Fear in the Bedroom

Artists: Dr Kate Egan, Professor Stacey Abbott, Dr Simon Brown, Dr Cat Lester

The relationship between childhood and horror has persisted throughout the history of youth culture, from fairy tales to the ongoing popularity of Halloween to worldwide phenomena like Goosebumps and Stranger Things. However, the meeting of children and horror has consistently attracted controversy due to perceptions that the genre has a harmful influence upon young people. Fear in the Bedroom challenges theses perceptions by taking visitors through the history of youth and horror media and engaging them in the range of meanings horror has had for young people. The exhibition takes the form of a child’s bedroom in the golden age of horror from 1970-2000. We invite visitors to interact with objects, flip through books and magazines, listen to music, watch memorable media from the time and, through this, to bathe nostalgically in their own memories and perhaps introduce a new generation to horror culture of the past.