MIS
KA
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Institute of
Horror Studies
Speakers
Speakers
Leila Taylor
Leila Taylor, author of Darkly: Black History and America’s Gothic Soul is a writer and designer whose work is focused on the gothic in Black culture and horror. Her work has been published in The Journal of Horror Studies, The New Urban Gothic: Global Gothic in the Age of the Anthropocene, and The Repeater Book of the Occult. She has given talks for the International Gothic Association in Mexico and the U.K., Morbid Anatomy and Night of Philosophy in New York. She received a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale University and an MA in Liberal Studies at The New School for Social Research. She lives in Brooklyn, New York where she is Creative Director for Brooklyn Public Library.
Biographic Note
Leila Taylor, author of Darkly: Black History and America’s Gothic Soul is a writer and designer whose work is focused on the gothic in Black culture and horror. Her work has been published in The Journal of Horror Studies, The New Urban Gothic: Global Gothic in the Age of the Anthropocene, and The Repeater Book of the Occult. She has given talks for the International Gothic Association in Mexico and the U.K., Morbid Anatomy and Night of Philosophy in New York. She received a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale University and an MA in Liberal Studies at The New School for Social Research. She lives in Brooklyn, New York where she is Creative Director for Brooklyn Public Library.
Alanna Thain
Alanna Thain teaches cultural studies and world cinemas, and also directs the Moving Image Research Laboratory (mirl.lab.mcgill.ca) at McGill University, where at least part of HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981) was filmed (most of the film was filmed at Concordia University). She would like to confirm that she is still recovering from watching that film while unsupervised at a very young age, and is still waiting to be able to watch it again. Her horror specialty is the work of David Lynch. She also runs a bike powered mobile cinema project, Cinema out of the Box, and collaborated with the Volatile Den for a cemetery screening last summer (https://www.facebook.com/mobilecinemamontreal).
Biographic Note
Alanna Thain teaches cultural studies and world cinemas, and also directs the Moving Image Research Laboratory (mirl.lab.mcgill.ca) at McGill University, where at least part of HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981) was filmed (most of the film was filmed at Concordia University). She would like to confirm that she is still recovering from watching that film while unsupervised at a very young age, and is still waiting to be able to watch it again. Her horror specialty is the work of David Lynch. She also runs a bike powered mobile cinema project, Cinema out of the Box, and collaborated with the Volatile Den for a cemetery screening last summer (https://www.facebook.com/mobilecinemamontreal).
Stephen Thrower
Stephen Thrower, writer and musician, was born in Lancashire in 1963. After moving to London in 1985 he began writing reviews for the seminal horror magazine Shock Xpress, before launching his own film periodical Eyeball in 1989 with contributors including novelist Ramsey Campbell, filmmaker Ron Peck, and critics Kim Newman, Daniel Bird and Alan Jones. His first book, Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci, was published in 1999, followed by The Eyeball Compendium (2003) and Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents (2007). His most recent work is Murderous Passions; the delirious cinema of Jesús Franco, published by Strange Attractor in March 2015.
Thrower and his partner Ossian Brown are founders of the avant-garde music group Cyclobe, who recently recorded new soundtracks for three Super-8 films by the British filmmaker and queer activist Derek Jarman (Sulphur, Tarot and Garden of Luxor). As a solo artist, Thrower scored Pakistan’s first gore film, Zibahkhana aka Hell's Ground (2007), contributed electronic music to Down Terrace (2010) by Ben Wheatley, and was commissioned by the BFI in 2012 to score three silent short films by the pioneering director of gay erotica Peter De Rome.
Biographic Note
Stephen Thrower, writer and musician, was born in Lancashire in 1963. After moving to London in 1985 he began writing reviews for the seminal horror magazine Shock Xpress, before launching his own film periodical Eyeball in 1989 with contributors including novelist Ramsey Campbell, filmmaker Ron Peck, and critics Kim Newman, Daniel Bird and Alan Jones. His first book, Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci, was published in 1999, followed by The Eyeball Compendium (2003) and Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents (2007). His most recent work is Murderous Passions; the delirious cinema of Jesús Franco, published by Strange Attractor in March 2015.
Thrower and his partner Ossian Brown are founders of the avant-garde music group Cyclobe, who recently recorded new soundtracks for three Super-8 films by the British filmmaker and queer activist Derek Jarman (Sulphur, Tarot and Garden of Luxor). As a solo artist, Thrower scored Pakistan’s first gore film, Zibahkhana aka Hell's Ground (2007), contributed electronic music to Down Terrace (2010) by Ben Wheatley, and was commissioned by the BFI in 2012 to score three silent short films by the pioneering director of gay erotica Peter De Rome.
Donato Totaro
Donato Totaro received his PhD in Film & Television from the University of Warwick (UK) and has been a Film Studies lecturer at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada) since 1990. Totaro has been the editor of the online film journal Offscreen since its inception in 1997 and member of AQCC “Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma” since 2004. Totaro has published extensively on horror cinema, including articles/essays in Cult TV (2010), 100 European Horror Films (2007), The Cinema of Japan and Korea (2004), Fear Without Frontiers (2003), Eaten Alive!: Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies, and magazines The Dark Side and Fangoria.
Biographic Note
Donato Totaro received his PhD in Film & Television from the University of Warwick (UK) and has been a Film Studies lecturer at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada) since 1990. Totaro has been the editor of the online film journal Offscreen since its inception in 1997 and member of AQCC “Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma” since 2004. Totaro has published extensively on horror cinema, including articles/essays in Cult TV (2010), 100 European Horror Films (2007), The Cinema of Japan and Korea (2004), Fear Without Frontiers (2003), Eaten Alive!: Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies, and magazines The Dark Side and Fangoria.
Jon Towlson
Jon Towlson is a film critic and the author of THE TURN TO GRUESOMENESS IN AMERICAN HORROR FILMS, 1931-1936 (McFarland, 2016), CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (CONSTELLATIONS) (Auteur/Columbia University Press, 2016) and SUBVERSIVE HORROR CINEMA: COUNTERCULTURAL MESSAGES OF FILMS FROM FRANKENSTEIN TO THE PRESENT (McFarland, 2014). He is a regular contributor to Starburst Magazine, and has also written for the BFI, Paracinema, Exquisite Terror, Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, Shadowland Magazine, Bright Lights Film Journal, Offscreen and Digital Film-Maker Magazine. Jon contributed to the recent edited collection LOST SOULS OF HORROR AND THE GOTHIC (eds. Bernice M. Murphy & Elizabeth McCarthy, McFarland, 2016). He is currently writing a monograph on the film CANDYMAN for Auteur/Columbia University Press. www.subversive-horror-films.com. @systemshocks
Biographic Note
Jon Towlson is a film critic and the author of THE TURN TO GRUESOMENESS IN AMERICAN HORROR FILMS, 1931-1936 (McFarland, 2016), CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (CONSTELLATIONS) (Auteur/Columbia University Press, 2016) and SUBVERSIVE HORROR CINEMA: COUNTERCULTURAL MESSAGES OF FILMS FROM FRANKENSTEIN TO THE PRESENT (McFarland, 2014). He is a regular contributor to Starburst Magazine, and has also written for the BFI, Paracinema, Exquisite Terror, Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, Shadowland Magazine, Bright Lights Film Journal, Offscreen and Digital Film-Maker Magazine. Jon contributed to the recent edited collection LOST SOULS OF HORROR AND THE GOTHIC (eds. Bernice M. Murphy & Elizabeth McCarthy, McFarland, 2016). He is currently writing a monograph on the film CANDYMAN for Auteur/Columbia University Press. www.subversive-horror-films.com. @systemshocks
Adam Twycross
Adam Twycross is a British comics scholar whose research focusses on the development and evolution of adult comics in Britain, Europe and the United States. He is a senior lecturer for Arts University Bournemouth, where he also acts as Course Leader for VFX for Film and Television. He is a co-founder of BFX, the UK’s largest festival of animation, visual effects and games, and of cgApprentice, a company dedicated to democratizing access to animation, games and VFX education for schools and colleges. He has previously worked as a 3D artist, with credits including the Disneyland Adventures and the Games Workshop graphic novel Macragge’s Honour.
Biographic Note
Adam Twycross is a British comics scholar whose research focusses on the development and evolution of adult comics in Britain, Europe and the United States. He is a senior lecturer for Arts University Bournemouth, where he also acts as Course Leader for VFX for Film and Television. He is a co-founder of BFX, the UK’s largest festival of animation, visual effects and games, and of cgApprentice, a company dedicated to democratizing access to animation, games and VFX education for schools and colleges. He has previously worked as a 3D artist, with credits including the Disneyland Adventures and the Games Workshop graphic novel Macragge’s Honour.
