It is commonly accepted among literary scholars that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
was successful because it played on human fears of the new technology
of electricity. To a certain extent, the exploitation of pop culture
fears has continued apace with technological development ever since.
This includes movies about virtual reality (Lawnmower Man and The Thirteenth Floor), artificial intelligence (Transcendence), and genetic engineering (Species and Species II).
Genetic
engineering however has become the most omnipresent in our society of
all of these technologies and is involved in everything from our food to
attempts to create children with three parents so that gay couples both
claim parentage of their offspring. Accordingly, it has become a topic
ripe for exploitation in popular culture. Both Orphan Black and Hemlock Grove are excellent exemplars of this, and well made to boot. While they both capitalize on fears of research run amok, Hemlock Grove really takes the mad scientist meme to heart with the mysterious Ouroborous project going on in the lab. Orphan Black
takes the other root and capitalizes on Hannah Arendt's banality of
evil, showing that one corporation pursuing its own ends can produce
horrors.
While neither show is inherently a horror
show, they do exploit human fears and apprehension of the potential
results of genetic engineering, even if Orphan Black does this in more detail.
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