LONDON: The Horse Hospital

Thursday 12th February, 2015

7:00pm

Event information

12 FEB 2015
THE MISKATONIC INSTITUTE OF HORROR STUDIES – LONDON

7PM – 10PM (FILM + LECTURE)
£10 ADVANCE £11 ON THE DOOR PRICES / £8 CONCS

*Pilot season: monthly classes from January to June 2015, Second Thursday of the month, 8 January, 12 February, 12 March, 9 April, 14 May, 11 June

I EAT CANNIBALS: ATAVISM, EXOTICISM AND ATROCITY

Instructor
Mark Pilkington

With a screening of Man from Deep River (Umberto Lenzi, 1972)

The late 1970s and early 1980s saw a proliferation of increasingly gruesome jungle-set horror thrillers emerge from Italy’s teeming pulp cinema studios. A postscript of sorts to the ever-popular, and equally ethically challenged, Mondo cycle, the cannibal genre was prematurely seeded by Man from Deep River, Lenzi’s gut-busting homage to the international hit A Man Called Horse (1970).

Although it would be another five years before the genre really took off (with Ruggero Deodato’s Last Cannibal World in 1977) Man from Deep River contains all the vital ingredients for a cannibal feast – racism and ethnic exploitation, animal abuse, nudity, sex and extreme violence, all presented in the guise of dispassionate ethnographic cinema.

Tonight we screen Lenzi’s rarely seen film followed by a series of classic cannibal film trailers to uncover the genre’s roots in the West’s growing interest in environmentalism, atavistic cultures, lost worlds and the perils of the green inferno. Bring a plate.

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The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies is pleased to announce the opening of its London branch on January 8th, which will be based at the heart of the city’s underground culture, the Horse Hospital.

In its pilot semester, running from January to June 2015, the Miskatonic Institute will offer monthly lectures exploring the more obscure corners of horror and fantastical cinema, which will be taught by established writers, directors, scholars and programmers. It aims to be a nurturing environment for horror fans and scholars that will inspire intellectual curiosity and critical debate in a friendly atmosphere, as well as build a community around shared enthusiasm for the genre.

Among the topics to be discussed are Jesus Franco, landscapes in horror, classroom safety films and sado-masochism. Instructors include prominent horror expert Kim Newman, author of Nightmare Movies and Cat People; horror and exploitation writer Stephen Thrower, author of Nightmare USA and Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco; Kier-La Janisse, author of House of Psychotic Women and founder of Spectacular Optical Publications; Mark Pilkington, author of Mirage Men and director of Strange Attractor Press; Jasper Sharp, author of Behind the Pink Curtain and director of the documentary The Creeping Garden; Virginie Sélavy, founder of Electric Sheep and editor of The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology.

These classes will introduce participants to less well-known aspects of the horror and fantastical realm, equip them with a more sophisticated critical apparatus as well as provide historical perspective. It will explore how this vital area of cinema delves into the sources of our fears and desires, and dramatizes the most unsettling aspects of our relationship to the natural and social world, as well as to others. It will also examine how the genre has created some of the most wildly inventive sonic and visual forms in cinema.

Named for the fictional university in H.P. Lovecraft’s literary mythos, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies is a non-profit, community-based organization that started in Montreal, Canada. Founded by Kier-La Janisse in March of 2010, Miskatonic Montreal now operates under the leadership of co-directors Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare and Kristopher Woofter. Miskatonic London operates under the co-direction of Kier-La Janisse and Virginie Sélavy.

The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies welcomes donations.

Miskatonic.london@gmail.com

www.miskatonic-london.com