Tag Archives: Italian cinema

Holy Torture: Desire, Cruelty, Power and Religion in 1960s-70s Cinema

The-Devils
The Devils

Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies – London

Instructors: Virginie Sélavy

Date: 14 April 2016

Time: 7-10pm

Venue: Horse Hospital

Address: Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD

Prices: £10 advance / £8 concs / £11 on the door

Miskatonic website

The 1960s-70s saw copious amounts of on-screen self-flagellation, brutal witch-hunting, delirious possessions and sadistic exorcisms, culminating into the so-called ‘nunsploitation’ genre. Beyond the desire to shock and titillate, many of these films, most notably Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971), were part of the time’s questioning of all power structures, pitching repressive, corrupt and hypocritical religious authorities against individual freedom and morality. In particular, films such as Gianfranco Mingozzi’s Flavia the Heretic (1974) denounced the oppression of women in patriarchal society, and pictured their revolt through disobedience and deviant sexuality. This deviant sexuality was also sometimes part of an alternative form of worship connected to natural forces, as in Juan López Moctezuma’s Alucarda (1977). For Moctezuma, as for his fellow Panique associate Alejandro Jodorowsky, spiritual initiation involved an element of violence, although not the same kind of violence as that of the Catholic Church, as depicted in many of these films. The lecture will explore the various ways in which desire, cruelty, power and religion are configured in the cinema of the period.

Please note there will be no admission after the lecture has started at 7.30pm.

About the instructor

Virginie Sélavy is the founder and editor of Electric Sheep, the online magazine for transgressive cinema. She has edited the collection of essays The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology, and has contributed to World Directory Cinema: Eastern Europe and written about Victorian London in Film Locations: Cities of the Imagination – London. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Sight&Sound, Rolling Stone France, Cineaste and Frieze.

About the Miskatonic Institute:

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 Canada, founded by Kier-La Janisse in March of 2010. The school currently has branches in Montreal and London, with Miskatonic London operating under the co-direction of Kier-La Janisse and Electric Sheep Founder/Editor Virginie Sélavy.

All classes take place at the historic Horse Hospital, the heart of the city’s underground culture. Individual class tickets are £10 advance / £11 on the door / £8 concessions and will be available 30 days in advance of each class. Season tickets are £40.

The course dates of the Spring 2016 semester are 7 January, 11 February, 10 March, 14 April, 12 May. For the full details of the course please check the Miskatonic website. For all enquiries, please email Miskatonic.london[at]gmail.com.

I Eat Cannibals: Atavism, Exoticism and Atrocity

Man.From_.Deep_.River_.1972.Uncut_.DVDRip.19
Man from Deep River

Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies – London

Instructor: Mark Pilkington

Date: 12 February 2015

Time: 7-10pm

Venue: Horse Hospital

Address: Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD

Prices: £10 advance / £11 on the door / £8 concs / £50 full season ticket

Miskatonic website

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.

On February 12, Miskatonic London will 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.

About the instructor:
Mark Pilkington is the author of the book and documentary film Mirage Men and Far Out: 101 Strange Tales from Science’s Outer Edge. He has written for The Guardian, The Wire, Sight and Sound, Electric Sheep, Fortean Times, Frieze and The Quietus amongst others. He founded and runs Strange Attractor Press and regularly speaks on esoteric and fringe culture topics.

About the Miskatonic Institute:
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 Canada, founded by Kier-La Janisse in March of 2010. The school currently has branches in Montreal and London, with Miskatonic London operating under the co-direction of Kier-La Janisse and Electric Sheep Founder/Editor Virginie Sélavy.

All classes take place at the historic Horse Hospital, the heart of the city’s underground culture. Registration for the full season is £50 and available from WeGotTickets. Individual class tickets are £10 advance / £11 on the door / £8 concessions and will be available 30 days in advance of each class.

The next course dates are 12 March, 9 April, 14 May, 11 June. For the full details of the courses please check the Miskatonic website. For all enquiries, please email Miskatonic.london@gmail.com.

All the Colours of the Dark + The Carpenters

all-the-colors-of-the-dark
All the Colours of the Dark

All the Colours of the Dark + talk & live music

Date: Wednesday 24 September 2014

Doors: 7pm

Venue: Horse Hospital

Address: Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD

Price: £7 on the door/£5 advance

Horse Hospital website

Buy tickets

Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor present All the Colours of the Dark (Tutti i colori dei buoi, Dir Sergio Martino Italy/Spain 1972 88 mins) on Wednesday 24 September 2014 at the Horse Hospital as part of Scalarama.

Hallucinatory satanists infest swinging London in this hard-to-find psychedelic giallo from one of its boldest proponents, Sergio Martino (The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, Torso, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I have the Key). All the necessary ingredients are here, including giallo queen Edwige Fenech as the troubled victim of a psychopathic stalker, exotic West London locations and a psyched-out sitar heavy theme from Bruno Nicolai.

Read our review of the All the Colours of the Dark soundtrack.

PLUS

The Carpenters – Your favourite horror film themes played live by Filmbar 70’s Justin Harries and friends.

Buy tickets

Scalarama takes place from 1 to 30 September over 250 venues across the UK and Ireland. Among the 400 events already confirmed are screenings of Polyester in Odorama, The Last House on the Left on 35mm, Nekromantik, Daisies, Branded to Kill and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. For the full programme and to buy tickets, please visit the Scalarama website.

Watch the Scalarama 2014 trailer:

Fabio Frizzi Live in London

Fabio Frizzi PosterSMALL
Fabio Frizzi Live in London

Fabio Frizzi Live in London

Date: Thursday 31 October 2013

Venue: Union Chapel, London

WeGotTickets

For Halloween, soundtrack label Death Waltz Recording Company and Paint It Black are presenting a very special event: legendary Italian composer Fabio Frizzi will perform a selection from his scores, including Seven Notes In Black, Zombi 2/Zombie Flesh Eaters, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, Manhattan Baby, live at the magical, atmospheric Union Chapel. In his first ever UK show Frizzi will be presenting his works in newly commissioned suites, accompanied by his seven-piece band and with an additional string section, the F2F Orchestra.

Together with Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai and Riz Ortolani to name but a few, Frizzi was one of the maestros who developed the art of soundtrack in Italy in the 1960s-80s, mixing rock, jazz, classical music, lounge, funk, psychedelia and electronica. He is best known for his work on some of godfather of gore Lucio Fulci’s most memorable films such as Seven Notes In Black, The Beyond, Zombi 2/Zombie Flesh Eaters, City of the Living Dead and Manhattan Baby. Frizzi’s ominous, dark synth scores add a whole new dimension to Fulci’s disturbing visuals and their seminal import has been re-apparaised in recent years, as musicians such as Umberto and Boards of Canada have acknowledged his influence – not to mention that the ubiquitous Quentin Tarantino used the theme music from Seven Notes in Black in Kill Bill Vol 1.