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Palgrave Macmillan

Serial Killing on Screen

Adaptation, True Crime and Popular Culture

  • Book
  • © 2023

Overview

Editors:
  1. Sarah E. Fanning

    1. Mount Allison University, Sackville, Canada

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Claire O’Callaghan

    1. Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Includes a foreword from Professor David Wilson
  • Critically examines the adaptation of numerous and notable figures and their horrific crimes
  • Touches on debates arising from criminology, cultural studies, film and television studies, sociology

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture (PSCMC)

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Table of contents (15 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxvi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Screening Serial Murder—Adaptation, True Crime, and Popular Culture

    • Sarah E. Fanning, Claire O’Callaghan
    Pages 1-31

  4. Psycho Paths: Re-creating the Scenes of Crime

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 99-99
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Wolf Creek, Mick Taylor, and Australian Horror

      • Penny Spirou
      Pages 101-120

    3. A Strange Sort of Comfort: Domestic Architecture, Home-Bodies, and the Nostalgia of Suburban Containment in American Serial Killer Narratives

      • Brenda S. Gardenour Walter
      Pages 121-141

    4. Sweet Uncle Charlie: The Unsuspecting Killer in Shadow of a Doubt

      • Douglas C. MacLeod
      Pages 143-162

    5. See No Evil: The Moors Murders on Screen

      • Ian Cummins, Marian Foley, Martin King
      Pages 163-185
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the representation of real-life serial murders as adapted for the screen and popular culture. Bringing together a selection of essays from international scholars, Serial Killing on Screen: Adaptation, True Crime and Popular Culture examines the ways in which the screen has become a crucial site through which the most troubling of real-life crimes are represented, (re)constructed and made accessible to the public. Situated at the nexus of film and screen studies, theatre studies, cultural studies, criminology and sociology, this interdisciplinary collection raises questions about, and implications for, thinking about the adaptation and representation of true crime in popular culture, and the ideologies at stake in such narratives. It discusses the ways in which the adaptation of real-life serial murder intersects with other markers of cultural identity (gender, race, class, disability), as well as aspects of criminology (offenders, victims,policing, and profiling) and psychology (psychopathy, sociopathy, and paraphilia). This collection is unique in its combined focus on the adaptation of crimes committed by real-life criminal figures who have gained international notoriety for their plural offences, including, for example, Ted Bundy, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Aileen Wuornos, Jack the Ripper, and the Zodiac, and for situating the tales of these crimes and their victims’ stories within the field of adaptation studies. 

Reviews

“It’s a comprehensive guide with insights into the industry that has grown up around serial killers … . These scholarly studies stress analysis over storytelling, but the familiar figures and well-known screen adaptations each author tackles will appeal to serious students of true crime.” (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, elleryqueenmysterymagazine.com, April, 2023)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Mount Allison University, Sackville, Canada

    Sarah E. Fanning

  • Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Claire O’Callaghan

About the editors

Sarah E. Fanning is Assistant Professor of Drama and Screen Studies and Director of Drama at Mount Allison University, Canada.

Claire O’Callaghan is Lecturer in English in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University, UK.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Serial Killing on Screen

  • Book Subtitle: Adaptation, True Crime and Popular Culture

  • Editors: Sarah E. Fanning, Claire O’Callaghan

  • Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17812-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Law and Criminology, Law and Criminology (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-17811-5Published: 01 December 2022

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-17814-6Published: 02 December 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-17812-2Published: 30 November 2022

  • Series ISSN: 2946-3912

  • Series E-ISSN: 2946-3920

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXVI, 382

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 23 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Crime and the Media, Critical Criminology, Criminal Behavior, Screen Studies, Adaptation Studies, Gender Studies

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