Over the past 100 years, televisions have played a critical role in human history. These devices revolutionized how we receive vital information, discover products/services, and consume various forms of entertainment. TV played a key role in the formative years of the last couple of generations, crafting a novel content area with the development of TV shows and eventually made-for-TV films, which began to accompany and then slowly replace radio dramas. The similar thrills of stage plays and motion pictures were now in a format designed for home consumption. Soon, programs like sitcoms, cartoons, music videos, soap operas, and more came straight to living rooms. TV’s impact on all areas of pop culture is immeasurable. However, there’s one genre that boasts a special relationship with it: horror.
As we know, horror is often a reflection of society’s glaring fears, deepest prejudices, morality woes, and religious climates, for better or worse. As horror began to take its most recognizable form and rise to mainstream popularity in the late-1960s, the TV set became a part of the genre’s storytelling makeup. At this point in history, TV ownership was continuing to rapidly rise despite the devices’ hefty price tag. Watching TV was a communal experience as people gathered for their favorite weekly programs. Sometimes, the occasion was somber. For example, countless people have witnessed Earth-shattering and generation-defining news, like the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.
This same year, the seminal film Night of the Living Dead marks the first notable usage of television in horror. The film’s writer, producer, and director, George Romero, brought his previous professional TV experience in the mix. Romero wanted to show how the medium would play a critical role in an unthinkable apocalyptic situation. The broadcasts in the film mimic the guerilla, “boots-on-the-ground” filming style seen during the era’s coverage of the Vietnam War.
In this film, TV is used to not only swiftly spread dire warnings and updates to the viewing audience. It is also a gateway to inciting chaos among some and seeding further doubt in others. Yes, doubt in the midst of what they are experiencing. As is the case in many apocalyptic narratives, the greatest horror often stems from humanity’s willful ignorance and/or the violence that ensues when conventional structures are crumbling. The results are predictably grim, leading to deadly battles for safety and resources. The space between what’s broadcast into homes and the truth was, and continues to be, a topic of debate. It is explored in Night of the Living Dead via the panic that ensues among a small group of survivors.
Many people’s distrust of media happens for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, the message is clearly propaganda to sway the viewer towards a specific decision or feeling. Other times, it comes from social influences like a religious organization or a generation’s collective norms. There has always been a sector of society, religious or not, that views TV as, at worst, a portal for evil and/or misinformation to seep into a person’s mind and tamper with their soul. Or, at best, it is a technological device that negatively affects how people interact with each other. Horror naturally plays off of this fear in movies that are reflective of social attitudes of its time.
In fact, I have two words that will set up a film that does exactly this: They’re here.
That infamous phrase still sends a thrilling shudder down many late Boomer, Gen-X, and Millennial spines. Many of us horror-loving nerds can remember this entire scene from Poltergeist (1982) easier than we can recall what we ate for breakfast two days ago. Little Carol Anne is sleeping in bed with her family before the TV suddenly turns on. The white screen crackles and flickers with post-broadcast static (which feels ancient now), flooding the room with light as she crawls from her bed and towards the glowing screen.
Soon, malevolent spirits filter into the room, causing it to shake with the wrath of an earthquake as her family awakens in horror. Carol Anne turns to them and utters that classic line, setting off a chain of bizarre happenings. What was supposed to be a family’s American Dream became a nightmare that’s largely attributed to—you guessed it!—that evil device that signifies materialism and disconnection among a household. (They throw the TV in the trash in the end, and I understand why.) The attitude that “Hey, maybe TV is a bad thing!” is the horror way of early ‘80s films like Videodrome (1983). That lovely film is about evil being spread through broadcast waves that control a man’s mind to the brink of insanity.
It asks the question of how technology, specifically television, toys with our grip on reality as well as our overall senses. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors famously features a scene where Jennifer, who wants to be a TV actress, is pulled through a literal TV screen and killed by Freddy Krueger. Prior to her death, Max, an orderly at the hospital, warns her about watching too much TV and says she should read a book instead. She insists on watching to keep her entertained and awake but her tiredness gets the best of her. Jennifer’s desire to be on, engage with, and profit off of TV indirectly leads to her demise, which is a pointed message among the film’s humor.
And who can forget the oft-panned Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1983)? This standalone installment leaves Michael Myers behind for a story about witchcraft and a TV commercial with a little jingle that activates a killer microchip in Halloween masks. (I know, haha.) There have long been beliefs that Halloween is 1) tied to Satanic/evil and 2) is when the veil between this life and the afterlife is thinnest. Coupling these with a film that makes an advertisement the channel for terror is brilliant. In fact, there’s even another commercial within this film about the original Halloween (1978) film! This further distances Halloween III from the franchise and provides a nice Easter egg back when the concept was still relatively new to TV and film.
This era of horror also coincides with the Satanic Panic era, which lasted throughout the ‘80s and into the ‘90s. The collective moral panic that Satanic rituals and general evil were hiding in plain sight, thanks to entertainment mediums like movies and even D&D, stood on the foundation of controversial films like The Exorcist (1973) and the real-life Manson family murders. Conspiracy theories, some broadcast via television, ran rampant. Fears of child abuse cults, supposedly hellacious symbolism, and other things took over America and eventually went global. So, it is easy to see why horror kept leaning into the “TVs are portals for evil!” mantra.
Of course, the usage of television in horror films is not always about bolstering a sinister plot. Television is primarily for our entertainment, after all. Halloween (1978) depicts this with Tommy Doyle and Lindsay Wallace. These two young kids spend much of their time glued to the tube watching The Thing From Another World (1951) and Forbidden Planet (1956). Meanwhile, their teenage counterparts are literally fighting for their lives. There are obvious connections to be made between the horrors of the films-with-a-film and the ways they bleed into reality. For example, these films give Tommy a fear of a lurking boogeyman that comes to life as Myers. But overall, it was a normal Halloween night with them doing what many kids do: entertaining themselves with a movie!
Years later, Halloween itself would get the film-within-a-film treatment with Scream (1996). Horror geek Randy and others watch it on screen right before murderous mayhem hits Stu Macher’s house. The rules and guidelines of horror movies become a part of their lives in the most tangible way. And, it’s rather poetic to see final girl Sidney Prescott defeat Macher, a killer who has seen one too many scary movies, by barbequing his head in a television. There’s still that subliminal messaging of TV reflecting the real world while also depicting it as a form of community and entertainment.
The Scream franchise continues to prominently weave in television in its subsequent sequels. Scream 2 (1997) and Scream 3 (2000) both feature scenes where Sidney is learning about Ghostface killings on screen as a casual TV watcher. In the latter film, the killer calls her to force her into watching news about Hollywood murders to lure her out of hiding. However, the most infamous use of TV in a horror flick during the early 2000s is The Ring (2002), the American remake of the Japanese supernatural horror thriller Ringu (1998).
In the vein of Poltergeist, this movie 1) is a relic of its time and 2) utilizes TV as a literal two-way street and very evil portal. There wasn’t a horror fan alive then who wasn’t familiar with its story of a journalist investigating (and watching) a videotape with strange imagery that kills the viewer seven days later. The impact of television and its often disturbing imagery and how that affects viewers is a broad message that gets a horror twist. It comes complete with its own version of how chain letters and urban legends go hand in hand.
The film even shows Samara, a supernaturally powered child, locked in a barn by her adoptive parents with only a television for companionship. That detachment from family and society at large in favor of television is the crux of Samara’s turn towards evil. She uses the very thing that brings her comfort to reach out (and kill) others.
There’s an obvious relationship with VHS tapes and television because, well, you use one to watch the other. The V/H/S film franchise uses TV very heavily as the events of different found footage nightmares unfold. As we go into these terrors alongside various characters, it once again feels like there’s a blurred line between our worlds and what we are witnessing.
Years later, TV continues to play closely with the horror genre. Recently, Late Night with the Devil (2023) explored concepts of greed, spectacle, and a desperation for attention and viewership. The David Dastmalchian-led found footage flick depicts a demonic possession nightmare on live television. I Saw the TV Glow (2024) follows a duo who watch a weird defunct series that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality for them. To a lesser degree, TV takes a small role in Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2018) as the protagonist Chris watches a recorded video of the racist body horrors that await him. His subsequent films, Us and Nope, are more, ahem, tethered to TV’s influence and our preoccupation with spectacle.
The former’s antagonist (but not really a baddie) Red/the real Adelaide’s entire plan is heavily influenced by her seeing a “Hands Across America” promotion shortly before being replaced by her doppelganger in 1986. Nope begins its narrative with a popular TV show starring a chimp. We quickly see the animal goes back to his wild nature and kills those around him. That event isn’t enough to teach Jupe to not play with and exploit nature, a decision that leads to his demise when a hungry UFO-like alien swallows him up.
Deeper connections aside, the usage of TV for Easter eggs a la Halloween (1978) continues in movies like Scream (2022). The film features a scene with Tara watching Dawson’s Creek, which stars Scott Foley, who played killer Roman Bridger in Scream 3. And, horror comedy film The Blackening (2023) humorously uses a TV set for a blackface killer to play mind games. He stalks and tortures a group of Black friends gathering for a Juneteenth weekend of fun. They witness live-footage (some of which is deceiving) as well as pre-recorded things that add to the terror.
The future of horror keeps shifting in many ways as viewer attitudes change. But, even in a world where many turn to their phones, tablets, and laptops to watch shows and movies, the television set will continue to be a staple in the genre. Whether the device’s purpose is fun nods to other franchises, a source of information, or a portal for sinister spirits, TV and horror are always a match made in hell.