Prints of Darkness

Five Tuesdays, September 29 through October 27, from 6:15pm to approx. 9:15pm 

As wary of forbidden fruit as it has been sympathetic to the devil, the cinema has borne the mark of the beast since moving pictures first started to flicker like flames from the underworld across the silver screen. 

Tales of demonic possession, malevolent forces, bestial monsters, and Lucifer himself have long been burned into celluloid and the public imagination; from early silent films to Satanic Panic and beyond, different (and sometimes contradictory) versions of what we might call Beelzebub and his offshoots, underlings, and hybrid forms have simultaneously seduced and shaken audiences for generations. 

Fusing film scholarship with studies of the occult, this 5-week Coolidge Education class will provide students with the opportunity to dance with the Prince of Darkness, grapple with witches and warlocks, and travel to Hell and back (all for research purposes, of course). We’ll watch closely and critically as people on screen summon demons, sell their souls, and succumb to subversive pleasures, all while working to understand the relationship between movie magic and the dark illusions and sorcery of the Devil. 

ABOUT ALEX SVENSSON 

Alex Svensson is Affiliated Faculty at Emerson College in their School of Film, Television, and Media Arts; he has also been a Lecturer of film and media studies at MIT, and has previously taught courses on found footage horror, dystopian cinema, and films about filmmaking with Coolidge Education. His research primarily focuses on genre cinema, horror media, media controversies, and promotional culture. Alex's work can be found in the book Jordan Peele’s Get Out: Political Horror (ed. Dawn Keetley), as well as in New Review of Film and Television Studies, Monstrum, Horror Homeroom, in media res, and Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies. 

This Coolidge Education Class is embedded within our October rep series “Prints of Darkness: A Century of Devil Cinema” and includes all Tuesday night screenings in that series. 

Each class begins with a half-hour introduction in our Education and Community Engagement Space (ECEC), followed by a break to transition to the 7 PM film screening in one of our main houses (where seats are reserved for class participants). Class concludes with a post-screening discussion in the ECEC. Discussion length may vary due to film runtimes. 

Classes are only available for purchase as a package, not as individual sessions.