The Black Museum: Series Three (part one)

It's back! The Black Museum, Toronto's premiere horror lecture series is back for a third season of erudition. This year, lecturers and audience members will enjoy the comforts of the Royal cinema on College. New again is the lecture schedule, which has switched to a monthly event.

This year's series kicked off on in early Feb with a screening of Carnival of Souls, and will pick up with a lecture by Black Museum alumnus Alexandra West about French New Wave Gore.

March 12, 2014
Quelle Horreur! The Films of the New French Exremity
with Alexandra West

Alex takes apart New French Extremity, a movement in the Gallic cinema that makes torture porn look quaint. Films such as Martyrs, Them, High Tension, and Trouble Every Day stand in opposition to tourist-attracting confections like Amelie, poised instead to explore the troubled identity of a country that knew the Grand Guignol, the Theatre of Cruelty, and a cultural landscape torn by riots over thirty years of political strife and unrest.

April 9, 2014
Where Life is Cheap! Snuff Movies and the Evolution of Genre
with Yours Truly

Since 1976, the notion of filming murder for profit has outraged, disgusted, and fascinated audiences. Aided and abetted by sleazy marketing tricks, "snuff" film provided traction for feminist and anti-pornography movements, also inspiring that most steadfast and contentious of urban legends: the myth transmitted through media. I this lecture, I consider snuff's origins and aspirations, tracing its roots from early theatre to Slaughter, Hardcore, Tesis, 8MM, The Butcher, and beyond.

May 14, 2014
One of Us: The Transcendent Rise of Religious Cults in Horror 
with Alison Lang

From Satanists to Scientologists, Moonies to the Manson Family, a cinematic curiosity for cults endures. Broken Pencil's Alison Lang advises initiates that the cult trope allows reflection or commentary on wider sexual, spiritual and moral politics of an era. See: The Wicker Man and Ticket to Heaven. And sometimes the mirror held to society's scabbed visage stares hard at the truth, as in Helter Skelter and Race with the Devil--the latter purportedly starring actual Satanists as themselves.

The Black Museum: Series 3

The third semester of The Black Museum lecture series is set to begin later this month. Toronto's premier horror lecture series has evolved some over the past year and the current line-up branches out from film to include video games and costumes. Read on to find out what topics will be covered this fall.

September 26
Arcane Arcade: The History of Horror in Video Games

This lecture will examine the history of the horror genre within the videogame industry, from early licensed
film titles to the emergence of survival horror, which came to define the genre with titles such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill creating narratives that influenced the film industry in turn. The aftermath of survival horror will also be discussed, as well as the hybrid action horror titles of recent years, releases working to increase the psychological act of play, and the rise of indie programmers creating compelling horror experiences outside the major studio system.

October 10
Black Glove Ballads: The Art of the Italian Giallo Soundtrack

During the late sixties and early seventies the giallo rapidly evolved into a highly stylized form of storytelling where images and sounds supported elaborately rendered murder sequences. Plots tended to be incomprehensible or downright bizarre, and the various directors often built their scenarios around murders which were heavily driven by music and images. Composers from various venues would bring jazz, lounge, orchestral writing, rock, and experimental techniques, sometimes as slight hybrids, or in the hands of Ennio Morricone, as radical fusions. This lecture will examine a chronology of musical innovation within the giallo using music montages, scene and interview extracts, and a healthy sense of humour for this endearingly insane genre.

October 24
Fashioning Fear: A Cultural History of Halloween Costumes

Horror film costume designer Alex Kavanagh will take the audience through the history of Halloween focusing on the popular symbolism surrounding Halloween costumes and how they have been modified and transformed by the entertainment industry. This lecture will discuss how costumes have become the most revealing snapshot of modern western society via photos, film clips and a costume display.

November 7
King of the Ring: Stephen King Movie Debate

This is a brand new Black Museum event in which teams of horror fans and professionals get a chance to fight, feud and fuss on a particularly contentious area of horror filmmaking. For the Debate Club’s debut meeting, four teams will square off on a question that’s hounded horror buffs for years: Which is the best horror film based on a story or novel by Stephen King? Profiling four of the most well-known King adaptations, each team will get a chance to defend their choices, show off convincing film clips, and engage in a little Stephen King trivia to win over the judge and audience and take home the coveted Golden Tentacle trophy.

November 21
Woeful wombs: Pregnancy and the Horror Film

Many horror films are read as having a reactionary view of women, reducing them to monstrous mothers or abject incubators for terrifying beings. But are these representations of pregnancy always cut and dry? What can be gained from debasing pregnancy? And what does it say about how we view (or cherish or revile) this biological process? Looking at how this “horrific” body has morphed on screen, this lecture will look at the likes of Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Fly (1986), Aliens 3 (1992), A l’interieur (2007), and yes, Twilight (2011) in the hopes of giving birth to some answers.

As always, lectures will be held at Big Picture Cinema on Gerrard (formerly The Projection Booth East). Big Picture's causal setting creates a inviting, intimate atmosphere perfect for the academic exploration of the horror genre. There will be door prizes. And beer.

The Black Museum: Lecture Recap

The long and storied history of film marketing and publicity can be summed up in images. On May 16, at the Black Museum's final lecture in its second semester, Andrea Butler discussed the evolution of movie posters in general and horror posters in particular. The purpose of the movie poster hasn't changed much over the years, but how the posters meet that purpose have.

Movie posters evolved primarily from the carnival poster. Although "higher" forms of art and entertainment used posters for advertising, film wasn't regarded on the same level as the theatre therefore its marketing campaigns took after the spectacle associated with more plebeian diversions. The first posters merely advertised the fact that movies were being shown and focused on engaging the audience through spectatorship.

Over time, as film became less of a novelty, the attention shifted away from the audience and toward film content. Early 20th century movie posters used scenes of violence to titillate and attract viewers--it didn't  matter if the movie was violent or not, the lurid images displayed on the film poster brought people to the cinema. Eventually, the violence on display--and the fraudulent use of violent images--caused an uproar and poster art was standardized in 1915.

Around this time, the star system was gaining momentum and that had a huge influence on poster art. Film had gained legitimacy and where before stars were disinclined to have their names and likenesses used for film advertising, there were now the focus of marketing and publicity campaigns. This gave birth to the "disembodied floating head" poster design, which is still used today.

Throughout the 1930s, the decade in which horror really thrived and came into its own in America, horror movie stars became inextricably linked with their characters. Not the heroes, mind you. But the monsters. Here is where the image became the icon. Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff were recognized for their performance as the villains, and their names, faces, and characters were conflated for the purposes of selling the audience on the movies; the bigger the name and face on the poster, the bigger the star. This same decade also introduced the image of the woman in peril.

Poster art changed again in the 1950s. This was the era of the B-movie, when science and technology featured heavily in the story as a force of evil. The star system was in decline and so posters began to shift away from recognizable faces. The monsters themselves became the the focus of poster art, as well as fear. Here, too, advertisers started calling out to the audience through image and text. The only real exception to this rule of monsters was Vincent Price. His face and name appeared on his movie posters, while other actors were simply billed in a cast list.

The mid-century gimmick movies involved the audience directly as participants in the cinematic experience, and these movies' posters were equally engaging. Posters dared the audience to see the film and advertised the kind of experience they would have at the movie theatre.

With the capture of Ed Gein at the end of the 1950s, serial murder entered the American consciousness and made its way onto the silver screen. Horror movies in the 1960s featured human killers and lots of gore, and their posters were similarly lurid. The Hayes code was still in effect for much of the 60s, so the violent images were relatively small, while most of the posters' real estate was held over for text. Playing opposite the gore films was a more emotional and cerebral horror, and their posters showed equal restraint. Appealing to the audience's imagination, these posters hinted at horror and violence instead of displaying it for all to see.

With the 1970s came an end to restraint. Horror movie posters went whole hog with the violence and gore: eviscerated bodies, the insides on the outside, enormous monsters, and women in deadly peril. But the more human the monster became, the more complex his representation in poster art. Whereas in earlier decades, the humanoid monster's face was used as a lure, in the 70s his face was hidden from the public. The implication is that anyone could be a monster in disguise.

Since standards for movie posters had long since disappeared, filmmakers could use any means to advertise to their audience. But still the formulas established in earlier years held sway. Posters still called out to the viewer, still used text to communicate the horror. A few movies did head in new directions, using holiday associations and focusing solely on the victim or the weapons used.

The 1980s saw it all, human and non-human monsters in the city and in the home. Old monsters were re-imagined for a new society and the 80s horror posters ran the gamut from traditional hand-drawn to more modern photographic images. Some posters focused on the victims as in the 70s, while others were more suggestive like in the 60s. A new trend took shape in the representation of the female body in which women's bodies were integrated into images of weapons and other objects.

80s poster art circled back to the 20s in which the monster transformed into an icon. This transformation is seen in the poster art of the franchise films wherein the killer is first obscured or not seen at all, and then becomes the dominant image in the films' advertising campaigns.

Unsurprisingly, the dearth of good movies released in the 1990s resulted in a slew of uninspired movie posters. The early posters of the 21st century weren't much better, and the photographic imaged dominated one-sheets across North America. A couple of notable exceptions include The Rites of Spring and House of Devil, two films whose posters were reminiscent of the art seen in earlier decades.

Today's poster art runs the gamut from bland to inspired. Artists working at the higher end of the sliding scale are mixing mediums, using typography to great effect, or hand-drawing images in their entirety. The advent of commissioned art for screenings is also contributing to the growing pool of fine poster art. Although commissioned art exists for fans, rather than as advertising for upcoming features, these posters prove there is a market for good commercial poster art.

Movie posters are artifacts of popular culture and, to a greater or lesser extend, represent the social and political climate of the films' era. The posters' images changed over time, though the purpose of the movie poster has always remained the same--to persuade the spectator. How exactly movie posters accomplished that goal depended on the dominant culture mores and attitudes of the time. Some posters pushed the enveloped, others simply copied an established format. Regardless of the movie poster's overall success as an artistic medium, they did manage to capture the essence of their films in one image, turning that image into an icon of popular culture.

The Black Museum Series 2

It's baaaaaack! The Black Museum returns to Toronto with a second series of fascinating genre lectures. This season's offerings run the gamut from time travel to horror posters, in what looks to be an enlightening springtime lecture series:

March 21, 2013: “Primate Panic: Bigfoot on Film 1967-1980”
Instructor: Paul Corupe

April 4, 2013: “Tourism in the 4th Dimension: Parallel Realities and Time Loops in Cinema”
Instructor: Clint Enns

April 18, 2013: “Ghosts in the Machine: The Evolution of Found Footage Horror”
Instructor: Alexandra West

May 2, 2013: “Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils”
Instructor: Richard Crouse

May 16, 2013: “Killer Portraits: Iconography of the Horror Film Poster”
Instructor: Andrea Butler

Named after old Scotland Yard's crime gallery, The Black Museum is a series of genre lectures given by industry professionals. Hosted by Big Picture Cinema (formally The Projection Booth East), the evening lectures are casual, intimate gatherings. Although education is the driving force behind the lecture series, The Black Museum's curators, Paul Corupe and Andrea Subissati created the series to bring the horror community together through a shared passion for genre learning and development.

Tickets for the spring series are on sale March 8, and may be purchased individually or as a membership pass. Postmortems of last season's lectures are available on the The Black Museum's website, as is further information regarding this season's series.

The Black Museum: An interview with Paul Corupe

New on the Toronto horror scene this fall is The Black Museum, a lecture series devoted to genre appreciation. The series is five lectures spread out over two months, and each talk is hosted by someone different--directors, critics, and academics all lend their expertise. The brainchild of Paul Corupe, Andrea Subisatti, and Stuart Feedback Andrews, the lecture series takes its name from the legendary Black Museum in Scotland Yard, a room which once housed evidence and artifacts from Britain's most infamous crimes. Informal, and with an emphasis on engaging the audience in substantive discussion about genre cinema, The Black Museum is a great opportunity for horror fans to connect with different people from, and aspects of, the industry.

I had an opportunity to ask Paul Corupe a few choice questions about The Black Museum as well as his own views and opinions about horror scholarship.

You've said elsewhere The Black Museum was inspired by The Miskatonic Institute of Horror in Montreal. Can you explain how your lecture series differs from theirs?

In spirit and basic goals we are the same, but the Miskatonic Institute is probably more classroom-based than The Black Museum, and that’s kind of reflected in our names—our attitude is more that we want people to stop by, have fun checking out our latest “exhibit” and then have an informal discussion about it with their peers. Miskatonic follows more of an actual “school” model than we do, often having longer classes that run multiple days/evenings and looking at very specific academic topics like critical approaches to horror theory. In addition to having different lecturers with different personal interests here in Toronto, part of the reason we approach this a bit differently is because Miskatonic was done out of a micro-cinema run by one of the founders, Kier-La Janisse, and we have to share space and time with a fully functioning theatre, so we can’t do it as often or for quite as long. But also, we were also inspired by local events like TIFF’s Director Master Classes and Trampoline Hall that we felt had a format that Torontonians would be already familiar with.

Film in general is certainly a popular topic of study but to my knowledge no other film genre has the same kind of community following as horror. What is it about horror that lends itself so well to sociocultural analysis and scholarship?

Well, generally horror films share a more specific and limited pool of archetypes and iconography than other genres, and I’d even go so far as to say many horror films are variations on just a handful of themes. Possession, boogey men, old dark houses, life beyond death, religious symbols, butcher knives, masks—these are just some of the familiar things that are used, re-used and given new meanings over the years, making them ripe for analysis and over-analysis. And horror films, while enjoyable on the surface, usually have much more going on than just gore and stalking. And more than other genres, horror tropes are used to disguise social critiques—Rod Serling famously said that he was able to tackle controversial subjects in The Twilight Zone that would otherwise not be accepted on television by dressing them up as horror and science fiction allegories.

And personally I’ve always believed that horror films offer one of the clearest insights into our society and lives, as they exploit and play off what we are afraid of at any given points in time. That window into what scared people in the past—whether brutal crime, religious fanaticism, nuclear war, evolution, breakdown of civility, racial/social tensions—tells us a lot about what we were like even if the films themselves no longer scare us in the same way.

Toronto is a big centre for horror, from filmmaking to film exhibition, to magazines. In your opinion, is there a distinction between someone who is a fan of horror and someone who is horror literate?

At the risk of having to choose sides here, I do think there is a slight difference between fans and those you call “horror-literate,” but anybody who is a horror fan and has some curiousity about the genre can easily make the leap. I overhear conversations at film screenings and talk with some of the readers of Rue Morgue, and I know that a lot of people like horror primarily because of the special effects, the breaking of taboos, the jump scares, grotesque imagery, and that’s as far as their interest goes. Some can’t articulate why they like horror, they just know that they do. And that’s fine—we all started there, really. Other horror fans have a desire to get deeper into the genre but don’t know where to start—they’ve never taken a film class but maybe they start to blog about films they’ve seen or buy a couple of books on horror; they’re trying to engage with the genre. And though we certainly welcome fans at every level of appreciation, Andrea and I hope to help those that want to make the leap by providing smart discussions about horror films and putting a spotlight on additional resources that take people beyond just the films.

We all have our own stories as to how we became involved in horror. What's yours? How did you become interested in horror, as a fan and an academic?

I actually consider myself more of a cult and exploitation film fan than strictly horror, but obviously horror films make up a big chunk of that nebulous area. When I was probably around 10 or 11, I found a beat-up copy of a book called The Golden Turkey Awards at a library discard sale and I used to pore over the descriptions of weird genre films in there like Attack of the Giant Leeches and Rat Pfink a Boo Boo. And, like many kids, I also spent a lot of time in the horror aisles of video stores staring at VHS box art—the cover of Chopping Mall in particular. Within a few years I was renting as many ‘80s slashers as I could get my hands on, as well as pretty much anything my local Jumbo Video filed under “cult,” like Eating Raoul, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Dolemite, The Corpse Grinders.

When I started buying VHS tapes in the early 1990s (including most of the previously viewed cult films I use to rent), one of the areas I concentrated on was 1950s science fiction, mostly because I loved how terrible Plan 9 was, and it was difficult to find much in this area to rent beyond the certified classics. I surely read somewhere that these films were really all about suppressed fears of atomic warfare, and I was soon looking beyond the bug-eyed monsters and square-jawed military scientists for those subtextual meanings. Along with other important books like Re/Search’s Incredibly Strange Films and the first Psychotronic movie guide, I started to read more academic works on these films—one of the first I remember was Patrick Lucanio’s Them or Us: Archetypal Interpretations of Fifties Alien Invasion Films. I studied English rather than film in university, but when I did start writing about film, first on my website Canuxploitation.com and later for Rue Morgue magazine, I tried to blend a well-thought out approach with an accessible, inclusive style. But my overall approach to horror films is probably more literary than a film student’s might be.

You're coming up to the third lecture in the series. Can you talk about how the lectures are being attended and received by the community?

We’re pleased with the turnouts so far, especially since we had no idea how people would respond to The Black Museum. To get as many people out as we do is heartening—though we are fairly unique in what we do, we know that there are many other film events in Toronto that appeal to the same basic audience. And the feedback has been great so far, everybody seems to really enjoy the presentations and come out of the theatre with something to think about. And really, that’s entirely why we’re doing this—because we knew this was the kind of event that needed to happen in Toronto.

Can you explain a bit about the work that goes into creating something like The Black Museum, from initial concept to introducing the speaker on lecture night? How do you, Andrea, and Feedback work together to make it happen?

Without going into too many boring details, we’ve been meeting as far back as March or so preparing for the series. Once we kind of decided on the tone and approach, we managed to secure the Projection Booth as a venue, which was a huge step for us in moving forward with the series. Once we called in a dozen favours, we had a logo and website up to announce our presence, at which point we began contacting potential lecturers and taking care of the smaller details—our banner, pinback buttons and our on stage desk and props. Now that the events are running, most of our activities revolve around promoting each event via social media and making sure that the needed tech equipment is available and compatible with everyone’s computers. Feedback is no longer on the organizing committee due to other commitments, but even though Andrea and I had not met prior to starting this project we have entirely the same vision for the series and the same reasons for doing it. So it’s been extremely easy to work with her to keep the Black Museum chugging along.

This first series covers a lot of ground: architecture, sociology, zombies, Canadian film, animation. Was there a particular mandate you had in mind when you created this series, certain topics you wanted speakers to address?

Not really, beyond a general need for variety and a desire to present topics that were personal to the presenters. In the case of both Feedback and I, we wanted to bring what we’d done at Miskatonic to a new audience, and Andrea already had planned to do something based on her thesis—so that was set even before we had a name or venue. When we contacted Vincenzo Natali and Steve Kostanski we actually had suggested a topic they might want to do so they could see our planned approach. Vincenzo picked his own topic, but it was still very much related to his interest and work, and Steve agreed to do a lecture on stop motion animation, but is taking it in a direction that I didn’t really anticipate, which is fantastic.

Can you give us a taste of what or who you hope to program for the next series?

Not really, unfortunately! We originally planned this as a standalone series of five lectures and want to see it through before we start talking about a second series. But if it does happen, I will say that we will again be looking at a mix of critics, local directors and other personalities that make Toronto such a great place to be for horror fans.