Kristopher Karl Woofter – författare

Although ostensibly presented as “light entertainment,” the work of writer-director-producer Joss Whedon takes much dark inspiration from the horror genre to create a unique aesthetic and perform a cultural critique. Featuring monsters, the undead, as well as drawing upon folklore and fairy tales, his many productions both celebrate and masterfully repurpose the traditions of horror for their own means. Woofter and Jowett’s collection looks at how Whedon revisits existing feminist tropes in the ‘70s and ‘80s “slasher” craze via Buffy the Vampire Slayer to create a feminist saga; the innovative use of silent cinema tropes to produce a new fear-laden, film-television intertext; postmodernist reflexivity in Cabin in the Woods; as well as exploring new concepts on “cosmic dread” and the sublime for a richer understanding of programmes Dollhouse and Firefly. Chapters provide the historical context of horror as well as the particular production backgrounds that by turns support, constrain or transform this mode of filmmaking. Informed by a wide range of theory from within philosophy, film studies, queer studies, psychoanalysis, feminism and other fields, the expert contributions to this volume prove the enduring relevance of Whedon’s genre-based universe to the study of film, television, popular culture and beyond.

Mourning in America is a critical examination of what could be considered the midpoint (and perhaps high-point) in the prevalence of the horror anthology format on television: the 1980s. Anthology television series span through different genres, and present a different story and a different set of characters in each episode or season. Despite their 'lowbrow' pedigree as products of a maligned genre in an equally maligned medium, 80's anthology horror series drew equally upon the literary horror tale’s studies of psychological obsession and the vicious morality tales of 'Pulp' subgenres to reveal an American landscape of excessive greed, alienation, and antipathy. Focusing on key programs of the era such as Cliffhangers (1979), Darkroom (1981-82), Tales from the Darkside (1983-88), The Ray Bradbury Theatre (1985-92), Friday the 13th: The Series (1987-90), and the reboots of The Twilight Zone (1985-87) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985-89), Kristopher Woofter and Erin Giannini highlight the persistent subversive themes and production realities of American televisual horror during a period of extreme American exceptionalism, conservatism, xenophobia, and isolationism that parallels the current American political landscape. In doing so, they assert that the undervalued and under-studied Pulp tradition on TV subverted America’s sacrosanct vision of itself.