Elliott-Smith - Queer horror film and television: sexuality and masculinity at the margins

Darren Elliott-Smith is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Hertfordshire. His research focuses on queerness, gender and the body in horror film and television. He completed his PhD at Royal Holloway.

Darren Elliot-Smiths well researched volume takes horror cinemas long held interest in the sexual Other as its starting point, before fully exploring how the concept of queer horror has moved from subtext to centre stage in a range of mainstream and indie film and TV representations. By drawing on relevant film studies, queer theory and psychoanalytic methodologies, Queer Horror Film and Television remains a rigorous study of the changing status of sexuality in the genre. Equally, by drawing in a wide selection of case-studies from body horror classics such as Carrie and experimental film traditions, to more recent Gaysploitation slasher film parodies and cult TV hits such as American Horror Story, this volume will appeal to scholars, students and fans alike.

Xavier Mendik, Professor of Cult Cinema Studies, Birmingham City University

Queer readings of horror films have been around since the camp excesses of James Whales The Bride of Frankenstein but Elliot-Smith takes the study of Queer Horror in startling new directions, stepping beyond the metaphor and into a world where horror is overtly used as a creative means of questioning, expressing, and exploring queer sexuality in the twenty-first century. Rigorously researched and offering rich textual and cultural analysis of a diverse, and eye-opening, range of horror films and TV series, this book offers a transformative understanding of horror.

Stacey Abbott, Reader in Film and Television Studies, Roehampton University and author of Celluloid Vampires (2007) and Undead Apocalypse (forthcoming)

Library of Gender and Popular Culture

From Mad Men to gaming culture, performance art to steam-punk fashion, the presentation and representation of gender continues to saturate popular media. This new series seeks to explore the intersection of gender and popular culture engaging with a variety of texts drawn primarily from Art, fashion TV, Cinema, Cultural Studies and Media Studies as a way of considering various models for understanding the complimentary relationship between gender identities and popular culture. By considering race, ethnicity, class, and sexual identities across a range of cultural forms, each book in the series will adopt a critical stance towards issues surrounding the development of gender identities and popular and mass cultural products.

For further information or enquiries, please contact the library series editors:

Claire Nally: claire.nally@northumbria.ac.uk

Angela Smith: angela.smith@sunderland.ac.uk

Advisory Board:

Dr Kate Ames, Central Queensland University, Australia

Prof Leslie Heywood, Binghampton University, USA

Dr Michael Higgins, Strathclyde University, UK

Prof sa Kroon, rebro University, Sweden

Dr Niall Richardson, Sussex University, UK

Dr Jacki Willson, Central St Martins, University of Arts London, UK

Published and forthcoming titles:

Ageing Femininity on Film: The Older Woman in Contemporary Cinema

Niall Richardson

All-American TV Crime Drama: Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Gender and Citizenship

Lisa Cuklanz and Sujata Moorti

Beyonc, Feminism and Popular Culture

Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs

Female Bodies and Performance in Film: Queer Encounters with Embodiment and Affect

Katharina Lindner

Framing the Single Mother: Gender, Politics and Family Values in Contemporary Popular Cinema

Louise Fitzgerald

Gay Pornography: Representations of Sexuality and Masculinity

John Mercer

Gender and Economics in Popular Culture: Femininity, Masculinity and Austerity in Film and TV

Helen Davies and Claire OCallaghan (Eds)

The Gendered Motorcycle: Representations in Society, Media and Popular Culture

Esperanza Miyake

Gendering History on Screen: Women Filmmakers and Historical Films

Julia Erhart

Girls Like This, Boys Like That: The Reproduction of Gender in Contemporary Youth Cultures

Victoria Cann

Love Wars: Television Romantic Comedy

Mary Irwin

Masculinity in Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema : Cyborgs, Troopers and Other Men of the Future

Marianne Kac-Vergne

Paradoxical Pleasures: Female Submission in Popular and Erotic Fiction

Anna Watz

Positive Images: Gay Men and HIV/AIDS in the Popular Culture of Post-Crisis

Dion Kagan

Queer Horror Film and Television: Sexuality and Masculinity at the Margins

Darren Elliott-Smith

Queer Sexualities in Early Film: Cinema and Male-Male Intimacy

Shane Brown

Shaping Gym Cultures: Body Image and Social Media

Nicholas Chare

Steampunk: Gender and the Neo-Victorian

Claire Nally

Television Comedy and Femininity: Queering Gender

Rosie White

Television, Technology and Gender: New Platforms and New Audiences

Sarah Arnold

Tweenhood: Femininity and Celebrity in Tween Popular Culture

Melanie Kennedy

Queer Horror
Film and
TELEVISION

Sexuality and Masculinity at the Margins

Darren Elliott-Smith

Contents

A work of this length owes a debt of gratitude to many people. Firstly, thanks to Mandy Merck, for her support, her exemplary knowledge in the field, her support of my academic career, and for her ability to challenge me at every turn. I am also very indebted to those in my wider academic support network. These include Alison Peirse, Ruth ODonnell and Stacey Abbott, who all have offered much help, moral support, inspiration and good advice along the way.

Of vital importance to this study are those filmmakers and artists who have been kind enough to grant permission to reference their works and, in many cases, offer up their time in interviews to allow for invaluable insights into their creative thought-processes. These include Charles Lum, David Cerda, David DeCoteau, Bruce LaBruce, Jurgen Brning, Jason Paul Collum, Sean Abley, Paul Etheredge, Alan Rowe Kelly, Tony Vaguely, and Erik Jackson.