A BAFTSS Horror Studies Weekday Night Bite
Wednesday 26th June 2024
How can we engage students in early, silent, and black and white sound cinema? Following the 100th anniversary of Nosferatu in 2022, the coming years will mark the centenary of a number of significant silent pre-horror films, including The Phantom of the Opera (2025), The Cat and the Canary (2027), and London After Midnight (2027). 2027 will also mark the centenary since the conversion to sound began and in that moment the silent era will pass into cinema’s previous century. In response this session aims to shine a spotlight on the silent and the early sound era through the lens of horror, a connection which has seen a substantial growth in scholarship in recent years. With the overarching aim of discussing how horror scholars can foster an open approach in students to silent, black and white, and early sound cinema, this session will consider the relationship between silent cinema and horror. It will explore ways in which horror as a genre can be used to render the unfamiliarity of early cinema accessible, and equally how engaging with early film can offer new avenues into horror studies. Join early cinema/horror scholars Stacey Abbott (Northumbria University), Murray Leeder (University of Alberta), Kate Egan (Northumbria University), and Simon Brown (Kingston University) for this round table discussion of horror, silent film and pedagogy.