This weekend, Montreal’s Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies will offer a course led by Rue Morgue’s own Paul Corupe. “Echoes from the Sleep Room: Medical Terror in Canadian Horror Cinema” is scheduled for Saturday, November 19 and Sunday, November 20 at Blue Sunshine (3660 St-Laurent, 3rd Floor). The course runs from noon to 5pm each day, at a cost of $35.

“We’re going to examine how Canadian horror films have been shaped by real-life human experimentation that happened in Canada in the 1950s and ’60s,” says Paul. “From classic Cronenberg to Vincenzo Natali’s Cypher, these films tap into national anxiety over the Canadian government’s role in these tragic events, which surfaces in the portrayals of both doctors and patients.”

Here’s a bit of background from Miskatonic’s website:

“This course will explore how Canadian horror cinema has tapped into national anxiety over these incidents of physical and psychological torture, which uncomfortably recall the Nazi medical atrocities of just a few years earlier. From deadly doctors and mind control to unauthorized surgical procedures and patient revenge, we will discuss how medical terror has become one of the defining themes of Canada’s horror films. In addition to the CBC docudrama The Sleep Room, this course will consider a wide spectrum of Canadian horror on film since the 1960s, including Dr. Frankenstein on Campus (1970), The Brain (1988) and Mindfield (1989).”

Paul has written about most of the aforementioned films on his website, Canuxploitation.com, which you really should visit. You can find more info about the course here.