Over the next few months, the UCL in central London is hosting a number of eclectic film nights in their various museums.
Some are held in a lecture theatre, with others inside the museums themselves, surrounded by ancient relics. In the dark. While watching a horror movie.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
6th October (Free – no tickets needed)
Sailors beware! Tales of attacks on ships by a mysterious ‘sea creature’ lead an intrepid team led by naturalist Professor Aronnax and professional whaler Ned Land to investigate. But all is not as it seems as the team encounter the enigmatic Captain Nemo and begin an epic underwater adventure. Join Historian of Biology and film-buff Professor Joe Cain as he shares his love of this classic film.
The film is followed by a free wine reception at the Museum.
The Kingdom of Bones
15th October (£5 Book tickets)
A screening of this episode from Murder Rooms set in late nineteenth-century Edinburgh in which doctor turned detective Joseph Bell is asked to unwrap a mummy but finds a recently murdered corpse.
House of Wax
26th October (£5 Book tickets)
Staring the master of horror himself, Vincent Price, the film tells the story of a disfigured sculptor who re-populates his destroyed wax museum by murdering people and using their wax-coated corpses as displays. Before watching the film there will be an introductory talk on the history of wax work models in art and a chance to see some anatomical drawings from the UCL collection.
A glass of wine and popcorn will be provided.
A tribute to Christopher Lee
31st October (£5 Book tickets)
Join Egyptologist John J Johnston as he looks back over the life and career of the iconic British actor, Sir Christopher Lee. This heavily illustrated lecture will consider his substantial contribution to the public’s understanding of the ancient world through a tremendous body of work, spanning six decades, filled with Pharaohs, villainous high priests, singleminded archaeologists, and, of course, living mummies.
Flinders Petrie on screen
5th November (Free Book tickets)
A screening of rarely seen 1930s footage of Flinders Petrie, information about the screening of a BBC 1953 TV documentary, Mortimer Wheeler remembering his encounters with Petrie on film and clips from the 1982 and 2012 documentaries about this renown archaeologist.
Celebrating Sutekh: 40 Years of Pyramids of Mars
26th November (£5 Book tickets)
As one of the most renowned Doctor Who serials, Pyramids of Mars, reaches its 40th anniversary, join Egyptologist John J Johnston, as he celebrates this most Egyptological of the Doctor’s adventures in the unique surroundings of the Petrie Museum.
Utilising objects from the collection, this lecture considers the ways in which the history, mythology and iconography of ancient Egypt drive and inform this tale of Gothic horror and ancient extra terrestrials.
Murder in Mesopotamia
3rd December (£5 Book tickets)
A screening of Agatha Christie’s classic murder mystery set on an archaeological excavation in the 1930s; a setting, if not the crime, that would be familiar to Petrie and the students he taught.
With an Introduction by Amara Thornton (UCL Institute of Archaeology).
