In art, literature, and film, the witch is a shapeshifter. She is a gruesome villain and a studious heroine, a spiritual guide and an enchanting seductress. The witch’s narrative can shift effortlessly, transforming her from vixen to hag and healer to hellion based solely upon who decides to tell her tale. But despite these disparate depictions, the witch’s presence is inextricably tied to patriarchal anxieties about powerful women and unruly female bodies: her representation always reflects or refutes societal perceptions about femininity. In this illustrated talk, New School faculty member and author of Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive Kristen J. Sollée will trace the witch in visual media from the early modern era through the present, examining her legacy as an icon of female power and persecution, and as a potent feminist symbol. Beginning with the 1922 Swedish film Haxan to offer perspective on the historical origins of the witch, the talk will include clips and analysis of Mario Bava’s 1960 film Black Sunday to examine what film theorist Barbara Creed calls “the monstrous feminine,” and TV classic Bewitched to offer visions of the “good witch” as the women’s liberation movement begins to coalesce in the early 1960s. Sollée will also use aspects of George Romero’s Season of the Witch, anime classic Belladonna of Sadness, Lair of the White Worm, The Witches of Eastwick and The Craft to analyze conceptions of female sexual expression, and Anna Biller’s The Love Witch to undress the witch through the female gaze. By juxtaposing leading scholarly research on European and American witch hunts with art and pop occulture artifacts, this talk will delve into the complex legacy of the witch from past to present, exploring how the divine and demon feminine have been harnessed to both frighten and inspire diverse audiences for decades. This class originated at The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies NYC in November 2017 and has has since gone on to be be presented at the Monsters of Film Festival in Stockholm (in October 2018) and more. ++++ The Cinema Arts Centre (CAC) is Long Island’s premiere, year-round, independent and international film showcase and its leading 501(c)3 not-for-profit community cinema. Located on Long Island’s North Shore, just an hour from Manhattan, the CAC is unique in scope and programming, with three state-of-the-art theaters, including a main theater holding nearly 300 seats. Founded by Vic Skolnick, Charlotte Sky and Dylan Skolnick in 1973, the CAC has over 10,000 members and serves approximately 150,000 individuals each year.

Presented at the Motel X International Horror Film Festival, Lisbon, which runs Sept 10-15, 2019 The occult fields and forests of Folk Horror, which in the 1970s and 80s birthed “The Wicker Man”, “Witchfinder General”, “Blood on Satan’s Claw”, “The Company of Wolves”, and others, have been revisited with increasing frequency in recent years. Filmmakers such as Ben Wheatley (“Kill List”, “A Field in England”), Robert Eggers (“The Witch”, “The Lighthouse”), Jordan Peele (“Get Out”, “Us”) and Ari Aster (“Hereditary”, “Midsommar”) have led a resurgence of New Folk Horror over the last decade. In this masterclass, Ari Aster and writer Howard David Ingham (“We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror”) will discuss exactly what is so inspiring about the genre, why the time is right for it to find a new audience, and what the New Folk Horror brings to the field.  Founded by film writer/programmer Kier-La Janisse in 2010, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies offers classes in horror history, theory and production, with branches in London, New York and Los Angeles, as well as presenting special events worldwide. Howard, representing Miskatonic at this event, has instructed at Miskatonic London on the subject of folk horror.

Like the human cadaver, every plant, tree, flower and fungus has a story to tell. But when it comes to how plants tell stories, there are essentially two schools of thought: In the 1970s it was a popular belief – aided by unorthodox experiments, the proliferation of New Age publications and the mass-marketing of Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird’s 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants – that, despite their lack of a nervous system, plants were sentient and emotional, and could communicate their feelings to humans with the help of electronic devices. Conversely, the scientific community found more practical ways of gleaning what plants had to tell us, through the examination of trace elements at crime scenes in the field of forensic botany. Expanded from an article commissioned for Nicolas Winding Refn’s website ByNWR.com, Murder Season takes a look at the ways that a disillusioned generation became obsessed with plants, not only in their homes and gardens as part of the burgeoning environmentalist and earth mysteries movements that summoned people back to their rural roots, but in laboratories and recording studios that aimed to document the ways plants experienced and witnessed the world around them and how they could communicate knowledge to us – whether imparting ancient wisdom or fingering a murderer. We’ll look at the influential studies of polygraph expert Cleve Backster and the early 20th century scientists who preceded him, the importation of Kirlian photography from behind the Iron Curtain and its subsequent championing at the UCLA Parapsychology Lab, and the more tangible ways that plants aid in solving crimes, from the trace elements found in poo-prints to the decomposing donors at The Body Farm. We’ll also look at how vegetal anxiety manifested in horror literature and film, from the writings of Roald Dahl and Philip Jose Farmer to films like Day of the Triffids (1962), The Mutations (1974), The Gardener (1974), The Kirlian Witness (1979) and more. ++++ This class is held in conjunction with several city-wide events celebrating Sacred Bones Records’ re-release of Mort Garson’s classic 1976 electronic concept album, Mother Earth’s Plantasia. Other events in this series include Atlas Obscura’s Plantasia listening party at the UCLA Botanical Gardens on August 10 + 11 (https://www.atlasobscura.com/events/plantasia-at-ucla-botanical-garden-aug-2019) and UCLA Film & Television Archive’s screening of The Kirlian Witness (1979) at the The Velaslavasay Panorama Theatre and Gardens on August 25 (https://www.panoramaonview.org/).    

In March 1966 Life magazine published ‘The Exploding Threat of the Mind Drug that Got Out of Control’, an article that covered the growing popularity of LSD use in America. Staff writer Gerald Moore was largely even-handed in his account, reporting that LSD could provide the user with ‘beatific serenity and shimmering insight’. However, he struck a darker, more cautionary tone when he described the case of an unnamed ‘teen-age girl’ who attended a Hollywood ‘acid party’. According to Moore, she took LSD and then suffered a bad trip: ‘a sudden vision of horror or death which often grips LSD users when they take it without proper mental preparation.’ Within psychedelic culture the threat of the bad trip hovers like an ominous presence. Psychedelic or ‘Mind-clearing’ drugs may promise wisdom, visionary insight or a fabulous holiday for the brain, but they can also release the horrors of the id, tear the veil of sanity and pull you into the void. As psychedelic culture took root into the public imagination, film-makers of the mid to late 1960s, drew heavily on its visual language. From the art-house to the drive in; Conrad Rooks’ Chappaqua (1966) to Ed Mann’s Hallucination Generation (1966), cinema variously made use of and attempted to imitate the sensory intensity of the stereotypical acid trip: polychromatic colours, spatial-temporal distortion and strange, surreal encounters. However, as this class will explore by way of an illustrated talk, it was the horror cinema of the period that made the most productive and imaginative use of psychedelic imagery. Films like Michael Reeves’ The Sorcerers (1967), Vernon Sewell’s Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968) and Daniel Haller’s The Dunwich Horror (1970) vividly rendered ‘sudden vision (s) of horror or death’ in scenes that carried a distinctly acid-tinged ambience. These cinematic bad trips are gateways to inner space and terrifying psychic landscapes. Along with other examples by directors including José Mojica Marins, Ray Danton and ‘J.X. Williams’, they signify a preoccupation with a horror of the mind, not of the body. With reference to writers including Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary this class will chart the emergence of psychedelia across the Sixties and will examine the incorporation of its visual language in horror cinema during the period 1966-1972. Rather than seeing the films in question as acts of exploitation, the talk will frame them as radical works of acid horror, a from which in the case of The Dunwich Horror is used to conjure the cosmic vertigo integral to H. P. Lovecraft’s writing. Further, the talk will also read back from the films to the wider drug culture to uncover a sense of horror underpinning the psychedelic experience as a whole.

Note: this is a free, all-day event with multiple activities – you can arrive/depart at anytime! Celebrate California plant culture with a special program inspired by 1970s Los Angeles and Plantasia, the iconic album made for plants and the people who love them. Worldwide curiosities guide Atlas Obscura and Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones Records teams up with the Getty’s Ever Present series to delve into the plant-centric cultural movement behind Mort Garson’s 1976 cult-classic electronic album Mother Earth’s Plantasia. Join us for a day filled with music, workshops, and presentations that explore the influence of plants on art and culture in Los Angeles. Originally recorded in Los Angeles, and recently reissued by Sacred Bones, Plantasia includes such songs as “Symphony For A Spider Plant,” and “A Mellow Mood For Maidenhair.” The album’s cult status grew over the years due to its rarity—it was only distributed to customers at the legendary Mother Earth Plant Boutique then located on Melrose Avenue. The album will be streaming all day for a unique listening experience in the Getty’s Robert Irwin-designed Central Garden, serenading its blooms and bushes with its “warm earth music.” On the courtyard stage, a lineup of electronic experimenters perform their take on music for plants. They include New York-based Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, known for composing with plant-based bio data, ambient guitarist Noveller, Florist’s Emily A. Sprague, Lucky Dragons, and Gregg Kowalsky—all performing amid a custom stage installation by Hand & Rose. Additional programming includes presentations by Lyra Kilston, author of Sunseekers: The Cure of California, on L.A.’s early vegetarian evangelists, and film writer/Miskatonic founder Kier-La Janisse on the preoccupation with plant life in 1970’s horror films (note this is a 20min presentation, a teaser to the Miskatonic class Sept 12). Pioneering synthesizer company Moog, creators of the modular instrument Mort Garson used to compose Plantasia, will install two self-driven interactive synthesizer workstations where visitors can experiment with electronic music. Also on hand: legendary Los Angeles green thumb Mickey Hargitay, Jr. (yes, the son of the Crimson Executioner himself!) of Mickey Hargitay Plants hosts succulent care and macramé workshops, artist and Miskatonic NYC co-director Jacqueline Castel demonstrates “Kirlian,” or plant-aura photography, garden-inspired cocktails, and more. +++ This event is held in conjunction with several city-wide events celebrating Sacred Bones Records’ re-release of Mort Garson’s classic 1976 electronic concept album, Mother Earth’s Plantasia. Other events in this series include Atlas Obscura’s Plantasia listening party at the UCLA Botanical Gardens on August 10 + 11 (https://www.atlasobscura.com/events/plantasia-at-ucla-botanical-garden-aug-2019), UCLA Film & Television Archive’s screening of The Kirlian Witness (1979) at the The Velaslavasay Panorama Theatre and Gardens on August 25 (https://www.panoramaonview.org/) and Miskatonic LA’s Sept 12 class Murder Season: Crime-Solving Plants and Other Vegetal Horrors.

Co-presented by UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Velaslavasay Panorama, the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies and Atlas Obscura THE KIRLIAN WITNESS (aka THE PLANTS ARE WATCHING, 1979) Can spider plants sense pain? Is fern telepathy feasible? The empathic, ecophilic Laurie (Nancy Boykin) thinks so, most days eschewing human interactions in favor of quality time with her fiddle-leaf fig tree. After a sudden tragedy, her sister Rilla (Nancy Snyder), a photographer and the film’s narrator, subsumes Laurie’s plant obsession, believing that certain secrets lie within their leaves. Beautifully shot by João Fernandes (Bloodrage, 1980), The Kirlian Witness is a botanical thriller of dendritic proportions, and an essential entry in the tiny but rich horticultural horror canon. The screening is at 7pm, but enjoy a pre-screening reception in the gardens of the Velaslavasay Panorama from 6pm onwards. Film program begins at 7pm at the Velaslavasay Panorama, 1122 West 24th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007. (www.panoramaonview.org). Tickets $13 ($11 VPES members.) ++++ This class is held in conjunction with several city-wide events celebrating Sacred Bones Records’ re-release of Mort Garson’s classic 1976 electronic concept album, Mother Earth’s Plantasia. Other events in this series include Atlas Obscura’s Plantasia listening party at the UCLA Botanical Gardens on August 10 + 11 (https://www.atlasobscura.com/events/plantasia-at-ucla-botanical-garden-aug-2019) and Kier-La Janisse’s class Murder Season: Crime-Solving Plants and Other Vegetal Horrors at the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies on Thurs. Sept 12.    

In conjunction with its August 8th class GRAND DAMES OF THE GRINDHOUSE: THE FILMS OF ROBERTA FINDLAY AND DORIS WISHMAN, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies is pleased to present this digital restoration of exploitation film pioneer Roberta Findlay’s action/horror masterpiece, Tenement – preceded by a brief introduction by Miskatonic founder Kier-La Janisse – as part of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s signature Terror Tuesday series. When the working-class residents of a South Bronx apartment building discover a gang of leather-clad junkie thugs squatting in their basement, they get the cops to haul them away – only to ignite an all-out war when the gang is promptly released and wants revenge! The residents soon find their building under siege by the bloodthirsty, drug-addled lunatics, and no one is safe from the brutality as the thugs terrorize, maim and kill the residents, one floor at a time. Their only choice is to fight back, using only their wits, guts and a variety of otherwise benign household implements including weaponized refrigerators, a torrent of pots and pans, and swinging meat cleavers. It’s a classic blowout that paved the way for modern multi-level showdowns like The Raid and Brawl in Cellblock 99. Please be advised that this film contains mean-spirited violence and sexual assault. Alamo Drafthouse LA is a state-of-the-art facility featuring twelve auditoriums, each with 4K laser projectors and one with 35mm film projection. Like the brand’s nearly forty other locations across the country, the downtown Los Angeles theater includes a full bar and kitchen, as well as the unique bar and video store Video Vortex, where Blu-Rays and DVDs will be available for free rental. Alamo Drafthouse LA is conveniently located at The Bloc, an open-air urban center in the heart of downtown Los Angeles where the Blue, Red, Purple, and Expo lines converge – making it easy to reach from Hollywood, North Hollywood, Mid-Wilshire, Santa Monica, South LA, and Long Beach. Easy-access validated parking is available on-site in the BLOC garage, and bike parking is readily available inside the theater. Alamo Drafthouse Los Angeles social media: Facebook: Alamo Drafthouse Los Angeles Twitter: @DrafthouseLA Instagram: @DrafthouseLA Website: Drafthouse.com/los-angeles 

Something Weird Video’s Lisa Petrucci will lead a lively illustrated lecture on genre film mavericks Roberta Findlay and Doris Wishman, two larger-than-life ladies who were making sexploitation films at a time when it was not common for women to be behind the camera. We will look at their comparable trajectory from nudies and roughies in the 1960s to porn and horror films in the 1970s and 80s, as well as their unique and quirky vision and styles of filmmaking. Both lived in New York City during the mid-1960s, and worked with a lot of the same actresses. They both also used pseudonyms, initially not taking credit for their own films or involvement in making them. The class will begin with a visual overview of each of their careers through a clip and trailers video program, followed by an illustrated lecture about their sleazy and often unsettling subject matter, distinctly unique camerawork and artistic vision, and overall significance to exploitation film history. Doris and Roberta have publicly claimed to not have a feminist agenda (and verge on female misogyny with some of the things they’ve actually said and depicted in some films), but their overall oeuvres often speak otherwise, so we will examine and debate this. The class will conclude with a Q&A session. Lisa prefers to keep things light so she will try to regale you with fun factoids and anecdotes from her years of being involved with Something Weird Video. There also may be a surprise guest speaker or two. And brace yourselves, all participants will receive a delightfully depraved FREE ARTIFACT – a genuine piece of sexploitation history from the Something Weird Archive that you will cherish for years to come! This event is in collaboration with the UCLA Film and Television Archive‘s series Catch a Thrill! Celebrating Ten Years of the American Genre Film Archive, which runs July 12-Aug 17, 2019.

By popular demand, after a successful chartered bus tour of iconic cult and horror film locations in Toronto last summer, Spectacular Optical and The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies invite you to the first-ever Horror Express-Montreal on Wednesday July 17th! This 6-hour bus tour hosted by longtime horror journalist Michael Gingold (Fangoria, Rue Morgue) and House of Psychotic Women author Kier-La Janisse will stop at 10 iconic horror locations from Canada’s infamous tax shelter era. Come join us for fun and photo ops as we navigate through the history of Montreal’s cinematic underbelly. The tour will begin with a 9:30am registration in central Montreal (location to be disclosed to registrants in an email, but it will be close to Fantasia headquarters at Concordia’s Hall Building) and departure at 10am, and will run until approximately 4:00pm, including a stop for lunch along the route (cost of lunch not included). PLUS! The luxury bus has AV so we can watch clips of the films in advance of arriving at each location! But act fast because there are only 30 seats! TICKETS $50.00 CAD – available in Spectacular Optical’s webstore HERE >> This tour is being organized in conjunction with Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs July 11-Aug 1, 2019.