The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies Returns

One of the best features of living in LA is the love of horror and we very much love it here. So much that we our having another season of classes on the subject in all it's creepy and messed up forms.

The Fall 2019 season of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies has classes for you to just die for. Sorry, just had to write this a little like Halloween post. Really, you're getting classes about certain horror sub-genre or sometimes the messed up film itself.

The selection this time is crazy with one session being "Kier-La Janisse’s class Murder Season: Crime-Solving Plants and Other Vegetal Horrors." Yup, telepathic, crime-solving plants is a lesson. 

And you have a special screening with Drafthouse Downtown of Tenement about a gang wanting revenge for being kicked out of the basement of a South Bronx Apartment with some extreme violence.

Also, from the press release:

In addition to Lisa Petrucci’s previously-announced class on exploitation pioneers Roberta Findlay and Doris Wishman, Miskatonic LA unleashes a heady fall semester that includes horticultural horror, Mexican horror, Satan in film and literature and a career talk by pioneering multi-media artist Penny Slinger. We’ll even take a nostalgic and critical look at the evolution of the horror fan onscreen, with special guest Dean Cameron, beloved to horror fans for his role as “Chainsaw” in Carl Reiner’s Summer School (1987).

This semester marks our first collaborations with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Atlas Obscura, Mexico City’s Morbido Festival, our host venue the Philosophical Research Society...

The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies – LA
Venue: The University of Philosophical Research
Address: 3910 Los Feliz Blvd, Los Angeles
Prices: $12 adv / $15 door | Season Pass for 6 classes: $50
Please note off-site screenings are ticketed separately by the host venue.

The first class is this Thursday!

Thursday Aug 8, 7:30pm-10:00pm:
GRAND DAMES OF THE GRINDHOUSE: THE FILMS OF ROBERTA FINDLAY AND DORIS WISHMAN
Instructor: Lisa Petrucci 

Something Weird Video’s Lisa Petrucci will lead a lively illustrated lecture on genre film mavericks Roberta Findlay and Doris Wishman, two larger-than-life ladies who were making sexploitation films at a time when it was not common for women to be behind the camera. We will look at their comparable trajectory from nudies and roughies in the 1960s to porn and horror films in the 1970s and 80s, as well as their unique and quirky vision and styles of filmmaking. Both lived in New York City during the mid-1960s, and worked with a lot of the same actresses. They both also used pseudonyms, initially not taking credit for their own films or involvement in making them. The class will begin with a visual overview of each of their careers through a clip and trailers video program, followed by an illustrated lecture about their sleazy and often unsettling subject matter, distinctly unique camerawork and artistic vision, and overall significance to exploitation film history. Doris and Roberta have publicly claimed to not have a feminist agenda (and verge on female misogyny with some of the things they’ve actually said and depicted in some films), but their overall oeuvres often speak otherwise, so we will examine and debate this. The class will conclude with a Q&A session.