If you have ever seen an ancient Egyptian mummy, apart from in a film, it is likely you saw one in a museum. There is usually some information attached to the exhibit, a note where the mummy was found, their age, perhaps even a name. However, have you ever wondered; how did it arrive there? If it was ‘acquired’ during the nineteenth century, likely it was either ‘legally stolen’ (through the loophole of colonialism) or illegally smuggled. Either way: you are looking at a stolen corpse on display for all to see. This lecture aims to unravel the history of mummies and the ‘mummy’s curse’ by focusing on their treatment and perception in the nineteenth-century. It will focus on the consequences of the mummy-trade in nineteenth-century Britain focusing on how mummies were perceived and treated during this time. There are four specific areas that will be examined; mummy pits (mass tombs and Victorian descriptions of pits, visual culture); mummies on display (mummy unwrapping parties); Victorian mummy Gothic fictions (by Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Conan Doyle and Louisa May Alcott); and mummies in media (early horror films featuring mummies and their connection to museums). I focus on key case studies, exhibitions, and events to demonstrate the overall, (and some important individual) perceptions of the mummy, and how this unethical treatment shaped the idea of the mummy in modern society. What does it mean to be human? How can we honour mummies by focusing on the very thing that makes them terrifying? How did the perceptions of the mummy create a Gothic monster? How did mummy fiction in the nineteenth-century contribute to the figure of the mummy? What is the relationship between horror and mummies beyond the media? And how can examining the past create a more ethical and respectful future for mummies? By the end of the lecture, attendees will have a wider understanding of this under-researched area of history, and develop an appreciation for the history surrounding mummies. Additionally, attendees will gain an insight into how mummy fictions and films perceive mummies as the ‘villain’/’monster’ and how the mummy figure bridges the gap between history and horror through various mediums. Furthermore, this conversation extends to the wider debate surrounding human remains in museums, a current and significant discussion regarding decolonisation, and (un)ethical displays.

A precursor to gore cinema, the Grand Guignol theater exposes, through its form and themes, an ambiguous relationship to the body as a strange mechanic that must be restrained and controlled while demanding unbridled explosions. In the Paris of “La Belle Epoque”, the Grand Guignol was situated at the confluence of bourgeois and popular cultures, scientific innovations and social transformations. He drew from it a fascination mixed with fear towards the contradictory and complementary dynamics of control and unleashing, as well as a deep anguish both towards the authorities, whose shackles crush the individuals with an implacable and inhuman rigor and towards the potential monster which hides in everyone and threatens to emerge if not tamed. It is in this soil of fear that the techniques of the “Scottish shower”, the timing of plays and the bloody special effects that have made the identity of this theater were developed. This lecture will explore this dimension that cinema has largely inherited and focus on explaining how the Grand Guignol evolved from a subversive naturalistic theater to a festival of horrific and erotic thrills, and how its social and cultural context Guignol perspires through its plays and irrigated modern horror after its demise.

Please note this class has two options to participate: Live and virtual via simulcast.  Join us for an intimate and entertaining evening with horror legend and irrepressible storyteller, Tom Holland. Hosted by Mark Miller. Tom Holland is an icon of horror whose career has spanned 60 years.  As a young man watching Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, Holland fell in love with the horror genre, and worked tirelessly to position himself as one of its pioneers.  Starting his career as an actor and model, Holland soon found he had a gift for storytelling. Through tenacity, hard work, and the spark of genius, he carved a singular path, and paved the way for generations of future storytellers to make their mark, and break free from the labels assigned by others.   Holland has always been a workhorse. Throughout the ‘60s and early ‘70s, Holland appeared in over 200 commercials and television shows (Including the original The Incredible Hulk television series). He was hungry for more, however, and began directing Hasbro commercials. From there, he started writing screenplays. His breakout writing project was Psycho II. He had studied the genre and the craft, and it showed. He soon found, however, that a screenwriter’s life is fraught with anxieties. After despising the treatment some of his screenplays had received, eventually, he made the leap to director.  “I started directing in self-defense. I had a movie called Scream for Help [directed by Michael Winner and released in 1984] that didn’t turn out so well. I was so in love with the script for Fright Night, it was the most joyous writing experience I ever had. So, after the experience I had with Scream for Help I didn’t trust it in anybody’s hands except my own.”  Apparently, the world owes Michael Winner deep gratitude for Fright Night ultimately ending up in Holland’s hands. It was a long road from Holland’s first photoshoot as a fresh-faced model, to finding himself in the director’s seat on the set of Fright Night. In 1985, Holland’s professional journey was a road seldom traveled. Today, the multi-hyphenate artist is ubiquitous. As such, Holland’s experiences, career advice, and contributions to Hollywood (old and new), are unparalleled.   Miskatonic Los Angeles is frightfully thrilled to host an evening with an official master of horror; Tom Holland. Chronicling Holland’s pivot, a lonely path in the 1970s, we’ll take a walk from model to maestro; the duality of the delicate soul of the artist, and the beast yearning to break free. — If participating in the live/physical event, please check with your local health authority on the current requirements for masks and vaccination for attending live events. If participating via live simulcast event – the class cannot be watched later, so please be sure you are available at the date and time the class is being offered in before registering. Classes curated by Miskatonic Los Angeles are in Pacific Time.

In a disturbing facial close-up of Helen (Dorothy McGuire) from the Robert Siodmak’s 1946 classical Hollywood film The Spiral Staircase the film’s viewer sees a serial killer’s mental projection of an erased area—a void—onto Helen’s face. In this this shot, taken from the serial killer’s point of view, the film viewer is aligned with the serial killer’s misogynist and violent view of women. To establish and conceptualise the nature of the horror of the void that violently marks Helen’s face in Siodmak’s film this class considers a number of theories of the void and erasure, including that of the vanishing point in Renaissance art and also Gilles Deleuze’s arguments about facial effacement in his cinema books. To identify what is happening in this close-up from a 1940s gothic woman’s film, this class also spends some time examining how close-ups operate in three other film examples: D.W. Griffith’s 1911 melodrama Enoch Arden, Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 modernist art film Persona, and Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Based on this discussion, we, in this class, explore how the void—as representative of patriarchal violence—is a structuring principle of what is, and what is not, visible in The Spiral Staircase. We also learn how to identify acts of resistance to visible and invisible forms of patriarchal violence that are a source of horror for Helen and the other female characters in this film. Hello Miskatoans, Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have to postpone this lecture (originally scheduled for October 4th), THE HORROR OF THE VOID IN THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE, to Tuesday, October 18th, 7:30pm Eastern time. Your zoom registration will still be effective. If you have purchased an online pass or ticket for this event and are unable to attend the live lecture on the 18th, we can offer a complimentary viewing of the VOD once it is available on our Vimeo channel. Please email us at miskatonicihs@gmail.com after the 18th, and we will send you the information for your complimentary viewing.  We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies

“THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE” is an oft-quoted line that reveals a relationship between horror, the home, and gender. From the muttering prank calls of Black Christmas (1974) to the frantic opening scene of Scream (2022), the telephone is often a source of intrusion and terror inflicted upon women in places culturally coded as feminine: places where, in theory, they should be safe). In this lecture, we will examine the historical relationship between gender and the telephone, specifically the telephone as an instrument of femininity and domesticity. Through this historical grounding, we will explore a selection of 20th century American horror films (with exceptions from Italy, Korea, Japan, and the early 21st century) to dissect the ways in which the phone is weaponized against women specifically in arenas in which they are supposedly blameless or safe. By interrogating this relationship, we can start to construct an understanding of the phone as a site of technological anxiety while we simultaneously deconstruct our understanding of how women become victims, and why, in these films. Since the number of films in which the telephone is a conduit of fear is remarkably vast, we will take some key detours throughout the lecture to consider other ways that gender and sexuality are policed by an unknown assailant using telephones and communications technology. As our technologies and understandings of gender evolve, so do the ways that our films reflect their attendant anxieties. Reference texts include scholarly articles on the history of labor and telephone, as well as the role of telephone in film. Films discussed include (but are not limited to): SORRY WRONG NUMBER, DIAL M FOR MURDER, DISCONNECTED, BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), PERSONAL SHOPPER, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, LISA, BLACK SABBATH, SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME!, ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?, DIAL: HELP, THE TAKING OF DEBORAH LOGAN, and the SCREAM franchise.

From the amoral primeval mother in Aliens (1986), the vampire in Dracula’s Daughter (1936), the witch in Carrie (1976), and the animal in Cat People (1942), to the deadly femme castratrice in I Spit on Your Grave (1978), the aged psychopath in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and castrating mother in Psycho (1960) – the monstrous-feminine has been a staple in Western horror cinema since its beginning. In horror scholarship, the monstrous-feminine has been explored in a myriad of arguments, most of which stem from Freudian theories. Psychoanalytical theories argue that the female monster is born from sexual difference and is used as a way for male filmmakers to negotiate and eventually soothe their fears regarding the female body. A comprehensive (but not exhaustive) investigation of the monstrous-feminine confirms most of these theories, but leaves one question unanswered: what happens with the monstrous-feminine when directed by a woman? It is precisely this questions that this talk aims to examine. Through an exploration of the monstrous-feminine from the 1930s onwards, the first part of this talk will establish the stereotypes, archetypes and tropes that have filled Western horror cinema and link them to horror scholarship theories. These will pose as counterpoints to which compare the role of the monstrous-feminine when written and directed by women in films from the 2000s onward. The second part of this talk will focus on the subversive reclamation of the female monster as seen in films such as Jennifer’s Body (2009), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), Raw (2016) and Revenge (2017) while looking at recent horror theories that challenge the ahistorical psychoanalytical theories mentioned in the first part of the talk.

Since the 1973 release of THE EXORCIST, the demonic possession and exorcism sub-genre continues to be unflaggingly popular. Dozens of possession-themed films have been released in the last fifteen years alone. Most feature a young woman as the victim of the possession, writhing in her own filth, grasping at her breasts, spitting, cursing, and taunting authority figures. Beside her is a man—often a priest, rabbi, spiritual healer, or psychiatrist—and inside her is a demon. One might think that demonic possession or exorcism films are all about religion; after all, exorcism represents a reconciliation with God. But instead, such films illustrate the fraught relationship between women and sociopolitical power structures, with the woman’s body as the battleground. This talk will survey possession-themed films that reflect gender-based cultural anxieties around puberty, the trauma of sexual assault, the pathologization of female sexual expression, and misogynstically-motivated psychiatric diagnoses such as hysteria. Films discussed will include THE EXORCIST, THE ENTITY, SESSION 9, THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, JENNIFER’S BODY, THE LAST EXORCISM, LOVELY MOLLY, and SAINT MAUDE.

The Twilight Zone is one of the best-known shows of all time. Although it’s often classified as a science fiction series, many argue that a majority of the episodes constitute horror as well. In fact, The Twilight Zone’s most popular episodes lean heavily into the horrific as a means of social commentary that are sadly still relevant today. This class will explore classic episodes such as “The Eye of the Beholder”, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”, “The Invaders”, “The Big Tall Wish”, “He’s Alive”, “The Shelter”, “The Obsolete Man”, and the controversial episode “The Encounter”. “The Eye of the Beholder” takes our beauty standards and turns them on their head to illustrate how beauty standards differ across cultures, making the quest for perfection meaningless. “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” and “The Invaders” explore themes of xenophobia, and how it leads to an individualistic society. “The Big Tall Wish” echoes sentiments today about “woke” entertainment with its depiction of Black characters in a non-racial story, while “He’s Alive”, “The Shelter”, and “The Obsolete Man” are cautionary tales of what awaits us if our democracy is threatened in a political climate that very closely matches that of the 1960s. Finally, we’ll discuss “The Encounter”, and how that episode tackles racism and the effects of war head-on, in a way that was so controversial at the time that “The Encounter” was one of the few episodes that did not re-air for three decades.

Is race a trope of horror? What is racial horror? This talk addresses the abjection of race through the lens of the contemporary horror film. From the Haitian origins of the enslaved zombie to gothic multiculturalisms, the nonwhite figure has been continually enfleshed and encoded in the West as monstrous, alien, and foreign. Often frightening, overly desirous and hyper-appetitive, racialized creatures are the source of terror and jouissance—objet petit a in Lacanian terms. From the horrific specters of slavery and genocide of Black and Indigenous populations to Yellow Peril techno-orientalism, white Western horror thrives upon the abjection of racialized bodies. Drawing together psychoanalytic approaches, critical race theorists together with horror, we will analyze the recent turn of Black and Indigenous horror films as well as global Asian films to reveal the ways in which such conventions are troubled by global nonwhite filmmakers. Finally, we will speculate on the extent to which racial horror casts (counter)spells on its audiences through tempo, color, rhythm, and affect. We end with the lecturer’s own horror short Carnal Orient (2016) to discuss the ways in which horror can critique the fetishization of Asian bodies through estrangement. Detailed outline I. Racial horror and gothic traditions a. In the West, legacies of slavery and indigenous genocide undergird and inflect the genre in racialized ways (Christina Sharpe, Saidiya Hartman, Sylvia Wynter, etc.) i. The literary and cinematic Gothic American deals with legacies of slavery (Higgins and Swartz, “The Knowing of Monstrosities” (it takes a monster to kill a monster) b. Meanwhile Yellow Peril produces Asian/Alien otherness and desire for the foreign simultaneously (Stephen Sohn) c. Liberal multiculturalism also creates a horrific pressure cooker of sorts: legacies of 1990s multiculturalist nightmares and POC “first to die” trope (The Crow, The Craft) d. The rise of Asian shock horror and the monstrous Asian (Audition, The Ring) II. Racial abjection and anti-Blackness (Frank Wilderson) a. King Kong: historical allegories of Black monstrosity b. Blacula: post-Blaxploitation horror c. Get Out; Us; Candyman; Lovecraft Country: new Black horror and critiques (Them, Antebellum) III. White monsters (American occupation) a. White zombies: Blood Quantum b. Japanese and Korean responses to American occupation: Godzilla, The Host and Squid Game c. Carnal Orient: discussing my own work as an Asian American woman grappling with Asian fetishization through horror (drawing on Anne Anlin Cheng’s Ornamentalism) Please note this is a live broadcast event – the class cannot be watched later, so please be sure you are available at the date and time the class is being offered in before registering. All sales are final, and we will not give refunds for any reason other than class cancellation. Classes curated by Miskatonic Los Angeles are in Pacific Time.