In 2023, Carlotta Roma, Will Vetch & I set up Fleshed Out Cinema Club to run events exploring questions around horror(ish).
We began with three film nights & discussion groups at SET Peckham, selecting titles that sway unsteadily along the spectrum between the uncanny, weird and horrifying ⏳ Although utilising these affects in very different ways and spanning nearly 50 years, each film is predominantly a psychological horror drawing you into an increasingly distorted consciousness. Mingled with mundane rituals, their internal unravelings question everyday obsession and control 🕳️ We aimed to explore horror as a slippery, adaptive and invasive mode in these masterpieces ⛱️🪱🪱
🍴We sent out 3 texts beforehand to anyone who wanted to read around the film/related subjects for a discussion after the screening.
WEEK 1 - THE CREMATOR (1969)
This Czechoslovak comedic horror directed by Juraj Herz follows a crematorium manager in 1930s Prague who develops a dangerously liberatory view of his work 🚪 Interior and exterior horror are uniquely combined as Herz’s surreal and disorienting cinematography operates within the context of Karl’s growing entanglement with Nazi ideology.
Suggested reading (PDF):
- “No One Will Suffer” review of The Cremator by Jonathan Owen (2020)
- Necropolitics by Achille Mbembe (2016)
WEEK 2 - POSSESSION (1981)
Set in Cold War Berlin, Anna and Marc’s marriage is disintegrating for undisclosed reasons, her increasing infidelity spiralling into the occasional yet unforgettable body horror that led to this film being listed as a 1980s ‘video nasty’ 🦑 Andrzej Zulawski’s direction, which deeply reflects his own divorce, has been criticised as misogynistic in his treatment of the fictional, Anna, and abusive for actress, Isabelle Adjani. Join us to question this agitated frenzy of a horror.
Suggested reading (PDF):
- The man who would be Christ - article on Andrej Zulawski's films by David Thompson (2012)
- Prologue & Chapter 5: Possession, Marriage, and Fertility from Wombs and Alien Spirits by Janice Boddy (1989)
- Introduction to Possessed Women, Haunted States by Christopher J. Olson and Carrielynn D. Reinhard (2017)
WEEK 3 - RAW (2016)
🎈Following in the footsteps of her sister, Justine’s initiation into veternary school requires eating a raw rabbit kidney despite their stringent vegetarian upbringing. After this ritual, their conflicting relationship unfurls alongside Justine’s increasingly carnivorous urges. Join us to witness this unnervingly relatable and un-supernatural coming-of-age tale as its slow, lingering shots draw us into a heralded horror that questions the very nature of transgression.
Suggested reading (PDF):
- A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism': Julia Ducournau's Raw and Bataillean Horror by Ursula de Leeuw (2020)
- Fantasies of Cannibalism in the Art of Louise Bourgeois by Britt-Marie Schiller (2020)