Course Archives

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  ADAPTING LOVECRAFT FOR THE SCREEN: A MASTER CLASS WITH STUART GORDON AND DENNIS PAOLI
  Sun. Jul. 18, 2010 - 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
  Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli ( Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon) will be the inaugural instructors at Miskatonic’s new home, and will be delivering a two-hour masterclass on adapting Lovecraft to the screen – the challenges, the techniques and some insight as to why their films stand out amidst a sea of historically troubled counterparts.
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  INTRODUCTION TO HORROR FILM CRITICISM FOR TEENS
  Tue. Oct. 5, 2010 - Tue. Oct. 12, 2010 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  Miskatonic director and longtime horror writer/film programmer Kier-La Janisse kicks off the Miskatonic season with this 2-evening course on horror film criticism for teens aged 14+. The course will focus on developing an aptitude for critical interpretation, using Jack Smight’s 1973 Frankenstein: The True Story as a focal point. Examples of various historical schools of writing and interpretation will accompany open discussion in class, as well as individual review assignments.
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  REALITY HORROR
  Tue. Oct. 19, 2010 - Tue. Nov. 2, 2010 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  This course looks at a popular sub-genre of horror films that blend a documentary aesthetic with traditional horror conventions to produce a hybrid form of horror cinema. Characterized by such films as The Blair Witch Project (1999), George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (2007), Cloverfield (2008) and Paranormal Activity (2009), 'reality horror' films seem particularly suited to expressing millennial and/or post-9/11 anxieties regarding not only individual and social security, but also ambivalent attitudes towards technology, new media and online databases such as YouTube and Google Video.
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  THE MONSTERS OF HAMMER HORROR
  Tue. Nov. 9, 2010 - Tue. Nov. 23, 2010 - 12:00 am
  This course will examine Hammer horror films through their most distinctive feature: the centrality of the monster. From the Italian monstrare (to show), the monster exists to be read: it warns and reveals. This course will read Hammer films through a look at its monsters - such as the Frankenstein monster, vampires, werewolves, zombies, mummies, devil worshippers, and of course, the Baron and Count – as an essential ingredient in the studio’s massive success in the 1950s through to its ultimate decline in the 1970s.
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  THE FILMS OF MARIO BAVA
  Tue. Nov. 30, 2010 - Tue. Dec. 14, 2010 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  Over the past 30 years Italian director Mario Bava has gone from relative obscurity to being acknowledged as perhaps the most significant and influential Post World War 2 European horror director. This course will examine Bava’s enduring legacy by first situating him within the Post WW2 Italian film industry, where the dominant genre changed according to popular trend (peplum, giallo, spaghetti western, gothic horror, crime film, etc.), and then with close analysis of some of his key films to arrive at an understanding of his unique stylistic and thematic contributions to the horror genre.
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  MISOGYNY IN HORROR
  Tue. Jan. 4, 2011 - Tue. Jan. 18, 2011 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  Beginning with the assumption that representations of “the feminine” and the female body illuminate broader, historical fascinations with and anxieties over gender, sexuality and the body, this course sets its sights (and sites) on misogyny, sexism, patriarchy and power as naturalized tropes in horror worthy of investigation. Women’s bodies––as slashed, maimed, mutilated and murdered, as sexually deviant and devious, as monstrous and horrifying, and even as the victim-hero––scream for interrogation, particularly by those who consume her time and time again.
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  THE HAUNTED HOUSE
  Tue. Jan. 25, 2011 - Tue. Feb. 8, 2011 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  This course explores the characteristic styles, themes and conventions of the 'haunted house' film, from early cinema to recent films and television. Films featuring haunted structures express the need for anxieties around the past and future to be given embodiment in objects and structures. These films typically play upon fears of the unknown in nature and the psyche, and evidence a mistrust in the objectivity of modern perceptions of reality. We discuss conceptualizations of haunting as a righting of past wrongs, as a means of ritualizing national and cultural guilt, and as a way to explore anxieties around family and the American Dream.
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  ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK: THE ITALIAN GIALLO FILM
  Tue. Feb. 15, 2011 - Tue. Mar. 1, 2011 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  This course looks at the peak period of the Italian giallo film (1963 - 1982) and discusses the historical development of the genre as well as its predominant themes and motifs, placing it contextually within the changing landscape of Italian and European popular cinema. Issues covered include misogyny, paranoia, xenophobia, the sexual revolution, alcoholism and self-medication, and the giallo’s fantasy microcosm of leisure and independent wealth. Key giallo figures whose work will be discussed include Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Sergio Martino, Luciano Ercoli, Umberto Lenzi, Lucio Fulci, Massimo Dallamano, Ernesto Gastaldi and others. The course will also look at the giallo’s influence on contemporary cinema, pop culture, and the curious legacy of J&B Whiskey.
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  REGARD SUR LA NANAROPHILIE
  Wed. Mar. 9, 2011 - Wed. Mar. 23, 2011 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  La nanarophilie consiste à regarder un film au deuxième degré dans le but d’en rire. Au lieu de se laisser porter par l’œuvre, le spectateur adopte une position particulière dans laquelle il tire son plaisir des erreurs de production et des intentions manquées du réalisateur. Cette pratique connaît aujourd’hui une certaine popularité auprès d’un public grandissant. Plusieurs amateurs se rassemblent régulièrement dans des bars pour visionner un nanar, un nombre important de sites Web sont consacrés à ce que le cinéma a de pire à offrir et il est désormais courant de trouver au sein de la programmation d’un festival généraliste une projection dite psychotronique. Comme son titre l’indique, le présent séminaire se penchera sur ce phénomène d’un point de vue historique et théorique.
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  DEAD CELLULOID: A Brief History of Zombies in Cinema
  Sat. Mar. 12, 2011 - Sun. Mar. 13, 2011 - 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  The dead are among us, and always have been, since the dawn of cinema. From the parasitic, hollow eyed drones of the expressionist era to the monsters of Monogram studios, up through the atomic 1950's and fully kicking into gear with the the cannibal corpses of George A. Romero; international pop culture's fascination with zombies has resulted in some of the most relevant and defining works that horror genre has to offer. RUE MORGUE RADIO head honcho Stuart 'Feedback' Andrews will take you on a two day journey into the black, putrifying heart of darkness with this exciting, lively and shuddery history of the living dead on-screen.
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  REVISIONIST MONSTERS
  Tue. Apr. 19, 2011 - Tue. May. 3, 2011 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  From monsters under the bed to Monsters Inc., generations of our collective imagination have been preoccupied with boogie men and their various incarnations. Classic monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein or the Werewolf unite our fears as well as cultural reference points; meaning, today, ‘traditional’ monster narratives are so universal that old and young alike can easily identify historical, aesthetic and plot clichés inherent to each classic baddie. Under the shadow of Twilight’s seemingly superficial re-imagining of the Dracula tale, this is an excellent time to re-examine more complex and interesting forays into revisionist monster movies.
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  THE JAPANESE HORROR FILM
  Mon. May. 16, 2011 - Mon. May. 30, 2011 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  The Japanese horror film burst onto the International scene in the late 1990s with a series of suspenseful, nerve-wracking chillers that brought mood, subtlety and terror back into a genre that was growing weary and stale. To the jaded horror fan J-horror felt alive and fresh, but its seminal figures were clearly drawing from a rich historical tradition of supernatural and ghost stories that go back to pre-Modern Japanese literature, theatre, and painting. The course will trace the importance of the pre-modern tradition (pre-1900), as seen in Japanese Kabuki and Noh theatre, literature and painting, on the first flowering of great Japanese horror in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and then examine how the current new wave of J-horror drew from this older tradition of ghost/supernatural film and art and added a modern, technologically concerned sensibility.
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  GETTING EVEN: A HISTORY OF THE RAPE REVENGE FILM
  Mon. Jun. 6, 2011 - Mon. Jun. 13, 2011 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  No genre gets a worse rap that the rape-revenge film. Cited as unrelentingly misogynistic, and viewed as perpetuating real-life violence against women, rape-revenge films are considered the bottom-of-the-barrel even among exploitation fans. Alternately (and often facetiously) referred to as the “women’s revenge picture”, I maintain that rape-revenge is just that: a cathartic and empowering vehicle for female cinematic rage.
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  UNIVERSAL HORRORS
  Wed. Oct. 5, 2011 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  This course will examine the main themes and stylistic characteristics of the horror films produced by Universal Studios during the 1930s. In order to offer an efficient analysis of the themes and stylistics of Universal horrors, each of the four classes will be specifically devoted to the study of one film from the first horror cycle.
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  CREEPY KIDS
  Wed. Oct. 26, 2011 - Wed. Nov. 16, 2011 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  This course interrogates the figure of the child that, as Robin Wood reminds us, has “figured prominently in horror film as the monster or its medium.” This figure—embodied as “innocent” baby, child, or teenager somehow gone wrong—operates as much more than simply an inspirer of terror in this context; it exposes collective anxieties about ourselves: our beliefs, our environment, our desires, and our futures. Rather than following a chronological path, the trajectory of “Creepy Kids” follows the stages of age and development of our contemporary understandings of “normal” infancy, childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, and will explore the cultural significance of the child in horror films through readings, lectures, screenings and (most importantly) discussion.
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  THE 'TERROR' FILMS OF VAL LEWTON
  Wed. Nov. 23, 2011 - Wed. Dec. 14, 2011 - 12:00 am
  With the popularization of “auteur theories” very few producers get to carry the mantle of auteur, which is usually reserved for directors. Val Lewton is an exception. The nine horror films that Val Lewton produced for RKO studios between 1942 and 1946—including Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), The Seventh Victim (1943), and Isle of the Dead (1945)—are traditionally described as indicative of a decidedly non-sensationalist, even poetic approach to the horror film. It is the visionary quality of the films under Lewton’s collaborative guidance that we will explore in this course. We will also look at Lewton’s output in the context of film noir and the “woman’s film” immensely popular at the time, and influential on Lewton’s brand of 40s horror.
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  THEORIZING HORROR
  Wed. Jan. 18, 2012 - Wed. Feb. 22, 2012 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  This six week course will examine the recent history of horror theorizing starting in the early-1980s through some of the most influential writings on the genre. From Linda Williams’ essay on women and looking, Barbara Creed’s monstrous-feminine, Tania Modleski’s terror of pleasure, Carol Clover’s final girl, Steven Shaviro’s cinematic bodies, through to Cynthia Freeland’s dread-centred experience of horror, this course will discuss these genre theorists in conjunction with the “major” thinkers that influenced them, such as Sigmund Freud, Julia Kristeva, Karl Marx, Laura Mulvey, Gilles Deleuze, and Nöel Carroll. Every session will be taught by a different instructor.
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  SCARING THE DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU: THE FILMS OF WILLIAM CASTLE
  Wed. Feb. 29, 2012 - Wed. Mar. 14, 2012 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  An icon of B-movies and master of marketing stunts, William Castle has left a lasting impact on the horror film industry. Despite less than stellar reviews, Castle’s films often proved successful commercially, thanks to his many gimmicks which attracted curious movie goers, and his constant quest to scare the daylights out of audiences. This course will examine Castle’s legacy by first situating him within the historical context of the early-40s Hollywood, when he began his career, before focusing on his ‘horror cycle’ which began in the late-50s.
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  TERROR AT THE MARGINS: THE PROSTITUTE AS OTHER
  Wed. Apr. 4, 2012 - Wed. Apr. 25, 2012 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  The figure of the prostitute has long been depicted (and understood) to be unfeminine, irredeemable and polluting – a source of corruption and contagion. Thus, she becomes a monster — both in terms of fears about women’s sexuality and assumptions about ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ gendered behaviour. This course will parallel the extreme treatment of, and presentation of, the Monster in films with the representation of prostitutes and sex workers. This juxtaposition makes the underlying cultural constructions and fears at play in both contexts both more complicated and compelling.
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  WRITTEN IN BLOOD: SCORING HORROR CINEMA
  Sat. Sep. 22, 2012 - 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
  Film BOX (Quartiers POP)
  Since the early days of tent-bound magic lantern shows, music has accompanied the grand illusion of motion pictures. This lecture by Fangoria Magazine's Chris Alexander will not only discuss the history of musical composition in the horror film, it will specifically illustrate some of the finest examples of how music can radically accentuate and dictate an audience’s sensory and emotional connection to imagery. FREE ADMISSION!
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  WATCHERS IN THE WOODS: REFLEXIVITY IN HORROR CINEMA
  Mon. Oct. 8, 2012 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  The critical frenzy around the recent postmodern horror film, The Cabin in the Woods (2012), as a game-changer or 'reinvention' of the horror genre suggests that journalists (and even fans) have forgotten that horror is always-already a reflexive genre. This introductory class will give students a pathway into the critical study and discussion of horror through healthy debate around the way popular (and sometimes scholarly) discourse problematically frames horror as constantly in crisis and in need of rejuvenation.
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  SCHOOL OF SHOCK: PAIN AND PLEASURE IN THE CLASSROOM SAFETY FILM
  Mon. Oct. 15, 2012 - Mon. Oct. 22, 2012 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  For many genre fans, a love affair with horror and the grotesque began early on, sometimes fuelled 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.
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  FRAGMENTS OF THE MONSTER: RECOVERING FORTIES HORROR
  Mon. Oct. 29, 2012 - Mon. Dec. 3, 2012 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  This six-week course will attempt to revise and reframe persistent claims in scholarly discourse that 1940s horror is somehow inferior to a “classical” or “canonical” mode of horror in the 1930s. Within this framework, the creepers, chillers and thrillers of the 1940s become lost—the result of favoring monolithic binaries, or strict divisions within genre classifications, between high art and low art, auteurs and craftsman, and major studios and poverty row. Expect to see films you may not have ever heard of before in this class!
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  A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS: A BRITISH HOLIDAY HORROR TRADITION
  Mon. Dec. 10, 2012 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  To kick off the holiday break, we’ll say farewell to the Fall 2012 semester with a one-off class celebrating the British holiday horror tradition of the BBC’s seminal 'A Ghost Story for Christmas' series that ran from 1971 to 1978.
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  SMALL SCREENS, BIG CHILLS: CLASSIC AMERICAN TV HORROR
  Tue. Jan. 22, 2013 - Tue. Feb. 26, 2013 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  As we reflect upon the recent popularity of horror melodramas such as True Blood, The Walking Dead and American Horror Story, it becomes essential to explore the influence of earlier examples of TV horror. This six-week course looks at shows such as Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows, Outer Limits, Thriller, One Step Beyond and more, plus the golden age of made-for-TV features and the tradition of TV horror hosts.
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  STEPPING THROUGH TIME: THE SCIENCE OF TIME TRAVEL
  Tue. Mar. 19, 2013 - Tue. Mar. 26, 2013 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Movies love to play with time, but are they playing fair? This two-week course will explore time in science-fiction and in science-fact.
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  DREAMING REVOLT: JEAN ROLLIN, THE FRENCH FANTASTIQUE AND BEYOND
  Tue. Apr. 16, 2013 - Tue. Apr. 30, 2013 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  A filmmaker ridiculed by film critics and genre fans alike, Jean Rollin (1938-2010) has only recently begun to find acceptance in his native France. Rollin’s films have been described in often paradoxical ways, from poetic and literary, to absurdist and oneiric, to technically inept and narratively impenetrable. Hence, Rollin films occupy a liminal space in film history - where art-house horror mixes with sexual taboo, where the fantastique tradition mixes with the “serial film,” and where lyricism mixes with the macabre - resulting in a disarmingly unique and personal cinematic vision.
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  "BASHA" Film Poster Exhibit and Talk by Daniel Bird
  Fri. Jul. 26, 2013 - Sun. Aug. 4, 2013 - 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
  J.A. de Seve Cinema,
  BASHA: FILM POSTERS Rare North American Exhibit as part of the Fantasia Film Festival Co-presented by The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies and Spectacular Optical Friday July 26-Sunday August 4, 2013 J.A. de Seve Cinema Foyer Talk by Daniel Bird: Friday July 26, 3:30pm-4:30-pm Barbara ‘Basia’ Baranowska - best known in North America for her poster for Andrzej Zulawski's POSSESSION - is the unsung hero of Polish poster art. Whereas the likes of Jan Lenica developed a distinct, often instantly recognizable style, Barbara Baranowska was a chameleon (as reflected in her alternating use of 'Basia', 'Basha' and 'Bacha' as her professional name). She donned a variety of graphic personae – from the sometimes brutal cut outs of her early Polish book jackets to voluptuous, almost psychedelic surrealism of her French film posters.   -Text by Curator Daniel Bird  
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  Homesick Horror - September 17th & 24th
  Tue. Sep. 17, 2013 - Tue. Sep. 24, 2013 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Tuesdays, September 17^th and 24^th Starting with ideas from Sigmund Freud and Anthony Vidler, this class considers homesickness as a cornerstone of the uncanny and as the imaginative center of what we will loosely call haunted house films from German Expressionism to the slasher and beyond. We will feel our way through sick, seeing, and beckoning homes: diseased structures shaped by troubled perspectives and characterized by irrational angles and impossible relations between interior and exterior. Simultaneously we will think about homesickness in the more conventional sense of the word, as we examine the narrative importance of nostalgia and the compulsion to return to safe spaces and slaughterhouses alike. Films and shows for discussion include Robert Wise’s The Haunting, the X-Files episode “Home” (1996) and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
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  Shock and Draw: Horror Comics - October 1st
  Tue. Oct. 1, 2013 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Tuesday, October 1^st In the post-WWII comics industry, superheroes were on the decline and horror stories, particularly those published by William Gaines' EC Comics, were on the rise. These graphic morality tales -- including such familiar titles as Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear -- inspired a rabid readership, but they also attracted the attention of social interest groups that accused these books of corrupting young minds. Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who led the public crusade against comics, argued not just that horror comics had a negative influence on their readers, but that comics as a medium was fundamentally degenerative. This lecture will historicize the rise and fall of the horror genre in post-war comics and interrogate, using specific examples from the comics, the arguments made against the medium. When possible, we will look specifically at comics that would later be adapted cinematically and/or televisually in order to compare and contrast different modes of representation. Screenings may include clips from Tales from the Crypt (dir. Freddie Francis, 1972), The Vault of Horror (dir. Roy Ward Baker, 1973), Creepshow (dir. George Romero, 1982), and Tales from the Crypt (HBO, 1989-1996).
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  The Elephant Man in the Room - October 15th, 22nd and 29th
  Tue. Oct. 15, 2013 - Tue. Oct. 29, 2013 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Tuesdays, October 15^th to October 29^th (3 weeks)  From “freaks” to “creepers,” Hollywood horror has capitalized on the “crip” body for decades. From disability as metaphor, plot device, or the manifestation of monstrosity itself, we’ll explore “freakshows” and “abnormal” bodies in films, and ask what bodies on screen can suggest about broader ideological shifts in American culture in the 1930s-40s. In this course, Cory Legassic draws links between Browning’s Freaks (1932) and Universal’s “Creeper” films, and the fall of the studio system with the 1949 Hollywood Anti-Trust Act.
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  Transformations et métamorphoses: l’effet spécial et le cinéma d’horreur - le 12, 19 & 26 Novembre
  Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 - Tue. Nov. 26, 2013 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Mardi, le 12, 19 et 26 Novembre (3 semaines) L’effet spécial est indissociable du cinéma de genre et particulièrement du cinéma d’horreur qui, de par sa nature, ne peut pas ne pas montrer. Des trucs horrificos-comiques de Méliès (fondus, arrêts de manivelle, surimpressions, etc.) aux disparitions et autres transformations du cinéma actuel qui sont directement réalisées à l’intérieur du plan (les maquillages, maquettes, etc.) ou ajoutées par ordinateur (morphing, blue screen, etc.), les innovations techniques ont permis de sans cesse repousser les limites de ce qui est possible de montrer à l’écran. Les effets spéciaux ont également modifié l’esthétique cinématographique en imposant de nouveaux modes de filmage et de montage. L’art du montage d’une scène à effets consiste entre autre à trouver un équilibre entre le vrai et le faux permettant d’apprécier la virtuosité du metteur en scène ou de l’effet en lui-même. Tel un baron Frankenstein, le cinéaste morcelle l’action (plans et effets spéciaux) et la recoud par le montage (transitions, effets, mise en scène) afin soit de tromper le spectateur, soit de l’épater par les prouesses techniques accomplies. Pour qu’un effet soit réussi, il doit être filmé puis monté de la bonne manière. Comprendre la nature des effets spéciaux (son esthétique, sa technologie, son public), c’est donc par extension saisir un peu mieux le médium cinématographique, le genre horrifique et comment ce dernier (s’) est construit. Le cours se divisera en trois volets : historique, esthétique et théorique. Dans un premier temps, nous définirons ce qu’est un effet spécial puis nous inscrirons son existence et sa pratique à l’intérieur de l’histoire plus globale du cinéma et celle du cinéma de genre. Nous explorerons ensuite comment les techniques d’effets spéciaux ont transformé le genre horrifique aux niveaux esthétique, narratif et thématique. Finalement, nous aborderons les questionnements théoriques qui surgissent à propos ou en périphérie de l’effet spécial (qu’il s’agisse du cinéma des attractions ou de l’approche psychanalytique). Projections: Inferno (Giuseppe de Liguoro, 1919, Italie), The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982, États-Unis), troisième titre à determiner.
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  The Big, the Bad and the Impossible: The Physics of Movie Monsters - December 10th
  Tue. Dec. 10, 2013 - 12:00 am
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Tuesday, December 10^th Equal parts special-effects marvel and revelation of cultural anxieties, the colossal movie monster has fascinated audiences since perhaps its most famous incarnation in King Kong (1933). From gargantuan radioactive ants in the 1950's classic THEM! (1954) to the resurrected t-rex in Jurassic Park (1993), these giants seem unstoppable. But are they even possible? Nature has rules, after all. In this talk, movie monsters meet physics—and the news isn't very good for the monsters.
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  Yuletide Terror!: Trivia Party
  Tue. Dec. 17, 2013 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Tuesday, 17 December 2013 Join us for a night of Christmas Horror Trivia! Your hosts, Kristopher Woofter and Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare, have devised a ghastly trivia game that will test your knowledge of this darkly festive subgenre. Yuletide drinks and snacks to be had, and horrific prizes to be won! Admission is free. (Christmas Evil, 1980)
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  Queer Bites! -- January 21st and 28th
  Tue. Jan. 21, 2014 - Tue. Jan. 28, 2014 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Tuesday, January 21^st and 28^th (2 weeks) Come sink your teeth into a few queer questions about horror films that rub many queer fans the right way. Let’s take up Halberstam’s (1995) call to look for queer bodies in horror film that “present a monstrous arrangement of skin, flesh, social mores, pleasures, dangers and wounds.” We will take “queer forms of pleasure” in Hillyer’s Dracula’s Daughter (1936) and Bruce LaBruce’s Otto; or Up with Dead People (2008).
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  H.P. Lovecraft – From Cosmic Horror to Heavy Metal
  Tue. Feb. 4, 2014 - Tue. Mar. 4, 2014 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Tuesdays, February 4^th & February 11^th, 18^th, 25^th and March 4^th (5 weeks) Horror fiction writer, theorist, philosopher, and prolific epistolarian, H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most important American authors of the 20^th century. Lovecraft was a mentor to major horror writers such as Robert Bloch and Ray Bradbury. His work has inspired everything from film festivals, to board games, to the ancient alien theories popularized by TV shows like In Search of …. Over this five-week course, various instructors will lecture on key aspects of Lovecraft's work and influence, including his influence on heavy metal music, his connections to theology, his inspiration from and influence on pseudo-science, his importance to 20^th century horror literature, television, cinema, music and gaming, and his influence on major authors of the "Weird," like Peter Straub, Stephen King, China Miéville, Thomas Ligotti, Joyce Carol Oates, Kathe Koja and Caitlín Kiernan. Individual Classes and Instructors Readings for all classes can be found at the H.P. Lovecraft Library page at H.P.Lovecraft.com: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/ 4 February: Shedding the Gothic, Theorizing the Weird: H.P. Lovecraft's Mid- to Late-Period Works (Instructor: Kristopher Woofter) Reading for the Class: "The Colour Out of Space" (1927) 11 February: Religious Awe and Otherness in the Early Works of H.P. Lovecraft (Instructor: Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare) Reading for the Class: "Dagon" (1917) & "The Shunned House" (1924) 18 February: H.P. Lovecraft's Influence on Heavy Metal Music (Guest Instructor: Carl Sederholm, Brigham Young University) Reading for the Class: Edgar Allan Poe's "Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845) & H.P. Lovecraft's "The Statement of Randolph Carter" (1920) and "The Dunwich Horror" (1929) 25 February: Pseudo-archaeology and the Lovecraftian Narrative (Guest Instructor: Michael Wood, with  K. Woofter) Reading for the Class: "The Nameless City" (1921) 4 March: Screening and Discussion, film TBA  
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  “Pure Provocation”: Avant-Garde Horror Cinema(s)
  Tue. Mar. 18, 2014 - Tue. Apr. 1, 2014 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  Tuesdays, March 18^th, 25^th and April 1^st (3 weeks) This course will investigate the locus of horror within avant-garde cinema(s). Beginning with canonical films which are examples of Dadaism and Surrealism, the course will progress through European and American avant-garde horror, including the work of Jean Cocteau, J.S. Watson and Melville Webber, Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Sidney Peterson, Arthur Lipsett, Shirley Clarke and recent examples of Canadian independent media artworks. We will look briefly at manifestos written in the early period of film history. These manifestos were written by Dadaists, Futurists and Surrealists and called for cinema to be both ‘pure’ (Louis Aragon, Guillaume Apollinaire) and a ‘provocation’ (The Futurists).
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  Blood Born: Invasion of the Body
  Tue. Oct. 7, 2014 - Tue. Oct. 21, 2014 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  (07/10 to 21/10, 3 weeks) Instructor: Karen Herland The advent of AIDS coalesced cultural fears around otherness, sexual danger and the tension between nature and science. Horror films often explore the body made unfamiliar through infection or mutation. Blood Born traces the spectre of infected bodies, and their cultural resonance with AIDS – in sexual, racial and border-defying terms. How much did early representations of AIDS borrow from classic horror texts? Do works as diverse as Cronenberg’s films and Charles Burns’ graphic classic BLACK HOLE inevitably demand rereading through the lens of HIV infection? (Suggested donation: $7 per class, $21 for the 3-week course)
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  Beyond Conan: The Horror Literature of Robert E. Howard
  Tue. Nov. 4, 2014 - Tue. Nov. 11, 2014 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  (04/11 & 11/11, 2 weeks) Michael Wood returns fresh from his lecture on pseudo-archaeology for our course on H.P. Lovecraft to take on one of HPL’s contemporaries and most frequent correspondents, Robert E. Howard. Despite his enormous influence on popular culture, Howard's name is barely recognizable as the creator of Conan the Barbarian, and master of the sword and sorcery genre. But the troubled author also produced a significant body of work that was an inventive blend of dark fantasy and horror in tales like Red Nails (first serialized in 1936 in Weird Tales) and "Pigeons from Hell," the latter tale adapted for an episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted 60s horror TV series, Thriller. Howard also created horror-adventurer, Solomon Kane, in a series of tales that inspired a recent film adaptation, and he produced (upon Lovecraft's encouragement) numerous tales inspired by Lovecraft's fictional topography, which helped to generate an intertextual body of fiction that is now dubbed the "Cthulhu Mythos."
• 
  Shakespeare and Horror
  Tue. Nov. 18, 2014 - Tue. Nov. 25, 2014 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
   (18/11 & 25/11, 2 weeks) OCCULTISM, MONSTERS, DISMEMBERMENT, CANNIBALISM—these are some of the spectacles that earned Shakespeare star power in his time and continue to secure his cultural authority and commercial worth today. This two-session course will explore Shakespeare’s ongoing relationship to “horror.” In it we will begin with a broad overview of Elizabethan contexts (revenge tragedies, demonological discourse, monster shows); move to a discussion of Shakespeare’s unusual place among 19^th-century freak shows; and end by examining 20^th- and 21^st century “horror” films adapted from or inspired by Shakespeare’s most horrific mindbenders and gore-fests. Films TBA.
• 
  Petite philosophie du zombie
  Tue. Dec. 2, 2014 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
   (02/12) présenté en français Depuis un siècle, la figure du zombie a changé, s’est transformée, a évolué, s’est adaptée aux différentes cultures qui l’auront invoquée. Pour la culture haïtienne, le zombie aura été la figure cauchemardesque de l’esclavage, d’une servitude faisant de l’individu un simple pantin incapable même de s’arracher à sa condition par la pensée. Il aura aussi matérialisé cet étrange pouvoir, inspiré de la religion catholique, de ramener les morts à la vie. Il aura incarné, en Occident, la figure d’un châtiment divin et le retour des morts à la vie, la métaphore d’une inquiétude quant à un nouvel avatar de la mort – le sida – et la crainte des recherches sur la biotechnologie. Le zombie aura de même figuré l’inquiétude d’une époque, la nôtre, quant au sens de la mort. Le zombie, pour nous, aura été le monstre d’une certaine vacuité, voire d’une certaine fatigue de l’Occident. Le zombie est figure d’inquiétudes – il représente nos craintes, ce que nous préférerions taire. C’est bien en cela qu’il se fait symptôme de ce qui taraude la conscience de notre époque. L’image – le cinéma, le jeu vidéo – n’est pas uniquement une fiction, un divertissement, elle est aussi la marque d’une époque, et en cela le moyen d’une analyse. Voilà pourquoi à côté d’une analyse du zombie comme produit typiquement commercial de notre époque, il importe aussi de l’appréhender comme un produit psychique : on y découvre alors quelques-unes des principales raisons de sa prodigieuse popularité actuelle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vetAC_U4EU
• 
  X-mas Dread: Ghost Story Party
  Tue. Dec. 9, 2014 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
   (09/12) Hosts: Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare, Kristopher Woofter Join us as we turn down the lights – even further – for some ghost-story telling and some ghost-film viewing to kick off the Yule Tide season. All guests will be entered into a (free) raffle for various sundry horror gifts. This event is free! BYOB. “Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo … . Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage. M.R. James, “A Warning to the Curious” (1925)
• 
  GOTHIC SCIENCE - Tuesdays, February 3 & 10
  Tue. Feb. 3, 2015 - Tue. Feb. 10, 2015 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  (03/02 & 10/02, 2 weeks) The anxiety unleashed by the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th century helped propel a new Romantic sensibility regarding the natural sciences. The mixture of both fear and fascination that accompanied the discoveries of new, almost magic-like forces – particularly those in electromagnetism and electrochemistry, as made famous by Luigi’s Galvani’s demonstration of “animal electricity” – have become a persistent theme in the genre of both horror and science fiction from Shelly’s Frankenstein (1818) onward. This course will trace how our current notions of science, which first arose during this period, have served continuously as a cipher for both the anxieties and perceived horrors of modernity in literature and film. The Romantic period was also the beginning of what has been called the "Second Scientific Revolution", a revolution which began with the investigation of the so-called "imponderable fluids" -- that is, electricity, heat, and magnetism. This lecture will discuss how the study of what was regarded as semi-occult forces and 'fluids' provided critical impetus to the Romantic imagination's attempt to explain how matter could be animated to give rise to machines, both biological and mechanical, living and dead. The lecture will demonstrate how a new scientific metaphysics served as a source for the "fantastic" and "uncanny" in Gothic fiction and film, from Frankenstein through to the Gothic-Noir film Blade Runner, thus illustrating how the Gothic can be viewed as the shadow of scientific realism.
• 
  Theorizing Horror, Part 2: Horror and Sensation
  Tue. Feb. 17, 2015 - Tue. Mar. 24, 2015 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  (17/02 to 24/03, five weeks) Our second instalment of horror theory courses focuses on the synesthetic pleasures and sensual pains of horror with five classes devoted to the body and the senses. Course content will include the place of affect theory in horror studies, the revelatory tradition in cinema and photography, Deleuzian bodies without organs, the desire and dread conjured by the Gothic documentary (gothumentary), and a trip through the nightmarish world of Kenneth Anger. We will also screen a wide variety of films and moving-image works, including French cinema of sensation, body horror, B-horror, avant-garde horror, documentary horror, and more. Instructors: Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare, Kristopher Woofter, Alanna Thain and Ayanna Dozier, Papagena Robbins, Anne Golden

  ---

  Week 1: February 17 - "Affect, Sensation, and Horror Studies"

  • Instructor: Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare
  • Film: Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001) - France (100 minutes)
  • Reading: "Between Meaning and Mattering: On Affect and Porn Studies" by Susanna Paasonen (2014)

   Week 2: February 24 - "Horror, the Revelatory and the Gothic 'Thing'"

  • Instructor: Kristopher Woofter
  • Film: Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, 2012) - France / USA (87 minutes)
  • Reading: Le Cinéma du diable by Jean Epstein (1947)

  SPRING BREAK - MARCH 3

  Week 3: March 10 - Intensities: David Lynch Between Life and Death

  • Instructors: Ayanna Dozier and Alanna Thain
  • Film: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch, 1992) - USA (135 minutes)
  • Reading: 6 - "How do you make yourself a body without organs?" from A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1980)

  Week 4: March 17 - "'Caging the Monster that Will Live for 100,000 Years' in the Future-Tense Gothumentary"

  • Instructor: Papagena Robbins
  • Film: Into Eternity: a Film for the Future (Michael Madsen, 2010) - Denmark - 75 minutes
  • Reading: “Gothumentary: The Gothic Unsettling of Documentary’s Rhetoric of Rationality” by Papagena Robbins and Kristopher Woofter (2012)

  Week 5: March 24 - "Mad About the Boy: Kenneth Anger"

  • Instructor: Anne Golden
  • Films: Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954, 38:00), Scorpio Rising (1963, 28:00), and Lucifer Rising (1972, 28:00) - USA.
  • Reading: "Illuminating Lucifer" by Carel Rowe (1974)
• 
  March 3rd is Spring Break: Stay Warm!
  Tue. Mar. 3, 2015 - 12:00 am
  

  See you March 10th for "Intensities: David Lynch Between Life and Death" with instructors Alanna Thain and Ayanna Dozier.

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  Hitchcock and the Apocalypse
  Tue. Apr. 7, 2015 - Tue. Apr. 21, 2015 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  (07/04 to 21/04, 3 weeks) This 3-week course will revisit The Birds (Hitchcock 1963) as an approach to two unique films on the edge of the apocalyptic tradition: Safe (Haynes 1995) and Take Shelter (Nichols 2011). Like The Birds, these are relatively quiet melodramas overtaken by an uncanny horror that scrambles space and subject, defying explanation and leaving cinematic representation up for grabs. Together, the three films will let us consider the boundaries of the horror genre as well as its capacity to intervene in other modes and complicate the project of realism.     Instructor: Ned Schantz
• 
  Miskatonic, Fall 2015 Curriculum & Registration
  Tue. Sep. 29, 2015 - Sat. Dec. 5, 2015 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  Mondo Realism and the Cinema of Joe D'Amato – Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare (3 weeks, 29 September to 13 October - $21)

  This course will examine the place Joe D’Amato’s body-centred films within the context of Italian cinema, the paracinematic, and genre studies. I will focus on what I have labelled D’Amato’s Mondo Realist films that were made in a very short period between 1975-1979. D’Amato’s films bridge Neo Realism and the Mondo film, which continue to be understood in almost mutually exclusive terms in film theory. His films offer a way to open up these categories through the embodied and sensual experiences of the porn and horror genres.

  Films: Emanuelle and Françoise (1975); Emanuelle in America (1977); Buio Omega (1979).

   

  British Occult Cinema – Michael Wood (3 weeks, 20 October to 3 November - $21)

  This course explores a period of British genre cinema inspired by occult texts and the novels of Dennis Wheatley. Includes screenings of the Nigel Kneale-scripted The Witches, starring a late-career Joan Fontaine and two British horror masterpieces: the Jacques Tourneur-directed Night of the Demon the Terence Fisher-directed The Devil Rides Out. Full description coming soon!

  Films: Night of the Demon (1957); The Witches (1966); The Devil Rides Out (1968)

  Medieval Occult Texts – J. Shea (2 weeks, 17 & 24 November - $14)

  Instructor J. Shea (Shakespeare and Horror) returns to regale and enlighten us with two weeks of delving into grimoires and forbidden tomes. Full description coming soon!

  Z'ISLE - Zombie Apocalypse in Montréal – Lateef Martin & Isabelle Duguay (1 week, 1 December - $7)

  Author-illustrator, Lateef Martin, and co-author Isabelle Duguay conduct this single lecture on their recent work, Z'Isle. Seven years after a zombie apocalypse, Montréal must adapt to a world full of the undead. Welcome to the world of Z'Isle.  It is a comic-centered transmedia property that includes a comic book series, video game and soundtrack.  Each stands alone but tells a greater story in combination. This format and the world itself welcomes the audience as co-creators of the locations, characters, and history. Z’Isle is currently on issue three of seven of Volume one.

  Miskatonic's 2015 Xmas Party – Hosted by Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare and Kristopher Woofter (1 week, 8 December - FREE!)

   Join us for our annual holiday party, where we treat you with refreshments, scares, and horror-themed treats and prizes.

   
• 
  Mondo Realism and the Cinema of Joe D'Amato
  Tue. Sep. 29, 2015 - Tue. Oct. 13, 2015 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  This course will examine Joe D’Amato’s body-centred films within the context of Italian cinema, the paracinematic, and genre studies. We will focus on what I call D’Amato’s "Mondo Realist" films, made within a very short period between 1975-1979. D’Amato’s films bridge Neo Realism and the Mondo film, which continue to be understood in almost mutually exclusive terms in film theory. His films offer a way to open up these categories through the embodied and sensual experiences of the porn and horror genres.

  Films: Emanuelle and Françoise (1975); Emanuelle in America (1977); Buio Omega (1979).

  3 weeks

  Note: A Fall 2015 semester package is available at a significant discount. You can pay online (at right) or at the door.
• 
  British Occult Cinema
  Tue. Oct. 20, 2015 - Tue. Nov. 3, 2015 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  The occult loomed large in British horror films of the latter part of the 20th century. In the Night of the Demon (1957) ancient folklore, arcane writings, séances and a malevolent magician are subject to the skeptical inquiries of a team of international paranormal investigators lead by Dana Andrews. The Witches (1966) follows a school teacher (Joan Fontaine) recovering from a mental breakdown while working in Africa as she takes up a new post in a peaceful and rather conservative English village. She soon finds out that not all is what it seems as she encounters the evil forces and sinister rituals lurking below the surface of an otherwise tranquil rural setting. The Devil Rides Out (1968), based on the novel of Denis Wheatley, gives a glimpse into the occult experiments of the 1920’s British upper-class. A world of ecstatic rituals, esoteric texts, demonic conjurations and the figure of Mocata, a practitioner of the magical arts based on the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley. These three films reflect contemporary realities of gender, class, race, colonialism and modernity as post-war Britain dealt with the end of empire and profound social changes. These films also reflect popular conceptions of and reactions to various aspects of the Western occult tradition such as spiritualism, ceremonial magic and Wicca, the set of neo-pagan beliefs that was becoming known to a wider public for the first time as these movies were first released.

  Films: Night of the Demon (1957); The Witches (1966); The Devil Rides Out (1968)

  3 weeks

  Note: A Fall 2015 semester package is available at a significant discount. You can pay online (at right) or at the door.
• 
  “Daggers of the Mind”: Shakespeare’s Occult Influences and Japanese Horror
  Tue. Nov. 17, 2015 - Tue. Nov. 24, 2015 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  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.

  2 weeks

  Note: This course was formerly listed as "Medieval Occult Texts" and can be purchased under that title in the drop-down menu to the right.
• 
  Z'ISLE - Zombie Apocalypse in Montréal
  Tue. Dec. 1, 2015 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  Lateef Martin is the founder of transmedia company Miscellaneum Studios. He is also illustrator and co-writer of their first project: Seven years after a zombie apocalypse, Montréal must adapt to a world full of the undead. Welcome to the world of Z’ISLE. It is a comic-centered transmedia property that includes a comic book series and video game (under development). Each stand alone, but tell a greater story in combination. This format and the world itself welcomes the audience as co-creators of the locations, characters, and history. Z’ISLE is currently on issue four of nine of Volume one.

• 
  Miskatonic's Annual Holiday Party -- Free!
  Tue. Dec. 8, 2015 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

   Join us for our annual holiday party, where we treat you with refreshments, a ghost story reading, a little TWILIGHT ZONE, and horror-themed trivia, treats and prizes. Admission is free.

   
• 
  Documenting Horror
  Tue. Feb. 2, 2016 - Tue. Mar. 15, 2016 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  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

  SEE DROP-DOWN MENU, ABOVE RIGHT, FOR PAYMENT OPTIONS, OR PAY PER LECTURE. YOU CAN PURCHASE THE ENTIRE WINTER 2016 SEMESTER ONLINE OR AT THE DOOR FOR $60 ($10 SAVINGS).  
• 
  MISKATONIC, Winter 2016 Curriculum & Registration
  Tue. Feb. 2, 2016 - Tue. Apr. 12, 2016 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  Documenting Horror – various instructors (7 weeks, Tues. 2 February to Tues. 15 March - $42)

  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

   

  Spring Break! (week of Tues. 22 March)

  True Crime and Punishment – Karen Herland (3 weeks, Tues. 29 March to Tues. 12 April - $21)

  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 class 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).

   

  Courses are $7 suggested donation per lecture and can be paid at the door, or via PayPal (see drop-down menu, above right). You can purchase the entire Winter 2016 semester online or at the door for $60 (or $10 off the cost of individual courses).

• 
  True Crime and Punishment
  Tue. Mar. 29, 2016 - Tue. Apr. 12, 2016 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  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).

   

  SEE DROP-DOWN MENU, ABOVE RIGHT, FOR PAYMENT OPTIONS, OR PAY PER LECTURE. YOU CAN PURCHASE THE ENTIRE WINTER 2016 SEMESTER ONLINE OR AT THE DOOR FOR $60 ($10 SAVINGS).

   
• 
  Women Horror Directors
  Tue. Sep. 27, 2016 - Tue. Nov. 1, 2016 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  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).

  All classes are 7-10pm. Individual classes are a suggested $7 donation at the door, or talk to us about a discounted rate of $50 for the entire nine-week semester, which includes the three-week course, “Shirley Jackson’s Weird.”

• 
  Shirley Jackson's Weird
  Tue. Nov. 15, 2016 - Tue. Nov. 29, 2016 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  15, 22 and 29 November

  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).

  All classes are 7-10pm. Individual classes are a suggested $7 donation at the door.

   
• 
  Slasher Theory: Reassessing an Undervalued Subgenre
  Tue. Jan. 24, 2017 - Tue. Feb. 28, 2017 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema ÊTRE
  

  Kicking off our Winter 2017 semester, Miskatonic-Montréal goes back to “basics” with this six-week course taught by five different instructors. In the first class, all five instructors will weigh in on Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO (1960) as an urtext for the Slasher film, with an eye towards the later film they have selected. From there, each instructor will trace a Slasher genealogy extending from PSYCHO's monstrous feminine(s) through a host of the subgenre's most influential (or notorious) entries.

  24 January: PSYCHO (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)

  31 January: HALLOWEEN (1978, John Carpenter)

  7 February: FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980, Sean S. Cunningham)

  14 February: A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE (1985, Jack Sholder)

  21 February: SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983, Robert Hiltzik)

  28 February: EYES OF LAURA MARS (1978, Irvin Kershner)

  All Miskatonic-Montréal courses are hosted by Microcinema Être (6029a, ave du Parc). A suggested donation of $7 per class can be paid at the door. A discounted rate of $60 for the entire semester is also available.

• 
  The Miskatonic Brood Presents ...
  Tue. Mar. 7, 2017 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  Join us for the first in a series of lectures by current and former Miskatonic-Montréal students!

  Over our seven years in existence, Miskatonic-Montréal has seen some of our students go on to be film festival programmers, journalists, and career scholars. The "Miskatonic Brood" is a lecture series dedicated to these voices, featuring presentations by current and former Miskatonic-Montréal students on horror-related topics of interest to them.

  Lecture 1: Ariel Esteban Cayer on Takashi Shimizu's MAREBITO (UNIQUE ONE)

  From the creator of the JU-ON series (2000, 2002, 2003), MAREBITO conceptualizes "fear" not so much as a negative affect, but rather as a positive one: an opening up, a potentiality, a force. When harnessed by capture technologies, fear becomes an event that opens up new worlds and new visions ... which may or may not lead to madness. Looking at the film through the writings of Brian Massumi, Cayer will help us to locate the film's importance in the influential J-horror cycle, as well as its function as a hypertext that brings together various mythologies and influences: the Japanese urban landscape, the scopophilia of films such as PEEPING TOM, the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Hollow Earth theories, the vampire mythos, and more.

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  California Screaming: West Coast Cult Horror
  Tue. Mar. 21, 2017 - Tue. Apr. 4, 2017 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema [ ÊTRE]
  

  Joining us to wrap up our 7th year is our “Final Guy,” Mike Wood, with three weeks of "California Screaming: West Coast Cult Horror." Mike, a historian and archaeologist by profession—and expert on Indonesian culture, history and politics—has been devouring films like PSYCH-OUT (1968), COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970), and MEPHISTO WALTZ (1971), since he was in his teens. In this course, he turns his youthful cinephilia into an exploration of the alternative religious movements and cults in 1960s and 1970s California—perhaps most notoriously represented by Charles Manson and Jim Jones, and their followers—that spawned a whole subgenre of films.

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  Australian Horrorscapes
  Tue. Sep. 26, 2017 - Tue. Oct. 10, 2017 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema ÊTRE
  

  Animals that kill, barren desert landscapes, and brash local culture: myths regarding Australia’s danger persist on an international scale. This course will examine how these narratives inhabit the landscape in Australian horror film, drawing material from the inventive ‘Ozploitation’ of the 1970s, the historically canonized art-cinema of the same time, and the more recent cycle of Australian horror films. In order to investigate how the horror-landscape is constructed and utilized within these examples, we will interrogate space and formal elements such as lighting, mise-en-scène and sound. To scrutinize the national mythologies behind these landscapes, and to question how genre is employed to project fears from and of colonial Australia, we will consider the historical, political and industrial contexts around the production of these films. We will ask how these films engage with Australian Indigenous and settler histories, myths of nationhood and national cinemas, and the ‘wilderness’ versus ‘culture’ binary. Films that may be included are WAKE IN FRIGHT, RAZORBACK, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, THE LONG WEEKEND, WOLF CREEK, HOWLING III: THE MARSUPIALS, NIGHT CRIES, CARS THAT ATE PARIS, ROGUE, DARK AGE, MYSTERY ROAD, WYRMWOOD.

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  Daughters of Darkness: Women in Horror
  Tue. Oct. 17, 2017 - Tue. Nov. 21, 2017 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema ÊTRE
  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
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  Duane Jones: Race and Revolution in the Vietnam Era
  Tue. Nov. 28, 2017 - Tue. Dec. 5, 2017 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema ÊTRE
  

  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.

  Tuesdays, 7-10pm

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  The Music of Horror
  Tue. Jan. 23, 2018 - Tue. Feb. 6, 2018 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
  Microcinema ÊTRE
  

  Miskatonic-Montréal co-directors, Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare and Kristopher Woofter lead us into the Winter 2018 semester with our eyes closed in the three-week course, The Music of Horror. This experimental “listening course” encourages us to shift our sensorial privilege from visual to auditory experience, and to the sublime sensations and synaesthesia generated by horror scores and musical themes, both iconic and obscure.

  Tuesday nights, 7-10pm (23 & 30 January, 6 February)

  Pictured: phrase from "Concerto Macabre" by Bernard Herrmann, from Hangover Square (John Brahm, 1945)