearance; instead, only the people on set and the television viewer witnessed it. As previously noted, television horror has often been presented as limited and inadequate in relation to cinematic horror, but here we have a neat reversal by which television shows more than cinema, not necessarily more gore or violence but more instead of something else.

More generally, an emphasis throug...