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Horror Studies
Archive
Archive
Black Horror: The Revolutionary Act of Subverting the White Gaze (NYC)
Dianca London Potts
13 February 2018
Black Horror: The Revolutionary Act of Subverting the White Gaze (NYC)
Note: Online tickets are now suspended. There are five seats still available for door sales.
From Spencer Williams’ Son of Ingagi to Jordan Peele’s Get Out, the cinematic screen has consistently served as a site of subversion for filmmakers of the African diaspora. Through the camera’s lens, tales of hauntings, demonic possession, vampirism, and hoodoo rituals gone awry have become a celluloid metaphor for colonization and racism’s toll on the Black psyche. Within this space, expressions of Black embodiment and the Black experience are momentarily freed from the limitations the white gaze. The narrative shifts, allowing for the complexity and depth of Black identity and its subsequent anxieties, fears, and vulnerabilities to be examined outside the constraints of traditional tropes.
Whether it’s Blaxploitation classics like Blacula and Sugar Hill, or successors like Spike Lee’s Da Sweet Blood of Jesus and the aforementioned Get Out, Black horror films are a historically visual mode of resistance within a pervasively supremacist culture. Rather than being sacrificial lambs, wise sages, or saviors to non-POC protagonists, Black characters within this context determine their goals and desires in opposition to whiteness rather than their proximity to it. William Crain’s Prince Mamuwalde becomes the immortal Blacula, Ben — the sole Black character depicted in George Romero’s cult classic Night of the Living Dead —becomes a hero. Jordan Peele’s Chris becomes a survivor. Within this narrative context, the off-screen script is flipped. The marginalized aren’t merely centered, they’re canonized.
This multimedia presentation will offer an immersive thematic overview of Black horror narratives while highlighting noteworthy films within the genre spanning the early 1900s to modern day. Select films will be paired with excerpts of literary, sociological, and philosophical texts to enhance students understanding of the cinematic genre and its radical roots. Through visual, cultural, and historical exploration, this presentation aims to examine and foster dialogue about what happens when subjection is subverted and what stories can be told when the white gaze is decentered.
Dianca London Potts
13 February 2018
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13 February 2018
Secret Powers of Attraction: Folk Horror in its Cultural Context
Howard David Ingham
18 January 2018
Secret Powers of Attraction: Folk Horror in its Cultural Context
British “folk horror” was in many ways a phenomenon of the 1970s, but it has seen a massive revival of popularity in the last decade. What caused it to grow in the fields, forests and furrows of the 1970s and early 1980s? And why has it come back with such a vengeance?
In Secret Powers of Attraction, Howard David Ingham gives a broad overview of British folk horror in its time and space, and how popular interest in the occult creates the conditions for it to become a force in our collective imagination.
Howard’s overview of British folk horror is the starting point for an exploration into the cultural atmosphere of the 1970s and the present. If horror is a reaction to our culture, folk horror holds a mirror up to the concerns of the day. The politics and popular culture of both eras give ample space for folk horror to grow. Howard looks at period ephemera and cultural concerns of the time, drawing parallels with the present day. The Wicker Man and Ghost Stories for Christmas sprang from a world of TV astrologers and spiritualists in the national news, the National Front and the Three-Day Week; The Witch, Without Name and the films of Ben Wheatley come from the same milieu that brought us #witchesofinstagram, the return of the far right and Brexit. Secret Powers of Attraction explores how a world where the uncanny has become normal reflects itself in the horror genre, just as it did decades ago.
Secret Powers of Attraction begins with a look at the central filmic texts of the Folk Horror movement: Witchfinder General, Blood on Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man, explores folk horror in the British TV play (including classics such as Robin Redbreast, the Exorcism, and The Stone Tape) and examines how folk horror tropes invaded popular TV, from Doctor Who to Robin of Sherwood. Finally, bringing the story into the present, Howard will look at the folk horror renaissance, including the films of Ben Wheatley and Peter Strickland, the rise of independent folk horror and the unexpected places it appears in popular culture right now.
Howard David Ingham
18 January 2018
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18 January 2018
Sacred Disobedience: on ‘Penda’s Fen’ (NYC)
Sukhdev Sandhu
9 January 2018
Sacred Disobedience: on ‘Penda’s Fen’ (NYC)
Named after the last pagan king of England, David Rudkin/ Alan Clarke’s Penda’s Fen (1974) is deep heresy, an extraordinary piece of folk horror, a visionary film that is almost a foundational text in the pantheon of The Old Weird Albion. A clergyman’s son – agonistically, ecstatically – has his personal armour stripped away: parentage, nationality, sexuality, patriotism. He has encounters with an angel, a demon, the ghost of Edward Elgar, the crucified Jesus, and Penda himself. A radical archaeology of Deep England and a praise-song to anarchist transformation, it culminates with the most euphoric revelation in British cinema: “My race is mixed. My sex is mixed. I am woman and man, light with darkness, nothing pure.”
Only recently exhumed after having been out of circulation for forty years, Penda’s Fen has lost none of its power to bewitch and ensorcel. This illustrated talk by Sukhdev Sandhu, editor of The Edge Is Where The Centre Is, a limited-edition art book on the film, will explore its topographies and febrile contexts – experimental public broadcasting, avant-garde arcadias, the rural uncanny, a mid-70s Britain that teetered on the brink of civil war, the rise of eldritch England.
Sukhdev Sandhu
9 January 2018
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9 January 2018
YULETIDE TERROR: CHRISTMAS HORROR ON FILM AND TELEVISION
Derek Johnston
14 December 2017
YULETIDE TERROR: CHRISTMAS HORROR ON FILM AND TELEVISION
For many, Christmas is an annual celebration of goodwill and joy, but for others, it’s a time to curl up on the couch in the dead of winter for a good old fashioned fright. The festive holiday season has always included a more somber side, and scary tales of child-stealing demons to ghost stories told ‘round the fireplace go back to pre-Christian celebrations. These long-standing traditions have found modern expression in the Christmas horror film, a unique and sometimes controversial subgenre that cheerfully drives a stake of holly through the heart of cherished Christmas customs.
To celebrate the release of Spectacular Optical’s new book Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror on Film and Television, contributors Stephen Thrower and Derek Johnston will delve into the world of festive fright favourites and obscurities, from American Santa Slashers (and the ensuing controversies) to the quintessentially-English A Ghost Story for Christmas series, providing insight on these subversive film and television presentations that allow viewers to engage in different ways with the complicated cultural history of the Christmas season, while also examining literary precedents and the broader role of television and radio horror.
As part of this special event, we will also be premiering a new Christmas horror short film made to accompany the book by filmmaker Sean Hogan (THE DEVIL’S BUSINESS): a windswept ghost story set on England’s southeastern coast called WE ALWAYS FIND OURSELVES IN THE SEA.
Books will be available at the event.
Derek Johnston
14 December 2017
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14 December 2017
YULETIDE TERROR: Christmas Horror on Film and Television (NYC)
Kier-La Janisse
12 December 2017
YULETIDE TERROR: Christmas Horror on Film and Television (NYC)
For many, Christmas is an annual celebration of goodwill and joy, but for others, it’s a time to curl up on the couch in the dead of winter for a good old fashioned fright. The festive holiday season has always included a more somber side, and scary tales of child-stealing demons to ghost stories told ‘round the fireplace go back to pre-Christian celebrations. These long-standing traditions have found modern expression in the Christmas horror film, a unique and sometimes controversial subgenre that cheerfully drives a stake of holly through the heart of cherished Christmas customs.
To celebrate the release of Spectacular Optical’s new book Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror on Film and Television, contributors Michael Gingold (Rue Morgue) and Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women) will delve into the world of festive fright favourites and obscurities, from American Santa Slashers (and the ensuing controversies) to the quintessentially-English A Ghost Story for Christmas series, providing insight on these subversive film and television presentations that allow viewers to engage in different ways with the complicated cultural history of the Christmas season.
As part of this special event, we will also be premiering a new Christmas horror short film made to accompany the book by filmmaker Sean Hogan (THE DEVIL’S BUSINESS): a windswept ghost story set on England’s southeastern coast called WE ALWAYS FIND OURSELVES IN THE SEA.
Books will be available at the event.
Kier-La Janisse
12 December 2017
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12 December 2017
Duane Jones: Race and Revolution in the Vietnam Era
David Austin
28 November 2017
Duane Jones: Race and Revolution in the Vietnam Era
This two-week course with Dave Austin and Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare examines the important place of the actor who played the now-iconic character of Ben in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and the lead in the experimental horror film, GANJA AND HESS (1973), as a figure embodying the revolutionary aspirations of the Vietnam era.
David Austin
28 November 2017
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28 November 2017
Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Exploring The Demon Feminine In Film (NYC)
Kristen J. Sollée
21 November 2017
Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Exploring The Demon Feminine In Film (NYC)
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 <em>Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive </em>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 <em>Haxan</em> to offer perspective on the historical origins of the witch, the talk will include clips and analysis of Mario Bava’s 1960 film <em>Black Sunday</em> to examine what film theorist Barbara Creed calls “the monstrous feminine,” and TV classic <em>Bewitched</em> 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 <em>Season of the Witch</em>, anime classic <em>Belladonna of Sadness</em>, <em>Lair of the White Worm</em>, <em>The Witches of Eastwick </em>and <em>The Craft</em> to analyze conceptions of female sexual expression, and Anna Biller’s <em>The Love Witch</em> 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.
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Kristen J. Sollée
21 November 2017
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21 November 2017
INTO THE DARK: THE MONSTERS AND NIGHTMARES OF HORROR ANIMATION
Nag Vladermersky
9 November 2017
INTO THE DARK: THE MONSTERS AND NIGHTMARES OF HORROR ANIMATION
Just added: Animators Robert Morgan (BOBBY YEAH) and Chris Shepherd (DAD’S DEAD) will appear at the class in person to discuss their work!
Too little attention has been paid to animated horror and yet animation is uniquely qualified as an art form to fully explore all our fears and anxieties, through visuals crafted by some of the most creative imaginations on the planet. In this illustrated talk, Nag Vladermersky, Director of the London International Animation Festival, will look at the specific forms that horror takes in animation, digging deep into the bowels of the extensive LIAF archive to unearth some of the darkest, weirdest and hellish gems that have screened at the festival over the last 14 years.
Among several short films rarely screened outside of the film festival circuit, he will explore the cruel and casual violence seen in the films of local animators Chris Shepherd (Dad’s Dead) and stop-motion puppet master Robert Morgan (Bobby Yeah) alongside the terrifying visions and otherworldly sinister CG terrains of Dutch animator Rosto (Lonely Bones), the ultra-creepy, bizarre monsters created by Pieter Coudijzer (Beast!) and race issues in the American South circa 1919 as depicted by Einar Baldwin (The Pride of Strathmoor).
Above: Robert Morgan’s BOBBY YEAH (2011)
Chris Shepherd’s DAD’S DEAD (2015)
Nag Vladermersky
9 November 2017
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9 November 2017
DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS: WOMEN HORROR DIRECTORS
Alanna Thain
17 October 2017
DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS: WOMEN HORROR DIRECTORS
In this five-week course, five different instructors focus on issues related to women’s and gender issues in horror. Topics include horror films by female directors, feminist horror, feminist readings of horror, and female performances of abjection in horror. Films include CARRIE (Brian De Palma, 1976), TÉSIS (Alejandro Amenábar, 1996), JENNIFER’S BODY (Karyn Kusama, 2009), THE BABADOOK (Jennifer Kent, 2014), and EVOLUTION (Lucile Hadžihalilović, 2015).
Tuesday nights, 7-10pm
17 October – Kristopher Woofter, on CARRIE (1976)
24 October – Alanna Thain, on EVOLUTION
31 October – Halloween Break
7 November – Rosanna Maule, on TÉSIS
14 November – Karen Herland, on THE BABADOOK
21 November – Anne Golden, on JENNIFER’S BODY
Alanna Thain
17 October 2017
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17 October 2017
VIDEO DUNGEON: HOW TO TALK ABOUT ‘PSYCHOTRONIC CINEMA’
Kim Newman
12 October 2017
VIDEO DUNGEON: HOW TO TALK ABOUT ‘PSYCHOTRONIC CINEMA’
In his introduction to the important collection of film essays King of the Bs, Todd McCarthy quotes Andrew Sarris’s dictum ‘eventually we must speak of everything if there is enough time and space and printer’s ink’. Sarris was working up to an assessment of Edgar G. Ulmer’s Daughter of Dr Jekyll (1958).
In his new book Video Dungeon, Kim Newman has written about ten sub-categories of ‘everything’ – from found footage and Bigfoot movies through the weirder appearances of Frankenstein and Dracula and group-of-random-strangers-wake-up-in-a-trap pictures to Weird Hippie Shit and made-for-cable CGI mutant shark or snake attack cinema.
To launch the book, Kim will be talking about critiquing films some reckon beyond or beneath or outside criticism, illustrated with clips from the weirdest and rarest films. He will consider critical approaches to what Michael Weldon calls ‘Psychotronic Cinema’ and less perceptive souls write off as ‘junk’.
He’ll look at the Golden Turkey/Mystery Science Theatre brand of snark, the engaged approach of John Bloom writing as Joe Bob Briggs, fanzine legends like Bill Landis (Sleazoid Express), the cataloguing frenzy of Video Watchdog, academic and personal approaches from Carol Clover and Kier-La Janisse and curatorships like Cigarette Burns, the Final Girls and the Miskatonic Institute itself.
Kim Newman
12 October 2017
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12 October 2017