US television drama Six Feet Under has been examined for its contemporary expansion of Gothic tropes (e.g. Coghlan et al., 2016). This paper develops existing readings by focusing on the evocation of Gothic surgical and body horror (Conrich & Sedgwick 2017) within Six Feet Under and the manner in which it directs attention to treatment of the body post-mortem. Death care, it is argued, reflects a broader cultural unwillingness to concede to the inescapable decay, deterioration and demise of the body. This paper examines the various cultural logics attached to revulsion aroused by dead bodies, hidden carnographic transformation of the body, and their uncanny social reappearance “cleansed, purified, immobile” (Bronfen 1992, 99). It is argued that the Gothic corpse in Six Feet Under represents “potential that has yet to be realized in full” (Shapira 2018, 2) referring to the illimitable aesthetic values of ‘makeover culture’ (Jones 2008) that are imposed on the dead. By delving deeper into the industry practices portrayed in the funeral drama, a connection is revealed between the increasing tendency for living bodies to become “a mixture of nature and artifice” (Van Dijck 2001, 100) and its uncomplicated extension to the dead.