Overview

Catholic Horror on Television: Haunting Faith explores the significant intersection of horror media and the Catholic Church. Religious themes enjoy a long history in film and television, with narratives featuring the supernatural, science fiction, and horror making use of Roman Catholicism in particular. The horror genre frequently tells fantastic stories about the mysteries that we seek to understand, helping to come to terms with the destructive and the monstrous. This book analyzes the genre of Catholic horror in the current television and streaming media environment, exploring its treatment of physical mortality, the metaphysics of meaning, and morality. Catholic Horror on Television: Haunting Faith offers a fresh take on how television and streaming horror series critique, expand, and interrogate Catholicism and its place in the modern world. In doing so, this book contributes to conversations in several disciplines including media, cultural, television, and religious studies.

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9781666947663

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Reviews

"Catholic Horror on Television benefits from its authors' and editors' varied personal histories with Catholicism. Their essays have an emotional resonance that contextualizes and deepens readers' appreciation of the liturgical, ceremonial, and spiritual sources of horror in these television series. Catholic rituals and symbols suffuse our culture and have been deployed in film and television from their beginnings to explore the particular fears we have of both supernatural and human evils. This collection addresses an under-examined source of Catholic horror in art and entertainment: streaming series that pop up in our algorithms, whether by blind chance or divine intervention. The scholars' analyses of these 21st century series in 21st century viewing contexts offer valuable new perspectives and insights on the 21st century Church. --Will Dodson, University of North Carolina Greensboro ""The Catholic Church has found itself increasingly under the microscope because of fallout from the plethora of creepy clergy sexual abuse cases made public in the last twenty-five years. So, no one should be surprised that contemporary depictions of the Church continue a tradition dating back to Gothic horror novels such as Lewis's The Monk (1775) that depict the presence of a bond between the Roman Church and the minions of Satan. The authors of Catholic Horror on Television, however, provide a more nuanced approach to Church depravity, arguing that every problematic institution wrestles with complicated definitions of ""truth"" (characterized in the series Evil) even as individual priests (in The Exorcist television series) are depicted standing in defiance of a corrupt Church hierarchy. Catholic Horror on Television offers a mixed and complicated response to both the status of the Catholic Church as well as the genre of horror itself."" --Tony Magistrale, University of Vermont Catholic Horror on Television benefits from its authors' and editors' varied personal histories with Catholicism. Their essays have an emotional resonance that contextualizes and deepens readers' appreciation of the liturgical, ceremonial, and spiritual sources of horror in these television series. Catholic rituals and symbols suffuse our culture and have been deployed in film and television from their beginnings to explore the particular fears we have of both supernatural and human evils. This collection addresses an under-examined source of Catholic horror in art and entertainment: streaming series that pop up in our algorithms, whether by blind chance or divine intervention. The scholars' analyses of these 21st century series in 21st century viewing contexts offer valuable new perspectives and insights on the 21st century Church. ""The Catholic Church has found itself increasingly under the microscope because of fallout from the plethora of creepy clergy sexual abuse cases made public in the last twenty-five years. So, no one should be surprised that contemporary depictions of the Church continue a tradition dating back to Gothic horror novels such as Lewis's The Monk (1775) that depict the presence of a bond between the Roman Church and the minions of Satan. The authors of Catholic Horror on Television, however, provide a more nuanced approach to Church depravity, arguing that every problematic institution wrestles with complicated definitions of ""truth"" (characterized in the series Evil) even as individual priests (in The Exorcist television series) are depicted standing in defiance of a corrupt Church hierarchy. Catholic Horror on Television offers a mixed and complicated response to both the status of the Catholic Church as well as the genre of horror itself."""

Catholic Horror on Television benefits from its authors' and editors' varied personal histories with Catholicism. Their essays have an emotional resonance that contextualizes and deepens readers' appreciation of the liturgical, ceremonial, and spiritual sources of horror in these television series. Catholic rituals and symbols suffuse our culture and have been deployed in film and television from their beginnings to explore the particular fears we have of both supernatural and human evils. This collection addresses an under-examined source of Catholic horror in art and entertainment: streaming series that pop up in our algorithms, whether by blind chance or divine intervention. The scholars' analyses of these 21st century series in 21st century viewing contexts offer valuable new perspectives and insights on the 21st century Church. ""The Catholic Church has found itself increasingly under the microscope because of fallout from the plethora of creepy clergy sexual abuse cases made public in the last twenty-five years. So, no one should be surprised that contemporary depictions of the Church continue a tradition dating back to Gothic horror novels such as Lewis's The Monk (1775) that depict the presence of a bond between the Roman Church and the minions of Satan. The authors of Catholic Horror on Television, however, provide a more nuanced approach to Church depravity, arguing that every problematic institution wrestles with complicated definitions of ""truth"" (characterized in the series Evil) even as individual priests (in The Exorcist television series) are depicted standing in defiance of a corrupt Church hierarchy. Catholic Horror on Television offers a mixed and complicated response to both the status of the Catholic Church as well as the genre of horror itself.""

"Catholic Horror on Television benefits from its authors' and editors' varied personal histories with Catholicism. Their essays have an emotional resonance that contextualizes and deepens readers' appreciation of the liturgical, ceremonial, and spiritual sources of horror in these television series. Catholic rituals and symbols suffuse our culture and have been deployed in film and television from their beginnings to explore the particular fears we have of both supernatural and human evils. This collection addresses an under-examined source of Catholic horror in art and entertainment: streaming series that pop up in our algorithms, whether by blind chance or divine intervention. The scholars' analyses of these 21st century series in 21st century viewing contexts offer valuable new perspectives and insights on the 21st century Church. --Will Dodson ""The Catholic Church has found itself increasingly under the microscope because of fallout from the plethora of creepy clergy sexual abuse cases made public in the last twenty-five years. So, no one should be surprised that contemporary depictions of the Church continue a tradition dating back to Gothic horror novels such as Lewis's The Monk (1775) that depict the presence of a bond between the Roman Church and the minions of Satan. The authors of Catholic Horror on Television, however, provide a more nuanced approach to Church depravity, arguing that every problematic institution wrestles with complicated definitions of ""truth"" (characterized in the series Evil) even as individual priests (in The Exorcist television series) are depicted standing in defiance of a corrupt Church hierarchy. Catholic Horror on Television offers a mixed and complicated response to both the status of the Catholic Church as well as the genre of horror itself."" --Tony Magistrale, University of Vermont"

"Catholic Horror on Television benefits from its authors' and editors' varied personal histories with Catholicism. Their essays have an emotional resonance that contextualizes and deepens readers' appreciation of the liturgical, ceremonial, and spiritual sources of horror in these television series. Catholic rituals and symbols suffuse our culture and have been deployed in film and television from their beginnings to explore the particular fears we have of both supernatural and human evils. This collection addresses an under-examined source of Catholic horror in art and entertainment: streaming series that pop up in our algorithms, whether by blind chance or divine intervention. The scholars' analyses of these 21st century series in 21st century viewing contexts offer valuable new perspectives and insights on the 21st century Church. --Will Dodson, University of North Carolina Greensboro ""The Catholic Church has found itself increasingly under the microscope because of fallout from the plethora of creepy clergy sexual abuse cases made public in the last twenty-five years. So, no one should be surprised that contemporary depictions of the Church continue a tradition dating back to Gothic horror novels such as Lewis's The Monk (1775) that depict the presence of a bond between the Roman Church and the minions of Satan. The authors of Catholic Horror on Television, however, provide a more nuanced approach to Church depravity, arguing that every problematic institution wrestles with complicated definitions of ""truth"" (characterized in the series Evil) even as individual priests (in The Exorcist television series) are depicted standing in defiance of a corrupt Church hierarchy. Catholic Horror on Television offers a mixed and complicated response to both the status of the Catholic Church as well as the genre of horror itself."" --Tony Magistrale, University of Vermont"

Author Information

Ralph Beliveau is professor and head of Creative Media Production and Professional Writing in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma. Laura Bolf-Beliveau is professor and coordinator of English education in the English department at the University of Central Oklahoma. Ruth DeFoster is assistant professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Erika Engstrom is professor and director of the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Kentucky.

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