I have just become aware of an interesting looking book by Lorna Jowett and Stacey Abbott titled TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen (I.B. Tauris, 2013).

From the description at Amazon.com:

Horror is a universally popular, pervasive TV genre, with shows like True Blood, Being Human, The Walking Dead and American Horror Story making a bloody splash across our television screens. This complete, utterly accessible, sometimes scary new book is the definitive work on TV horror. It shows how this most adaptable of genres has continued to be a part of the broadcast landscape, unsettling audiences and pushing the boundaries of acceptability.The authors demonstrate how TV Horror continues to provoke and terrify audiences by bringing the monstrous and the supernatural into the home, whether through adaptations of Stephen King and classic horror novels, or by reworking the gothic and surrealism in Twin Peaks and Carnivale. They uncover horror in mainstream television from procedural dramas to children’s television and, through close analysis of landmark TV auteurs including Rod Serling, Nigel Kneale, Dan Curtis and Stephen Moffat, together with case studies of such shows as Dark Shadows, Dexter, Pushing Daisies, Torchwood, and Supernatural, they explore its evolution on television. This book is a must-have for those studying TV Genre as well as for anyone with a taste for the gruesome and the macabre.

And a discussion from University of Roehampton where Dr. Abbott teaches:

The aim of the book is to demonstrate how the horror genre, perceived by some to be incompatible with television, has always had a place on our TV screens, from Quatermass and Boris Karloff’s Thriller in the 1950s and 1960s to 21st Century shows such as Dexter, True Blood and The Walking Dead.

The book also examines how the often contradictory relationship between horror and television has been fueled by changes within the broadcast landscape, and how the genre has repeatedly been re-imaged to suit our understanding of television, while continuing to unsettle audiences and push the boundaries of acceptability.

Jane Espenson, leading writer and producer of acclaimed horror, fantasy and sci fi television series, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time and the online series Husbands, describes the book as a ‘thorough, thoughtful and entertaining look at horror on television, deserv[ing] to be devoured by writers, analysts and fans. You will definitely find something in here to make your pulse jump and your eyes open wide.’

Since completing the book, Stacey, who is a Reader in Film and Television Studies, remains fascinated by TV Horror, a genre that seems more present today than ever before, and this topic remains the focus of much of her research, as evidenced by her recent blogs on TV Horror, The Walking Dead and Fringe for Critical Studies in Television Online.

Abbott and Jowett are also reuniting to co-organise, with Mike Starr of the University of Northampton, a conference on the televisual vampire. TV Fangdom: A Conference on Television Vampires will took place on 7-8 June 2013 at the University of Northampton.