Although rarely held in high regard by critics, the made for television horror film remains an intriguing artifact of network programming. Any subgenre was up for grabs, and the output was disparate, vast, and surprisingly subversive, often producing a collective memory (or trauma, depending) shared by millions of viewers. Join us for a retrospective on the golden age of the telefilm and beyond. This event will be hosted by Amanda Reyes, editor and co-author of Are You in the House Alone? A TV Movie Compendium: 1964-1999.

Hidden at the end of cobblestoned alley in Pigalle lurked a little theatre which was home to the smallest stage in Paris. This was the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (1897-1962), the legendary ‘Theatre of Horror’. In a district famous for its brothels, streetwalkers and gangsters, the unique Grand-Guignol had a loyal local fanbase and drew in many nervous visitors from further afield. Originally, its repertoire was slice-of-life realism, but it soon discovered what its audience really wanted: a little slice-of-death and a delirious mixture of sang, sperme et sueur (blood, sperm and sweat). Sure enough, the Grand-Guignol’s intense evenings of short plays, interspersing horror with comedy, took its spectators on a journey into the depths of depravation and graphic reality as they watched dramas frequently based on true stories which showed them the effects of sulphuric acid thrown in a face… Or a prostitute skinned alive as her client watches in ecstasy… Or a man cleave off his own hand and hand it to his triumphant wife… Or a suicide bomber who decides to self-detonate… Or brain surgery going gruesomely wrong… Or nipples cut off with scissors… Members of the audience might vomit or lose consciousness requiring the theatre’s very own doctor to revive them… At the same time, other spectators roared with laughter or found their private pleasures in the grilled booths at the back of the auditorium… Such is the legend of the Grand-Guignol and it masks the brilliant sophistication of its craft: the writers, actors and technicians who with exquisite finesse co-created this extraordinary, salacious and thrilling theatre. The original Grand-Guignol is long gone now, nothing but a ghost. But the phantom of this unique theatre casts a long shadow with an incalculable influence over subsequent popular horror in film, television, radio, comic books and, of course, theatre. The Grand-Guignol remains an essential antecedent to live horror performance of all kinds, from immersive experiences and Halloween shows to the work of contemporary companies such as Molotov Theatre Group (Washington DC) which continue to keep the classic Grand-Guignol repertoire alive. In this talk, the academic and theatre director Richard Hand will take you on an intimate journey into a night at the Grand-Guignol, recounting the shocking stories, vivid personalities and ingenious tricks of the original theatre before exploring the theatre’s profound legacy and abiding influence over subsequent horror culture.

Please note due to unforeseen circumstances the Andy Milligan class scheduled for January 15th has had to be cancelled, but we hope to revisit in a future semester. Between 1965 and 1988, Andy Milligan produced, wrote and directed 29 films. He also photographed, edited and provided costumes, make-ups and set design. He is the embodiment of the fierce self-reliant filmmaker, a literal one-man powerhouse taking on the jobs of several people. Even more fascinating was that Milligan also ran an off Broadway theater, producing and writing plays as well as staging the works of other writers. Yet, despite all the energy and productivity, Milligan was long regarded as a pariah in cult film circles. In Michael Weldon’s book The Psychotronic Encyclopedia, he wrote “If you’re an Andy Milligan fan there is no hope for you.” Producer Richard Gordon wrote a letter to Fangoria magazine after they published an article on Milligan, ranting against Milligan and the lack of production value in the films he made. Most cult film fans tend to relegate Milligan to the bottom of the barrel and use disparaging remarks when describing his output. Yet since his death in 1991, Milligan’s work has attracted a lot of attention and re-evaluation, most notably in Jimmy McDonough’s book The Ghastly One (2001). Milligan laid bare his soul in just about every film he made. Wallowing in a sea of self-hatred, Milligan willingly shared his misanthropy and laid it out for all to see on the screens of some of the scummiest grind houses and drive-ins this side of 42nd Street. He never let a film go by without using the classic Milligan tropes, all of which stem back to his life, which started in Saint Paul, MN, in 1929. In Milligan’s view all problems start at home and usually with the mother, and he used the films he was contracted to make for the exploitation circuit as his therapy. So come on out and explore the life and films of Andy Milligan. Through a combination of clips of his work and stills of his life, we’ll put together an understanding of the man who made such exploitation masterpieces as Bloodthirsty Butchers, Torture Dungeon, The Ghastly Ones, Vapors, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and so many more. Find out why the men who produced his films hated him, and how he shined that hatred right back onto them.

This lecture will introduce students to the world of horror ‘remakesploitation’ – international exploitation remakes of successful horror films that were often unlicensed and aimed primarily at the domestic market. For example, in 1974 the celebrated Turkish filmmaker Metin Erksan directed Şeytan, a near shot-for-shot remake of The Exorcist (1973), albeit with the Catholic iconography replaced with equivalents from Islam. This was part of a global trend for producing unlicensed reworkings of William Friedkin’s film including the blaxploitation film Abby (1974), the Italian-American rip-off Beyond the Door (1974) and the re-release of Mario Bava’s Lisa and the Devil with additional scenes under the title The House of Exorcism (1974). Similarly, in 1967 the Pakistani director Khwaja Sarfraz produced a loose remake of Dracula (1958) titled Zinda Laash that recreated many elements from the Terence Fisher Hammer film but with the notable addition of ‘item girl’ dance sequences – thereby creating one of the most unique adaptations of Bram Stoker’s novel. Surveying a range of examples of horror remakesploitation from around the world, this lecture uses Richard Dawkins’ concept of the ‘meme’ – a cultural equivalent of the biological gene that spreads and mutates in a manner analogous to evolution – to explore what these films can tell us about processes of cultural globalization. What changes were required, for example, when the Ramsay Brothers reworked Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) in their Bollywood film Mahakaal (1993)? Or when filmmaker Mehmet Aslan directed a Turkish remake of Sergio Martino’s classic giallo The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1971)? Or when Sanjay Gupta produced an Indian remake of Oldboy (2003)? Illustrated with numerous clips and posters from this international phenomenon, this class will investigate these processes of cross-pollination to explore how the horror genre adapts and mutates as it travels around the globe.

Director Rodman Flender breaks down visual storytelling to its most basic narrative requirements. Often the centerpiece of horror and thriller films, the murder set piece is its own three-act “mini movie,” with beginning, middle and climax. With close-read examinations and comparisons of murder set pieces from the silent era through contemporary releases, students will gain an understanding of the essential tools needed to create tension and suspense on a visceral and psychological level.  Deconstruction will include set pieces from classics many students know (Psycho, Halloween, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), modern favorites (High Tension, The Babadook), and lesser-known films (Edison’s Frankenstein, Horror Hotel, Kristy).  Flender will also walk through his own preparation for a set piece he directed for the Dimension TV series Scream. Topics covered include: What are the individual elements in Hitchcock’s Psycho shower scene that created the template for the modern murder set piece (music, editing, cinematography, lighting, performance)? Where have directors Brian De Palma and Dario Argento taken Hitchcock’s template in films like Dressed to Kill and Suspiria? What elements in Fritz Lang’s 1931 German thriller M did Ron Howard use 65 years later in his Hollywood film Ransom?  A discussion of “high” vs. “low” art will compare similar scenes in Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring and Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left — why one is considered an art film while the other is thought of as grindhouse sleaze? Which do the students prefer, and why?  We will compare antagonists in murder set pieces, from man (Frenzy), nature (Jaws), technology (2001, Demon Seed), and the supernatural (Nosferatu, Final Destination 5). Hitchcock’s Frenzy will also be examined as a master-class in blocking a scene.

We regret to announce that instructor Bernice M. Murphy had to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances. Our ticket vendor wegottickets is working on refunds, but we hope to reschedule the class in the future. In the meantime, join us for Christmas drinks across the street at the Friend at Hand from 7pm. This class will introduce students to the ‘Highway Horror Film,’ an overlooked sub-genre of the wider American horror tradition which articulates profound unease about the transitory nature of modern American life, as well as the wider impact of mass automobility. The post-1956 construction of the Interstate Highway System (IHS) represents one of the most dramatic innovations of post-war American society. This ground-breaking new network of federally constructed roads provided Americans with a freedom to move around the entire nation that had previously been denied to them. In addition, the car assumed the vitally important practical and symbolic function it holds to this day. As we shall see, both these innovations are questioned in Highway Horror. In these films, the American landscape is by dint of its very accessibility rendered terrifyingly hostile, and encounters with other travellers (and with those whose roadside businesses depend on highway traffic) invariably have sinister outcomes. We will begin with a discussion of one of the foundational ‘Highway Horror’ movies, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), focusing on the relationship between the film and the emergence in the 1930s of the motel as a new kind of roadside business. We’ll also explore the reasons why these locations are so often associated in American popular culture with criminality and murder. Psycho-influenced films such as Vacancy (2007) will be mentioned, as will motel-based explorations of identity dissolution such as Bug (2006) and Identity (2003). Then we’ll move on to the second major theme in the sub-genre: the ‘highway nemesis’ narrative, in which in which middle-class male road users are forced to engage in deadly cat-and-mouse battles with monstrously aggressive blue-collar adversaries, as in Duel (1971), Race With the Devil (1975), The Hitcher (1986), and Joy Ride (2001). Next, the idea that the freedom of movement and culture of anonymity associated with the highways makes them an ideal killing ground for the serial killer will be discussed, with a focus on the theme of compulsive mobility in films such as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), Kalifornia (1993) Freeway (1996) and Death Proof (2007). Finally, the seminar will conclude with a consideration of the fourth and final ‘Highway Horror’ strand, which features films in which the protagonists are killed or seriously injured in car crashes, but find themselves trapped in a purgatorial space between life and death, as seen in Carnival of Souls (1962), Dead End (2003), Reeker (2005), Wind Chill (2007) and the recent anthology Southbound (2015).

This class is sold out! Cinema has long tapped into the fundamental devices of fear in its employment of sound. Even before the advent of the loudspeaker and synchronized motion picture sound, organs and pianos collided tense sonic energy against images in the physical spaces of film exhibition parlors and nickelodeons. As humans, the audible sliver of the frequency spectrum provides a unique window into concepts of how energy and vibration physically manifest and affect the matter of our material world. After all, sound is simply vibrational energy we can hear. How we’ve arrived at organizing frequencies into the form of modern music is a mystery itself, dating back 5,000 years and involving ‘sky god visitors’ who bestowed humanity its system of measurement. Understanding our physiological experience of sound and its relation to our universe can illuminate and unlock a deeper understanding of the design of sound and music for the motion picture. Journeying through concepts of cymatics, standing wave levitation, musical tunings, as well as film examples, demonstrations, and dissections of modern mix sessions, The Frequency of Fear guides its participants through an awakening in understanding the spiritual power of sound both onscreen and beyond. ++++ Dean Hurley’s first installment of the library-style Anthology Resource series showcases his original ambient music contributions featured in Twin Peaks: The Return‘s very distinctive-sounding third season. Listen at the link below. https://deanhurley.bandcamp.com/album/anthology-resource-vol-1

For many genre fans, a love affair with horror and the grotesque began early on, sometimes fueled by unlikely sources. One of these was the classroom safety film, which for many kids was their first time seeing other children threatened by true danger, being confronted with a combination of gore effects and actual accident footage, and being offered a pictorial glimpse at things their parents didn’t want to talk about. Thousands of these films were made in North America from the 1940s through the 1980s, when companies like Centron, McGraw-Hill, Coronet, Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, Avis Films, Crawley Films, Bell Labs, the NFB and others thrived on the burgeoning market for classroom or workplace educational films. Subjects ranged from safety in and around vehicles, to drug abuse and venereal disease, teaching children scary lessons about everything from dental hygiene to how to spot a pedophile. The most memorable of these films deliberately used horror visuals to entice and/or shock children into paying attention – such as those by prolific producer Sid Davis (1916-2006) – and some were even made by directors with genre film pedigrees, such as Carnival of Souls’ Herk Harvey, a key figure in the industrial film scene. This lecture and screening by Kier-La Janisse, founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, will present some of the most notorious educational films of the 40-year golden age of social hygiene onscreen. We’ll also briefly look at educational television PSAs, from the British Public Information Films through the incredibly grisly Australian drunk driving commercials of the 1990s. The classic era of classroom films may be over, but viewed from today’s perspective, some of these films offer up a fascinating survey of changing social mores and cultural preoccupations (not to mention fashions!). Being safe has never looked so grim. WARNING: This program contains graphic imagery, including real accident and casualty footage.

From 1920’s Haunted Spooks to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the genre of horror-comedy has never really, you should excuse the expression, died. Yet humor and horror seem pretty different; one’s a pie in the face, the other’s an axe in the skull. It’s obvious why watching someone being torn asunder would be horrible but why is the endless suffering of the Three Stooges funny? Could there be any congruencies between funny and fear, snickers and screams, gore and gags, slapstick and slaughter? Yes. This class proposes – carefully, while remaining alert and well-armed – that the two genres are not mortal enemies. For one thing, people in pain are a perennial part of every art; to be fascinated with human suffering is to be human. Both comedy and horror can show us how to live (and, of course, die); from Psycho we learn that Death can come to anyone at any time. Also, to always shower with a friend. The class will examine horror’s relationship with philosophers’ explanations of comedy: Immanuel “Carrot Top” Kant’s Incongruity Theory (it’s funny when two things that don’t go together go together); Sigmund “Shecky” Freud’s Relief Theory (comedy is a rapid expulsion of tension); Thomas “Nutso” Hobbes’s Superiority Theory (“You’re in pain and I’m not – ha!”); Henri “Giggles” Bergson (comedy requires “a momentary anesthesia of the heart”); and Mel Brooks (“Tragedy is when I cut my finger; comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die”). We’ll explore the mechanics of both using video clips and examples ranging from Frankenstein and Dracula to Abbott & Costello, and try to figure out what makes us laugh and/or scream. We’ll see that both genres love loss of control, anarchy, the breakdown of rules and conventions – the beast within us set free. And both exploit our paradoxical feelings about helplessness: seeing someone out of control can be hilarious (a clumsy person falling) or horrifying (a clumsy person falling into a snake-pit suspended over a shark-pit next to a zombie zoo). Both humor and horror also share a mordant view of our relationship to pain; an obsession with the human body and its multifarious fluids; and a subtext of death and transcendence underlying the eviscerated flesh and fart jokes. What could be more blood-curdlingly fun?