All events start at 19:00, for 19:15, please do not be late.

According to urban legend, the sewers and tunnels beneath New York once harboured alligators and other impossible creatures—tales that eventually surfaced in science fiction horror films like Guillermo del Toro’s Mimic (1997). Back across the Atlantic, our very own London’s subterranean folklore has been no less fertile, feeding the imagination with visions of mummies, yeti, alien insects, cannibals, werewolves, and disfigured killers prowling the labyrinth of the Underground.

This lecture explores a century of horror cinema rooted in the underworlds of fact and folklore, where everyday transit systems become uncanny landscapes of dread. We will trace how myth and rumour entwine with the anxieties of the modern city, shaping films that turn tunnels into sites of fear, claustrophobia, and monstrous intrusion.

Among the works under discussion are Quatermass and the Pit (1967), in which archaeological discovery collides with apocalyptic terror; Death Line (1972), where cannibalistic survivors of forgotten workers haunt the tracks; An American Werewolf in London (1981), whose iconic chase scene reimagines the Tube as a hunting ground; and Creep (2004), which drags us into a vision of subterranean horror beneath contemporary London. We will also revisit the comedy-thriller Bulldog Jack (1935), whose tale of an Egyptian mummy haunting the abandoned British Museum station may have helped establish one of the Underground’s most enduring myths.

From urban legends of buried beasts to cinematic nightmares of what lies beneath, this talk excavates the folklore and fears that continue to haunt the tunnels beneath our feet.

This will not give you access to any online events. You will require a different ticket for that. These events are in-person only, and are not live streamed - sorry.