FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992, directed by David Lynch and co-written with Robert Engels) was created to address unanswered questions in the seminal TV series TWIN PEAKS (1990-91), but instead it offered more puzzles and dream narratives to confound viewers. Its premiere in Cannes was met with boos and jeers from the audience, but over the years critical opinion of this challenging film has matured and developed. Maura McHugh will explore the symbols and themes that underpin FIRE WALK WITH ME and TWIN PEAKS, and will offer you a refresher course in its characters and strange happenings in advance of the new series of TWIN PEAKS which will materialise in 2017.  

For decades, the provinces of screen horror were European castles and villages, and Southwest/California towns and deserts—until 1968’s ROSEMARY’S BABY, when terror moved into the Big Apple and never left. This class will chronicle the history of Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs in genre cinema, addressing many specific titles—from expensive studio fare to down-and-dirty independents—lensed on and under its streets, classic and recurring locations, and how the many sides of the city were explored and exploited by filmmakers. Resident auteurs such as Larry Cohen, Abel Ferrara, Frank Henenlotter and William Lustig will be addressed, as will the ways in which New York City-set scare flicks reflected the changes in the city itself over the years.

Monsters in the Closet examines the intersection between gay erotic novels of the 1970s and the conventions of genre fiction formulas that lent themselves to sexually explicit variations, which adults-only publishers mined with exemplary vigor. I began collecting them not for the colorful covers but because they were windows onto a world of familiar stories with a twist, like the European exploitation movies I sought out in Times Square. I gravitated towards horror and thrillers, a natural adult-novel match—consider the phrase “scared stiff”—that produced tales of gay vampires, psycho killers, demonic possession and restless spirits no closet can contain. And while these books are pulp fictions through and through, they’re far from unsophisticated: The teaser for Vampire’s Kiss, in which a tediously ordinary, suburban wage slave chronicles his induction into the world the queer undead, wonders disingenuously whether he’s “a vampire?—Or… merely rationalizing his homosexuality?” Free of the scrutiny afforded gay literary novels, gay pulps dared to be cheeky, to riff on pop culture and flirt with subversiveness: Gay Vampire gives a shout out to supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows, the thriller Man Eater to every dark tale of mirror-image cops and criminals… gay pulps shone a light under the bed, into the corner and, yes, the closets, calling out the monsters in all their fabulous freakiness.  

With “Shirley Jackson’s Weird,” Miskatonic-Montréal celebrates the 100th birthday of Shirley Jackson, one of the grandmothers of literary horror. This three-week course is devoted to the work of the reclusive Vermont author whose brutal short story, “The Lottery,” still holds the record for the most letters of protest sent to THE NEW YORKER for publishing it. Come along with instructor Kristopher Woofter as we walk through the haunted spaces of Jackson’s four major works: THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES (1949), and her “uncanny house trilogy,” THE SUNDIAL (1958), THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (1959), and WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE (1962). A bestseller in her time, and a major influence on authors like Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates, Jackson’s work has gone relatively unacknowledged by scholarship that relegates her to obscurity. Jackson’s body of work varied from domestic satire in her darkly humorous memoirs RAISING DEMONS and LIFE AMONG THE SAVAGES), to young-adult fiction (THE WITCHCRAFT OF SALEM VILLAGE), to uncanny psychological studies (THE ROAD THROUGH THE WALL, THE BIRD’S NEST), to her most popular work in the realm of horror and the weird.  This course brings Jackson back to acknowledge her place as one of America’s—and without question one of horror’s—greatest writers. This course will feature a screening of Robert Wise’s stunning Jackson adaptation, THE HAUNTING (1963).

Children and horror: two things that are usually not considered to go together. Very often, it is assumed that if children are exposed to horror, they will be psychologically ‘corrupted’ in some way, and so they should be protected from it at all costs. However, for many horror fans, our fascination with all things spooky began in childhood – whether because we watched something that we really weren’t supposed to, or were introduced to horror through children’s content such as Scooby Doo, Goosebumps, or classic Disney fairy tales like that scene from Pinocchio. With recent films such as ParaNorman, Frankenweenie and Hotel Transylvania, and children’s toys like the Monster High dolls, horror for children is becoming increasingly mainstream. This class will explore in detail the area of horror films and television programmes created specifically for children in the UK and the US. Aspects of this topic that will be covered in the class include:           How horror for children emerged and how the subgenre has developed and changed across time, from early cinema to the present day;           Key academic theories on or relating to frightening media for children;           The defining characteristics of children’s horror stories on film and television;           How children’s horror is able to be both ‘scary’ enough to be classified as horror, but ‘safe’ enough to be considered ‘child-friendly’;           Similarities and differences between children’s horror and adult horror;           The possible functions and benefits that horror might provide children. This class aims to show that the relationship between children and horror is as complex as it is fascinating and that, far from being incompatible, children and horror are actually an ideal match. Films and programmes discussed range from the popular to the obscure, the good to the bad, the expected to the unexpected, and the surprisingly disturbing to the downright fun. Examples may include Disney’s The Watcher in the Woods, cult-favourite The Monster Squad, 70s CFF chiller The Man From Nowhere and the British anthology series Dramarama Spooky.    

Dennis Paoli, screenwriter for director Stuart Gordon’s film adaptations of the works of H. P. Lovecraft (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon, and for the cable television series “Masters of Horror,” Dreams in the Witch House), will lead a two-hour master class on adapting Lovecraft for the screen—the challenges, techniques, and insights into the works gained in the process. The class will also explore the collaborative nature of adaptation—the writer, in as real a sense as possible, collaborates with the original creator of the literary work—and of film-making, by nature a cooperative, if sometimes contentious, undertaking. The enduring popularity of Gordon and Paoli’s film versions of Lovecraft’s fiction speaks to the enduring popularity of the original tales, but also to their capacity for updating, re-casting, and expanding. These specific adaptations will be examined in scenes from each of the films. Paoli will also discuss his long-time collaboration with Stuart Gordon, their methods of working together and roles in the process, based on their strengths. Paoli, who runs writing programs and teaches Gothic Fiction at Hunter College, will also consider Lovecraft’s work in the larger context of the literary genres of horror and science fiction, the major themes and working principles of Gothic literature, and their long history of cinematic adaptation.

Writer and filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski, who passed away earlier this year, worked in different genres: war films (The Third Part of the Night), gothic horror (The Devil, Possession), melodrama (The Most Important Thing is to Love, My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days, La Fidelite), thrillers (La Femme publique, Cosmos), science fiction (On the Silver Globe), costume dramas (La Note bleue),crime films (L’Amour braque), erotic dramas (Szamanka) – even musicals (Boris Godunov). However, all of Zulawski’s films share the same fundamentally vulgar structure: the love triangle. This class looks at the love triangle fundamental to all of Zulawski’s films and squares it with this remarkable director’s life and loves.  

Miskatonic-Montréal kicks off its Fall 2016 semester on Tuesday, 27 September, 7-10pm, with the six-week course, “Women Horror Directors.” Week one features a screening and discussion of the Soska Sisters’ AMERICAN MARY, followed by THE HITCH-HIKER, directed by Ida Lupino, a pioneering woman director working in Hollywood (4 October). Week three of the course treats us to Amy Holden Jones’s feminist slasher film, SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (pictured), written by novelist Rita Mae Brown (11 October). Next up is Kathryn Bigelow’s cult favourite, NEAR DARK (18 October), followed by Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour’s acclaimed independent horror film, A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (25 October). Our final week of the course features a screening, Q&A and discussion with Montréal filmmaker Maude Michaud about her work, which includes the feature film, DYS–, and the short film, SNUFF (1 November).

Step into the safety of the magic circle as Mark Pilkington explores how the myriad Western esoteric magical practices and traditions have been represented, enacted and portrayed on film. As one might expect, depictions of magic on film have tended towards the lurid and sensational rather than the spiritual or the sublime but they also provide a useful reflection of popular attitudes and ideas about magic and, on occasion, the unorthodox beliefs and practices of the film makers themselves. From the grit of medieval grimoires and spellcraft to the closeted exoticism and eroticism of early modern hermetic orders and the spiritual liberation of mid twentieth century witchcraft, we will look at a number of representations of magic on film, from the silent era, through Expressionism, B-movies, the avant garde and into the mainstream. In doing so, we’ll also learn something of the history of Western magics and their symbiotic relationship of influence with popular culture, and enjoy blood and fire, sex and sacrifice, great costumes, freaky dancing and all the spirits and demons that lurk in the heart of man. And remember, whatever you do, don’t break the circle!