In the 1990s, Wave Productions in New Jersey established itself as perhaps the leading distributor of shot-on-video horror movies. Its catalogue was expansive because of a very simple if ingenious marketing premise: Customers scripted and paid for their own movies. From the outset, customers wanted sexy girls in horrible situations. Yet, Wave had reservations about nudity and violence, underplaying or rejecting entirely anything it considered extreme. Not all the companies that followed were as conscientious. Fetish custom studios now operate internationally, patronised by individuals with a hankering to see a favourite model hiccup in white socks, or else, more likely, be executed and play dead. This lecture traces the history of the custom shoot, from its clumsy beginnings in video horror to the present facsimile death scenes, often enhanced by digital effects and sometimes featuring explicit sex. These short films closely mimic the motifs of the mythological ‘snuff’ film, in as much as the customer suggests a scenario, the preferred mode of death (gunshot, strangulation, hanging, etc.) and the victim (plucked from a studio’s own roster of performers). Thus the custom shoot occupies a unique space in the collective mind-set, one created and never occupied by the ‘reality’ of snuff films. Adults only. Please note there will be no admission after the lecture has started at 7.30pm.  

The 1960s-70s saw copious amounts of on-screen self-flagellation, brutal witch-hunting, delirious possessions and sadistic exorcisms, culminating into the so-called ‘nunsploitation’ genre. Beyond the desire to shock and titillate, many of these films, most notably Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971), were part of the time’s questioning of all power structures, pitching repressive, corrupt and hypocritical religious authorities against individual freedom and morality. In particular, films such as Gianfranco Mingozzi’s Flavia the Heretic (1974) denounced the oppression of women in patriarchal society, and pictured their revolt through disobedience and deviant sexuality. This deviant sexuality was also sometimes part of an alternative form of worship connected to natural forces, as in Juan López Moctezuma’s Alucarda (1977). For Moctezuma, as for his fellow Panique associate Alejandro Jodorowsky, spiritual initiation involved an element of violence, although not the same kind of violence as that of the Catholic Church, as depicted in many of these films. The lecture will explore the various ways in which desire, cruelty, power and religion are configured in the cinema of the period. Please note there will be no admission after the lecture has started at 7.30pm.  

True Crime appeals to armchair detectives, voyeurs and conspiracy theorists. Each story offers the tantalizing possibility of resolving a mystery — though, often the most appealing works tend to instead multiply motives by pointing toward clues left uninvestigated. This three-week course will celebrate the genre by exploring how inspectors, authors, lawyers and viewers rely on the power of narrative to confirm their own path to an unreliable truth. Screenings may include: THE JINX (2015), THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988), and IN COLD BLOOD (1967).

WE ARE VERY SORRY TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE TALK IS CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS. ALL TICKETS WILL BE REFUNDED. APOLOGIES FOR THE DISAPPOINTMENT AND INCONVENIENCE CAUSED.   Electronic music and sound started to appear on science fiction and horror soundtracks in the 1950s, and by the 1970s were increasingly commonplace, used to denote alien life-forms, demonic realms and psychic ruptures. By the 1980s, the synth scores of director/composer John Carpenter were synonymous with modern American horror. But how have electronic music and sound become an agent of horror, as well as an accompaniment to it? This talk looks beyond the soundtrack at the role of composers, instruments, computers and other sound-making devices in horror films, revealing that the relationship between alien sounds and inhuman activity is not always as straightforward as one might expect. Please note there will be no admission after the lecture has started at 7.30pm.      

From 60s TV series THE AVENGERS and salacious Hammer Horror TWINS OF EVIL to 70s gearhead staple DIRTY MARY, CRAZY LARRY and children’s classics ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN and THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS, British filmmaker John Hough has had an eclectic and storied career behind the camera. He considers himself a craftsman rather than an auteur, but is responsible for some of the most beloved films in horror history – most notably his 1973 adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel HELL HOUSE. In this special instalment of LIVE FROM MISKATONIC, Hough will participate in a lengthy on-stage conversation with our guest interviewer Justin Harries, the curator of London’s popular FILMBAR70. The conversation will cover Hough’s early television career, his work with Hammer Films and Disney, his interactions with 1970s renegade Hollywood and his work with screen giants such as Orson Welles, Roddy McDowell, John Cassavetes, Max Von Sydow, Sophia Loren, Rod Steiger and so many more. The talk will be punctuated by film clips and there will be a Q+A period following the formal discussion. Please note there will be no admission after start time, so arrive in time to get a seat by 7pm!

This seven-week course kicks off an entire Winter 2016 semester devoted to the horrors of the real. Seven instructors offer their unique scholarly approaches to the varied convergences of horror and documentary cinema. Topics include pseudo-documentary horror, fake found-footage horror, the French cinema of sensation, horror in experimental documentary and the essay film, archival horror, and horror film samples in industrial music. Screenings may include: THE ACT OF KILLING (2014), LEÇONS DES TÉNÈBRES (1999), and THE HELLSTROM CHRONICLE (1971).   Week 1: From HAXAN to HELLSTROM and Beyond: The Critical Convergence of Horror and Documentary Cinemas (Tuesday, 2 February) Screening: HAXAN: WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES (1922, Benjamin Christensen) Instructor, Kristopher Woofter Week 2: Caravaggio’s Luminous Flesh: Sensation, Corporeality, and the Documentary: LEÇONS DES TÉNÈBRES (Tuesday, 9 February) Screening: LEÇONS DES TÉNÈBRES (1999, Vincent Dieutre) Instructor, Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare Week 3: The Monstrous Archive(s): The Redeployment of Horror Cinema by Found Footage Experimental Filmmakers (Tuesday, 16 February) Screenings: OUTER SPACE (2009, Peter Tscheserkassky) and other shorts Instructor, Annaëlle Winand Week 4: A Body Too Few—Horror Reenactment and THE ACT OF KILLING (Tuesday, 23 February) Screening: THE ACT OF KILLING (2014, Joshua Oppenheimer) Instructor, Ned Schantz Week 5: Horror Docudrama Cinema Meets the Avant-Garde (Tuesday, 1 March) Screening: THE WAR GAME (1965, Peter Watkins) Instructor, Anne Golden Week 6: “Jesus Wept”: Sampling, Sympathy, and the Animal in Industrial Music (Tuesday, 8 March) Listening will include Skinny Puppy’s VIVIsectVI (1988) and RABIES (1989) and a possible screening Instructor, Shalon Noble Week 7: “What if?”: The Metaphysical Horror of the Conditional Tense Documentary (Tuesday, 15 March) Screening: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (OPÉRATION LUNE) (2002, William Karel) Instructor, Papagena Robbins

Building on Jack Sargeant’s previously published research on J.G. Ballard, this talk explores Ballard in the realms beyond literature, looking at his graphics, use of performance and the infamous Crashed Cars exhibition as well as the short film Crash, in relation to the aesthetic ‘perversions’ that emerged around his ground-breaking 1970s novels. The talk offers an exploration of Ballard’s radical experimental work, and traces its influence into the subcultural mise en scène of the era and beyond. The talk will include a screening of  The Unlimited Dream Company (dir: Sam Scoggins, 1983, 24 mins).    

In 1950 Thomas Nigel Kneale won the Somerset Maugham Award for his prose collection TOMATO CAIN & OTHER STORIES. In 1953 he changed the face of British Television with THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT. Public houses across the country emptied as each installment of this thrilling new story went out live to the nation. Never before had a television drama become a national event, and few enough have had such an impact since. His adaptation of NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR would raise questions in Parliament, such was its power, while original dramas like THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS accurately predicted, and indicted, the sensationalism of ‘Reality TV’ and the passivity of the society that produced it. In the years that followed QUATERMASS & THE PIT, THE STONE TAPE, MURRAIN, BEASTS, THE WOMAN IN BLACK and more, would influence successive generations of authors, film makers and screenwriters. From Russell T. Davies to The League Of Gentlemen, John Carpenter to Stephen King, Chris Carter, Peter Strickland, Ramsey Campbell, China Mieville and more… Jacques Derrida may have coined the term, but it is Kneale – in his style, themes, and the unique tone of his work – who provides a touchstone for the Hauntological movement which has pervaded our culture in recent years. To mark the launch of WE ARE THE MARTIANS, a new book of essays about Kneale and his work from Spectral Press, The Miskatonic Institute presents a unique celebration of the work of Nigel Kneale. A rehearsed reading of Kneale’s lost drama THE ROAD will be followed by an in depth discussion of Kneale’s work and influence by some of the book’s authors, including screenwriter Stephen Volk (GHOST WATCH, AFTERLIFE, THE AWAKENING), author and critic Kim Newman (ANNO DRACULA, NIGHTMARE MOVIES), author and editor Mark Morris (ALBION FAY), stage, screen and comics writer Maura McHugh (SIR EDWARD GREY: WITCHFINDER, JENNIFER WILDE), author and critic David Pirie (A HERITAGE OF HORROR), author Stephen Laws (THE MIDNIGHT MAN), author, screenwriter and playwright Jeremy Dyson (THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, BRIGHT DARKNESS: THE LOST ART OF THE SUPERNATURAL HORROR FILM) and WE ARE THE MARTIANS editor Neil Snowdon. And, just to add even more excitement, here’s the cast line-up for the reading: Big Jeff – David Morley Hale Lukey Chase – Michael Shaw Sam Towler – James Swanton Sir Timothy Hassall – Jason Morell (son of Quatermass actor Andre Morell) Tetsy – Annabel Bates Jethro – Clarence Smith Gideon Cobb – Mark Gatiss Lady Lavinia Hassall – Claire Louise Amias narrator / director – Jonathan Rigby  

This year’s edition of “Shakespeare and Horror” looks at Early Modern beliefs in witchcraft, magic, and especially mind-control. In addition to discussing Renaissance discourse on the “transitive” powers of vision and imagination—the notion that minds and matter can be influenced by another subject across the visual field—we’ll consider how Shakespeare’s allusions to proto-hypnosis, “fascination” by the evil eye, and demonic mental influences translate into the Japanese art-horror films of two (unrelated) Kurosawas. During our first session we’ll view THRONE OF BLOOD aka SPIDER WEB CASTLE (1957), Akira Kurosawa’s gothic, Noh-influenced adaptation of Macbeth. In our second class we’ll watch Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s CURE (1997), a cinematic initiation into a world mesmerism and contagious violence.