Horror and the body in the new western: Yellowstone as a genre of excess

Abstract

The highly popular television series Yellowstone (2018–24) is to many a ‘modern revisionist Western’. Detractors call it a ‘red-state show’, with its right-wing, conservative themes, centred around kinship, land ownership, loyalty and what it takes to preserve a way of life against the forces of economic progress. On the surface the series revels in its ‘neo-Western’ generic conventions, but there is a deeper set of themes articulated through the tropes of the horror genre: body mutilation, blood and gore, the evil of the land, demon spawn, the association of women with blood and victimhood, as well as Oedipal fear. This clash of genres creates a strange juxtaposition and challenge to the dominant tone. This article discusses the many instances of horror ‘intruding’ on Yellowstone’s predominantly western genre, and in each case asks why these connections are being made so overtly.