Introduction: Identity and the Fantastic in Penny Dreadful
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Author(s)
Howell, Amanda
Green, Stephanie
Schubart, Rikke
Albertsen, Anita Nell Bech
Year published
2017
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In Season Two of television horror-drama, Penny Dreadful (Showtime/Sky, 2014-16), Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), American sharpshooter and werewolf, asks Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), a British heiress with supernatural powers and a troubled past, what happens when the monsters inside of them are released? She says: “We’re most who we are. Unrestrained. Ourselves.” Summing up a central concern of the series, she confirms the view of its creator John Logan, that the “greatest horror in Penny Dreadful is the horror of people. . . the way we interact with one another.” (Calia 2015) Penny Dreadful explores the darkness that exists ...
View more >In Season Two of television horror-drama, Penny Dreadful (Showtime/Sky, 2014-16), Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), American sharpshooter and werewolf, asks Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), a British heiress with supernatural powers and a troubled past, what happens when the monsters inside of them are released? She says: “We’re most who we are. Unrestrained. Ourselves.” Summing up a central concern of the series, she confirms the view of its creator John Logan, that the “greatest horror in Penny Dreadful is the horror of people. . . the way we interact with one another.” (Calia 2015) Penny Dreadful explores the darkness that exists not only in the physical world but also in the human mind. In it, monstrosity takes the familiar form of witches, werewolves, vampires, the revived and reconfigured undead—Dr. Frankenstein’s monsters—who kill and maim, but the series also routinely explores other, more mundane, forms of cruelty and depravity, while embracing a range of difference. In Penny Dreadful, the most human characters are revealed to be the most monstrous.
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View more >In Season Two of television horror-drama, Penny Dreadful (Showtime/Sky, 2014-16), Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), American sharpshooter and werewolf, asks Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), a British heiress with supernatural powers and a troubled past, what happens when the monsters inside of them are released? She says: “We’re most who we are. Unrestrained. Ourselves.” Summing up a central concern of the series, she confirms the view of its creator John Logan, that the “greatest horror in Penny Dreadful is the horror of people. . . the way we interact with one another.” (Calia 2015) Penny Dreadful explores the darkness that exists not only in the physical world but also in the human mind. In it, monstrosity takes the familiar form of witches, werewolves, vampires, the revived and reconfigured undead—Dr. Frankenstein’s monsters—who kill and maim, but the series also routinely explores other, more mundane, forms of cruelty and depravity, while embracing a range of difference. In Penny Dreadful, the most human characters are revealed to be the most monstrous.
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Journal Title
Refractory: a journal of entertainment media
Volume
28
Publisher URI
Copyright Statement
© 2017 Swinburne University of Technology. The attached file was published in Refractory: a journal of Entertainment Media, Vol. 14, 2018, and is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Refractory: a journal of Entertainment Media is available online at: https://refractory-journal.com/
Subject
Cultural Studies not elsewhere classified
Film, Television and Digital Media
Cultural Studies
Historical Studies