“‘We shall create a world of gods and monsters'
Ernest Thesiger in Whale's Bride of Frankenstein.
‘Is it a god or is it a monster?'
David Carradine in Cohen's Serpent.
“The horror film has been at once the most consistently popular and the most critically disreputable of all the Hollywood genres; little serious attempt has been made to define its cultural meaning or account for the changing social ‘needs' to which its changing forms answer. This weekend program will comprise nine horror films from different periods, three lectures by Robin Wood, and a personal appearance by Larry Cohen, director of It's Alive and Serpent.
“The series begins by juxtaposing the earliest and most recent (and arguably the two most intelligent) film versions of ‘Dracula': F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (the only non-American film in the series) and John Badham's underrated 1978 version with Frank Langella. The lecture will discuss the significance of Bram Stoker's novel and relate the two film versions to it.
“On May 22 the two finest products of the collaboration of producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur will be shown and discussed: the original Cat People, and I Walked With a Zombie. In the evening, the screening of It's Alive will be followed by a special preview of Cohen's new film Serpent, after which the director will be on hand to discuss his work.
“The first film on May 23, Dawn of the Dead is among the most brilliant and idiosyncratic of all horror movies, and an example of the genre's potential for making radical statements about contemporary culture. The remainder of the program will offer the opportunity of confronting and discussing one of the most sinister and disturbing developments in modern popular cinema: the exploitation of violence to women. While sympathizing with feminist protests against the social phenomenon the films reflect, I feel that it is important that the issues be understood and the films themselves subjected to scrutiny and debate. The examples chosen (Dressed to Kill, Eyes of a Stranger) are by no means simple specimens: each has its own distinction, and neither is content merely to reproduce the baser elements of the genre uncritically.” --Robin Wood.
Robin Wood is one of Britain's most important and influential film critics and a leading critical theorist. He is the author of eight books, including works on Hitchcock, Hawks and Bergman, and co-author of “The American Nightmare,” a booklet on the horror film. Wood teaches at York University, Toronto, and is currently a visiting professor in the UC Berkeley Film Studies program.
