HOBART—25 November. Canadian cultural critic and writer Kier-La Janisse* will host a unique clip show and talk on the subject of the “Satanic Panic” phenomenon of the 1980s.
It will be the first event presented by Tasmania’s acclaimed Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival after a hiatus for most of 2015.
The event, next Tuesday 1 December at the Pop-up Theatre in Macquarie Point, is part of Loud Mouth Theatre Company’s Dark Nights program. The Dark Nights are events programmed around its current production, Fingean Kruckemeyer’s Those Who Fall in Love Like Anchors Dropped Upon The Ocean Floor.
The one-hour Satanic Panic event doubles as the Hobart launch of the book Janisse has edited on the subject (along with co-editor Paul Corupe).
Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s, is a book of essays with contributors from Australia, the UK and North America.
“The Satanic Panic was a collective nightmare that interacted hugely with all facets of pop culture in North America,” says Janisse. “Although there are humorous elements to it now – the Christian scare videos that proliferated, for example, or the fact that parents were so threatened by harmless hair metal bands – a lot of the history is pretty grim, with young kids and teenagers often used as pawns for the agendas of self-described ‘occult experts’.”
Event trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APtd3lKP75U&feature=youtu.be
Date: 1 December 2015
Time: 8 pm – 9 pm (doors open at 7.30 pm)
Cost: $10 at the door or pre-purchase via: http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/talk-and-clip-show-satanic-panic-pop-cultural-paranoia-in-the-1980s-tickets-19233642342
Venue: Pop-Up Theatre No. 5, Macquarie Point
A limited number of copies of the book will be available to purchase on the night.
MORE INFORMATION
SATANIC PANIC: POP-CULTURAL PARANOIA IN THE 1980s
In the 1980s, everywhere you turned there were warnings about a widespread evil conspiracy to indoctrinate the vulnerable through the media they consumed. This percolating cultural hysteria, now known as the “Satanic Panic,” was both illuminated and propagated through almost every pop culture pathway in the 1980s, from heavy metal music to Dungeons & Dragons role playing games, Christian comics, direct-to-VHS scare films, pulp paperbacks, Saturday morning cartoons and TV talk shows.
Relive the era with the book’s co-editor Kier-La Janisse, who will present a talk and clip show based on Spectacular Optical’s newest book.
About *Kier-La Janisse:
Kier-La Janisse is a film writer and programmer, the founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies and Owner/Editor-in-Chief of Spectacular Optical. She has been a programmer for the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, co-founded Montreal microcinema Blue Sunshine, founded the CineMuerte Horror Film Festival in Vancouver (1999-2005) and was the subject of the documentary Celluloid Horror (2005). She has written for Filmmaker, Shindig!, Incite: Journal of Experimental Media, Rue Morgue and Fangoria magazines, has contributed to Destroy All Movies!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film (Fantagraphics, 2011) and Recovering 1940s Horror Cinema: Traces of a Lost Decade (Lexington Books, 2015) and is the author of A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi (FAB Press, 2007) and House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (FAB Press, 2012). She co-edited Kid Power! and Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s with Paul Corupe, and is currently writing A Song From the Heart Beats the Devil Every Time, about children’s programming from 1965-1985.
http://www.spectacularoptical.ca/
About Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival
Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival is based in Hobart, Tasmania, founded by filmmakers Briony Kidd and Rebecca Thomson. Deriving its name from the young adult novel by Lois Duncan, it explores the idea of ‘the horror within’ and promotes discussion around genre and gender, from ghost stories to gore, from art house to exploitation. SWMF has a focus on female directors working in horror and related genres and aims to highlight bold new work by independent filmmakers. It was voted in the Top 5 Coolest Women’s Film Festivals in the world by Movie Maker Magazine in 2013 and guest filmmaker Jennifer Lynch (Chained, The Walking Dead) described it as follows;
“Nothing short of magical. It was transformative for me. I think what is being done there, and celebrated there and made possible as a result, is the best I have seen at any fest… I want to be there every year.”
www.strangerwithmyface.com
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Briony Kidd, Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival
