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Since the Millennium, the world of TV horror has radically altered. Aided by newer production methods including streaming, downloading and narrowcasting, programmes like The Waking Dead, American Horror Story, Penny Dreadful and the reinvention of Doctor Who have shown how resilient the horror genre is to both television formats and platforms.

This conclusion ties together the chapters, whilst offering the idea that much more work is needed to fully comprehend the importance of gender studies linked to horror television.

In 2020, the latest James Bond film will hit cinema screens. The film has been produced by Eon Productions, is based on Ian Fleming’s suave, sophisticated super spy and stars Daniel Craig in the title role. With a troubled production shoot well-documented in the media, Daniel Craig often seeming and contradictorily at odds of being both enamoured and loathing with the role, a director leaving through ‘creative differences’ and numerous screenwriters being drafted in as last-minute replacements or add-ons, it will be interesting to see how the latest Bond adventure fares both critically and financially.

At their heart, the Bond adventures – originally in Ian Fleming’s novels and short stories, and then in their film incarnations before spilling out into newer platforms – offer pure escapism for the reader, viewer, listener and gamer. Set against the backdrop of exoticism in a post-war climate, the stories centre around MI6 Agent, James Bond, stopping enemies of the British Empire in their attempts at world domination. They gave the reader a sense of both an attempt by Fleming/Bond to recapture Britain as an important power on the world stage. Whilst Bond may have sipped martinis as he coolly dispatched the latest despotic tyrant, they also offered up ideas about time, place, culture, the social climate of the period and gender.

This book will focus on numerous aspects of the Bond-catalogue, but in particular paying particular attention to how the portrayal of gender, both in the stories and behind the scenes, has helped shape one of the most significant, important and successful British franchises.

Up until the turn of the millennium, there had been very little positive representation of women and women in action characters in the action film genre. Two notable exceptions were Ellen Ripley in the Alien movies and Sarah Connor in the Terminator franchise. Whilst this has certainly changed over the last 20 years, one action/horror/science fiction heroine remains neglected: Project Alice in the six Resident Evil films. Portrayed by Milla Jovovich, and loosely based on the platform game character, Project Alice is strong, driven, motivated and tough. This chapter will, through detailed analysis of character, her physical presence through the clothing she wears, psychogeographical aspects, her use of weapons and narrative arc, clearly demonstrate the importance of Project Alice to the horror genre.