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Video Shop Horrors Exhibition

"Video Shop Horrors" was a multimedia exhibition held at Northumbria University's Gallery North, 26th October to 11th November 2023.

"Video Shop Horrors" captured the nascent video shop experience. In the 1980s, horror videos always seemed to be more effectively promoted than those of other genres. The artwork tended to be bombastic, awash with contorted faces, flashing blades, ghouls and gore. 

The so-called ‘video nasties’ moral panic came and went, but its legacy, the types of film it encompassed, and the promotional strategies of the first video distribution companies, live on. This exhibition captured the dynamism of this hugely significant technological moment, pooling from original archival materials, to showcase the promotional strategies employed by video companies to attract consumers and, in some cases, to whip up controversy. The significance of video to the development and enduring popularity of horror films cannot be understated. 

"Video Shop Horrors" recreated the 1980s/90s video shop experience whilst celebrating the aesthetic and the wealth of films that helped define and redefine the horror film genre.

The "Video Shop Horrors" exhibition was led by Dr Johnny Walker drawing on his extensive archive of video-related paraphernalia. The exhibition featured video and music by Dr Steve Jones. The exhibition represents the interests of staff working within the University’s new Horror Studies Research Group.

Below are some videos documenting the exhibition:

An interview with me and Johnny about the exhibition:

The soundtrack I composed for the exhibition:

Horror Studies Research Group at Northumbria

Northumbria has a long-standing international reputation as the home of horror scholarship. I am now leading our newly formalised Horror Studies Research Group.

We've been busy since we launched in October 2023. Aside from running our reading group, I set up our website, Twitter/X feed, and YouTube channel. The YouTube channel features playlists of various talks, podcasts and events our members have been involved in.

We organised a multimedia exhibition - "Video Shop Horrors" - at Northumbria University's Gallery North, 26th October to 11th November 2023. Read more about that here.

We hosted a workshop for the AHRC funded Youth and Horror Network, organised by Kate Egan (Northumbria Univeristy) and Cat Lester (Birmingham University) on 7th November. 

We also won funding to host our annual Horror Studies Now conference: more details and the Call for Papers is available here.

There are lots of developments to follow, but if you want to get in touch, contact us at horrorstudies@northumbria.ac.uk

New Publication: Evil Seeds - The Ultimate Movie Guide to Villainous Children

The collection Evil Seeds - The Ultimate Movie Guide to Villainous Children (edited by Vanessa Morgan) is out now

https://www.amazon.com/Evil-Seeds-Ultimate-Villainous-Children/dp/B09CRM3KKN

I contributed sections on Plac Zabaw/Playground (2016) and Ils/Them (2006)... 

...although I wrote them before becoming a father (not as a reaction to my daughter's arrival) 😂

The Metamodern Slasher Film [video]

My talk on the Metamodern Slasher for Kurja Polt Festival is now live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9L3Fn6U0P4

The paper is based on my forthcoming book about the Metamodern Slasher film

The virtual other talks are available here: 

Dr Shellie Mcmurdo and Dr Laura Mee - "Ghosts in the (VCR) Machine: Video, the Horror Genre, and Dead Media"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No31WOHGQEs

Dr Alexia Kannas - "The Dead Can Dance: Cinematic Ghosts of Post-Punk Melbourne"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y0WNIg2Dgc

The final paper will be available tomorrow:

Dr Johnny Walker - "Activist Horror Film: The Genre as Tool for Change"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLeMxpVb1os

Article on Slasher films in Slovenian

Way back in April, my article on slasher films was published in Kino 

Here is a link to the abstract (in Slovenian): https://e-kino.si/articles/done-to-death-the-slasher-cycle/

The article was based on papers I presented at Abertoir (2018) and Kurja Polt (2019). That work is the foundation for a book I'm currently writing on the metamodern slasher film.

Snuff Interview

I was recently interviewed by Zafer Yilmaz (Hacettepe University)  about the snuff phenomenon. The interview is published here on the SineBlog in Turkish

Below is a translation into English:

Films shot for entertainment and profit that show real murders and rapes, are referred to as “Snuff” movies. Do Snuff films really exist?

As far as documented cases are concerned, no. Reportedly, the FBI’s criminal investigations into snuff have not uncovered any such material. The principal criterion for defining snuff is that the footage should contain (usually, culminate in) murder. The term ‘snuff’ conveys that a life has been extinguished (“snuffed out”). The hypothetical footage might include other types of violence – such as sexual violence, torture, and so forth – but these other acts are not in themselves sufficient for a film to be classified as snuff. Also, as you note, the motivations matter: snuff is filmed murder for the sake of entertainment and profit.

Note the term “murder” here: the footage has to be of an intentionally caused human death. To illustrate: a film such as Cannibal Holocaust (1980) was shot with the intention of generating profit and was meant to entertain an audience. The film includes real animal deaths, which were staged specifically for the film. For instance, the cast kill and eat a large turtle. The turtle’s death would not have occurred otherwise. However, killing an animal is not classed as murder, and therefore such footage is not snuff.

Many fictional, staged films seek to emulate what snuff might look like, and that sustains the myth that there are real snuff movies. I call these fictional emulations ‘faux-snuff’ films. Usually, vérité techniques (natural light, ambient sound, handheld camera and so forth) are employed to suggest that the footage has been captured by amateurs rather than professional filmmakers. That branch of snuff was almost certainly influenced by uses of vérité techniques in cinema more broadly (and perhaps in Cannibal Holocaust specifically), and by mondo films. Mondo films are documentaries that detail (and sometimes stage) events that would not normally be recorded on film. One famous relevant example is Faces of Death (1978), which contains authentic footage of animal deaths, genuine images of dead humans (taken, for instance, from news footage), and staged emulations of human deaths. The compilation of elements is presented as a documentary, and the vérité approach is employed where human deaths are fabricated, to pass off the footage as “real”. Furthermore, faux-snuff is likely influenced by the film Snuff (1976), which reputedly contained a real murder, which was clearly staged: multiple camera set-ups are employed, and the footage is obviously edited according to traditional conventions to establish continuity. In veering towards a vérité style, faux-snuff filmmakers seek to avoid those overt tell-tale signs that the footage has been intentionally constructed.

Some filmmakers use additional techniques for added realism, or to blur the lines between fiction and “fact”. In Shane Ryan’s Amateur Porn Star Killer series (2007-2009), genitally explicit images of sex are included alongside the staged murder. Since we can see that the sex unambiguously really happened, it is implied that the ostensible murder also could have occurred. Elsewhere, Fred Vogel’s August Underground’s Mordum (2003) includes footage of one performer cutting herself and self-inducing vomiting. Again, since these acts are genuine, it is implied that the staged FX-based murders are also “real”.

 

 

Two Serbian films released around 2010s (The Life and Death of a Porno Gang and A Serbian Film) raise the subject of snuff. Are snuff rumours commonly found in other geographical contexts?

Snuff appears in a wide variety of cultural contexts. Many faux-snuff films or films about the snuff myth are American. Obviously, there is Snuff (1976), but also Hardcore (1979), Run if You Can (1988), 8mm (1999) and so forth. Some of the more recent entries such as The Great American Snuff Film (2004), The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007), and The Cohasset Snuff Film (2012) put America or American place names in the titles. Cumulatively, it feels as if these American filmmakers are laying claim to the mythology in some way.

Some of those American films are set in other countries. Famously, Snuff was marketed as being filmed in “South America, where life is cheap”. Other films follow suit: King of the Kickboxers (1990) features a New Yorker traveling to Thailand to expose a snuff ring, Live Feed (2006) features American tourists encountering snuff production in China, and so on. These films have been accused of xenophobia or orientalism because they depict Americans encountering abhorrent “exotic” behaviours in “foreign” lands. Other countries have reflected that relationship too: perhaps in response to Snuff’s depiction of South America, Reel Savages (1977) depicts a Brazilian snuff filmmaker who feigns being North American, for instance. The Italian film Emanuelle in America (1977) also presents an American journalist encountering a snuff film production in an undisclosed location (implied to be outside the US, given that it is accessed by private jet).

There are numerous other examples of European snuff-themed films, including the Spanish film Tesis (1996), the Belgian film C'est Arrivé Près de Chez Vou (1992), the Italian film Snuff Trap (2003), as well as the British films The Last Horror Movie (2003) or the “Sick Room” segment of Cradle of Fear (2001), and the Irish film Red Room (2017). Japan has also produced its share of faux-snuff and snuff-themed films, perhaps most famously the early entries in the Guinea Pig series (1985), but also Abnormal: Ingyaku (1988), and Muzan-e (1999).

What I'm suggesting is that the snuff theme is an international phenomenon. These films probably play differently when contextualised against these various cultural backgrounds. I could not speak to that with any authority. In the UK, the spectre of snuff is still tinged by the video nasties panic and the connotations of “media effects” associated with that controversy. The idea that films – especially unregulated films, distributed in clandestine ways and consumed in private – are somehow intimately linked with real-world violence remains baked into British horror film culture. Those connotations have almost certainly helped to shape and sustain the snuff myth in the UK.

 

 

In your work, you refer to the film Snuff (1976) as a key moment in the development of pseudo-Snuff films and in anti-pornography feminists' responses to the phenomenon. What is the relationship between Snuff-myth and pornography?

Famously, protests were staged outside screenings of Snuff, based on its alleged depiction of a man actually killing a woman (which, to be clear, was faked). Whether those protests were authentic feminist protests, whether they were staged as part of the film’s publicity campaign, or whether it was a combination of both varies according to which sources one consults. In any case, Snuff garnered attention from feminist campaign groups such as WAVAW (Women Against Violence Against Women). The attention to Snuff was amplified by the staged killing happening on a bed, and its initial presentation as a sexual scenario. Snuff played into concerns various feminist groups were raising about pornography at the time. Broadly speaking, such campaigners suggested (to various degrees) that even mainstream hardcore pornography regularly and overtly depicts sexual violence, that women are commonly harmed when making pornography, that pornography encourages sexually sadistic attitudes among its viewers, and that porn goads viewers into committing violence and sexual violence in the real world. Snuff is an extension of these ideas: in this view, men routinely gain sexual pleasure by consuming images of women being harmed, so it is only a slight amplification of that paradigm to suggest that men would gain sexual pleasure from seeing a woman killed on camera. At the root of this model is the idea that porn is misogynistic, and that porn consumers are principally aroused by seeing women being harmed or degraded. Remember that in this view, such forms of porn are thought to be readily available and mainstream, so these attitudes are presented as if they are normative.

In the writings of anti-porn feminists such as Catharine MacKinnon, Gloria Steinem, and Jane Caputi, snuff is frequently presented as a type of pornography. That way of presenting snuff is replicated in popular culture too. Even in its title, Hardcore (1979) represents snuff films as a branch or extension of hardcore porn. Since snuff is only a myth, it isn’t possible to pin down a typical snuff consumer or to pinpoint the average mode of snuff consumption. Instead, a more familiar model (porn production and consumption) is employed as a substitute.

That slippage is further naturalised by porn’s associations with illicitness and taboo content. One would imagine that if a murder were staged purely for a commercial film, the footage would be banned from distribution, not only because it is evidence of a crime, but also because it is offensive. The extant framework for expressing how improper it would be to distribute such footage is to dub it “obscene”. Obscenity laws usually focus on sexual depictions, because presenting the “private” act of sex in explicit detail is broadly considered to be improper. So, the association between snuff and porn also possibly expresses an attempt to articulate what precisely is objectionable about snuff. A murder entailed during the creation of a hypothetical snuff movie would obviously be objectionable, but I would assume many would not be satisfied if such a murder were prosecuted without reference to the filming and intent to commercially distribute the footage – the latter is an additional wrong, and “obscenity” helps to pin down that wrong according to a familiar legal model.

 

 

What do you think are the socio-psychological and cultural foundations that prepare people to believe in Snuff-myth? How instructive do you think the media-effects model can be in this regard?

People are probably prepared to believe in the existence of snuff because it is within the realms of possibility. Filming a murder then distributing the footage is a remarkably unwise activity (most murderers would seek to remove evidence of their crime rather than reproducing it). Nevertheless, people engage in other serious crimes for financial gain, so it is conceivable that someone might become involved in snuff production if the promise of financial reward were significant enough.

Even if most people would not want to see authentic footage of a murder themselves, one might also readily imagine that someone might want to. It seems at least conceivable that a niche audience might watch snuff (if it existed), based on morbid curiosity about murder. That morbid curiosity might initially seem alien because murder is so horrific, but a cultural fascination with the idea of homicide is quite widespread. Certainly, many people might find crime fiction appealing because they enjoy imagining murderers being brought to justice. There is undoubtedly comfort or satisfaction in the re-enforcement of moral norms. However, the prevalence of crime fiction centred on murder and murderers also suggests that people might be curious about killing and the kind of people who are capable of taking another’s life. That curiosity is probably fuelled by most people believing that they are incapable of such action (outside of self-defence) or are unable to seriously conceive of themselves committing homicide. Crime fiction offers a safe way into exploring those ideas without the moral baggage of engaging with a real murder or murderer, and divorced from the reality of a victim’s grieving loved ones. Documentaries and true crime books also garner large audiences who are interested in actual murder cases, and those texts seem more directly invested in unpicking what drives killers to homicide. Again, part of the appeal might stem from the reinforcement of moral boundaries (marking differences between the killer and the viewer). In any case, however abhorrent murder is, it evidently fascinates many people, for a multitude of reasons.

Faux-snuff or snuff-themed fiction offer alternative windows into the horrors of murder. The vérité aesthetic might imply immediacy, but I assume viewers a priori understand that they are engaging with fiction. I'm sure most viewers would turn away from a faux-snuff film if they ultimately believed it to contain genuine murder. Knowing that it is only fiction, faux-snuff viewers might find vicarious thrills from being close to the killer (seeing what the murderer sees), but others almost certainly focus on the victim’s position, and others on the kind of person who would watch such footage if it were real. The fiction provides a space to safely engage with this triangulation of killer, victim, and consumer, and to explore moral complexities by oscillating between these different positions. In particular, since the viewer of faux-snuff occupies a similar (but, importantly, different) position to the snuff consumer, faux-snuff presents opportunities to explore the extent to which snuff consumers would be implicated in and responsible for the murder they pay to see. That question is built into the faux-snuff structure.

The media effects model takes the opposite stance on a relationship between viewer and film. The model is not interested in the varied appeals of such fiction – it does not account for why someone might watch – instead presenting the viewer as a mindless blank who mechanically replicates whatever they see onscreen in the real world. The media effects model is so reductive that I do not recognise the picture of viewership it presents.

 

In some interpretations, snuff encompasses historical films that entertain people by showing murder, and even propaganda murder videos made by terrorist organizations. What is your opinion on this matter? Are the criteria of "entertainment" and "profit making" indispensable in classifying snuff? What ties are there between capitalism and snuff?

If we take it that snuff is filmed footage of a murder, that the murder was intentionally staged for the film, and that the film was created for the dual purposes of entertaining an audience and generating profit, then these examples would not fit the classification.

Footage capturing genuine deaths is abundant, and some of that footage has been repurposed and sold for entertainment. Films such as Traces of Death (1993) compile that kind of footage under the auspices of entertainment. However, that footage usually captures death incidentally. For instance, camcorder or CCTV footage of a fatal accident might be included. The death was not staged so that it could be captured and the footage sold.

One might argue that a terrorist beheading video captures a genuine murder that was staged for camera, but the footage was not intended to be sold for profit or to entertain an audience. It is possible to repurpose the footage and watch it for some kind of entertainment; sites such as Ogrish, for example, specialised in repurposing footage of death, bloodshed and injury seemingly for the morbid curiosity of its users. However, the footage was not made for that purpose, and so it fails to meet the criteria for snuff. Nor was the footage created as a commercial venture. Its intention is to elicit a response and/or to make a political statement rather than to generate profit.

These distinctions might seem purely semantic, but they are vital in pinning down what snuff is and why the myth endures. The snuff myth is not really about the brute fact that a death occurred and was filmed: it is about moral violation. To put it crassly, killing is bad, but some forms of life-taking are deemed morally worse than others: we penalise manslaughter or second-degree murder less severely than first degree murder, and some consider euthanasia to be permissible. Motive matters in our moral assessment.

Snuff is a powerful myth because it flags two particularly callous motives for taking a life: the filmmaker is seeking profit and the viewer is seeking to be entertained. The monetary value and entertainment value gained from the interaction are obviously insignificant compared with the value of the life lost, and the premise of snuff is that the life was only lost to entertain those who pay to see homicide. It is also suggested that their viewing pleasure is contingent on the idea that the murder is exclusively for their entertainment. The sheer callousness of that interaction and the compounding of moral violations is what sustains the myth. The questions underpinning snuff are who would make that kind of film just for profit, and who would pay to watch (and why)?

 

 

How do you think the snuff myth (or the production of real snuff) will evolve in the future, particularly after COVID-19 and the a potentially post-democratic world)? 

On one level, I would not expect the snuff myth to change much at all in light of recent events. As I’ve indicated, the premise is much more fundamental, being rooted in deeper moral questions about the value(s) of life. Indeed, the snuff myth has sustained in the cultural imagination in more-or-less the same form since the 1970s, surviving multiple recessions, changes in governments, the digital revolution, and so forth.

That said, the moral violation has a monetary component at its heart. Snuff derives much of its power from the notion that it would be morally heinous to profit from murder, to kill simply for profit, or to pay to watch murder. The idea of putting a price tag on lives has become increasingly pressing in recent decades under what many have called a neoliberal or late capitalist state. In fact, I am currently writing a book on how exploitation films explore shifting attitudes towards human life and dignity under late capitalism. The snuff myth may shift if COVID-19 disrupts what have become economic norms. If capitalism were to collapse, I imagine snuff would either vanish or flourish. The myth might vanish because it hinges on the idea that enough money can buy anything, and ultimately can allow people to indulge in their most morally heinous fantasies. That way of thinking might simply not mean much if broader attitudes towards money and its perceived importance shift radically. The concerns snuff raises about putting a price tag on life might become alien to the culture if capitalism falters. Alternatively, snuff may flourish - rather than coming across as the antiquated product of a lost era, the absolute horror of the monetary transaction might be thrown into even starker relief.

Documentary Appearances

In 2019. I was filmed for two documentaries made by High Rising Productions, both of which will be available soon:

"The Last Word on The Last House on the Left":
















"The Emmanuelle Effect":

Kurja Polt 2019

I have just returned from Kurja Polt Festival where I presented a research paper about the slasher film alongside my fellow presenters Jamie Sexton and Alison Peirse. The event was organised and chaired by Russ Hunter. My thanks as always to Masa Pece and the Kurja Polt team for having me back. It was my third time at the festival, and it is always fantastic.

Here is a video of the complete talk (I was feeling really pretty ill during this, so probably not my finest hour):


A full gallery of photos from the event is available here. Some highlights below

Here is the summary of my talk, taken from the Kurja Polt zine:

[I think "dobra brada" is a compliment about my beard]

Here is a snap of me talking about slasher films on Slovenian National TV (on Osmi Dan)

Offscreen 2019

On 23rd March I returned to Offscreen Festival in Brussels for the fourth time. This year, I participated in a conference based on Offscreen’s Death on Film theme. I interviewed David Kerekes about his groundbreaking book Killing for Culture, I delivered a paper entitled “La Petite Mort: Sex and Death in Hardcore Horror”, and I participated in a panel discussion with David, Dr Tina Kendall (Anglia Ruskin University), Dr Russ Hunter (Northumbria University), and festival guest of honour Jörg Buttgereit (director of Necromantik, Schramm, and Der Todesking). Thank you to the festival team for having me back, and to everyone who came to the event

CFP: Horror Cult and Exploitation Media ECR Event 3rd May 2019

Three online articles

January 2019 has been a month of blog-related activities for me

Here is a post I wrote for the Screening Sex blog about the recent BBFC consultation exercise, and their stance on films featuring sexual violence:

https://bit.ly/2RShgv7

Here is a post on Henry Jenkins’ blog in which I'm interviewed by Dr Billy Proctor:

https://bit.ly/2T9wZSJ
Part 2:
https://bit.ly/2MC7O9j

Finally, here is a blog post about the impact case study I’ve been involved in, which is led by Russ Hunter, and encompasses colleagues from across Film and Media at Northumbria

https://bit.ly/2AZSHSg

Publications in Slovenian

I am part of a REF impact case study focusing on film festivals, which is led by my Northumbria colleague Dr Russ Hunter. The project entails delivering our research in public spaces. In 2019, I will return to Offscreen Festival in Brussels and Kurja Polt Festival in Ljubljana to deliver public lectures.

As a result of our work with Kurja Polt, some of my research work has been translated into Slovenian and published in Kino! journal

“‘Tvoja zgodba je resnična in ljudje to čutijo’: mučenje v kontekstu” (Kino! 31/32), which is a translation of a chapter from my monograph Torture Porn Popular Horror after Saw (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013).

“Kartezijanstvo in intersubjektivnost v filmski seriji Paranormalno ter v filozofiji duha” (Kino! 36), which is a translation of the article “Cartesianism and Intersubjectivity in Paranormal Activity and the Philosophy of Mind”, which was originally published in Film-Philosophy (21:1, 2017).

Abertoir 2018

In November, I was invited back to Abertoir film festival where I delivered a public lecture on the slasher film. It was a pleasure to return to Aberystwyth. Thanks to Gaz, Nia and the Abertoir crew for having me back.

A review of the festival (including some very kind words about my talk) is available on Love Horror here

Various updates

It has been a while since I posted anything, so here are some updates

I thrilled to have been invited to be a member of Porn Studies’ editorial board. Check out the journal here 

I am now supervising two new PhD students. Ami Nisa has joined us at Northumbria and is writing on found footage horror from a socio-technological perspective. Meg Lonergan is at Carleton University (Ottawa) and is writing on snuff films, focusing on cultural fears about technology, sex, and violence. I’m really looking forward to seeing how these projects develop.

I'm continuing as Head of Subject for Media this year. Check out our website if you haven't already. 

I've been working with Necrostorm films on their upcoming releases Hotel Inferno III and Little Necro Red. Click on the links to access the crowdfunding pages.

I'll be speaking on the slasher film at this year's Abertoir Film Festival in Aberystwyth, and I also have some new publications in the pipeline. I will post an update on those soon.

New Article

My article "Preserved for Posterity? Present Bias and the Status of Grindhouse Films in the 'Home Cinema' Era" has been published in Journal of Film and Video, 70:1 doi: 10.5406/jfilmvideo.70.1.0003

Abstract:

Despite the closure of virtually all original grindhouse cinemas, ‘grindhouse’ lives on as a conceptual term. This article contends that the prevailing conceptualization of ‘grindhouse’ is problematized by a widening gap between the original grindhouse context (‘past’) and the DVD/home-viewing context (present). Despite fans’ and filmmakers’ desire to preserve this part of exploitation cinema history, the world of the grindhouse is now little more than a blurry set of tall-tales and faded phenomenal experiences, which are subject to present-bias. The continuing usefulness of grindhouse-qua-concept requires that one should pay heed to the contemporary contexts in which ‘grindhouse’ is evoked. 

Access a PDF of the article here

Call for Papers: Horror, Cult and Exploitation Media II

Call for Presentations:

Horror, Cult and Exploitation Media II: 
A Research Workshop for PhDs and Early Career Researchers

Friday 4 May 2018, Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

A collaborative event between the Department of Social Sciences and the Department of Arts

PhD students and Early Career Researchers working in the field(s) of “horror, cult and exploitation” screen media, are invited to submit abstracts about their research to deliver at a workshop at Northumbria University on Friday 4 May 2018. The workshop – which follows on from a highly successful event last year – will take the format of a mini-symposium, and consist of three sessions, each made up of four speakers. Speakers will each deliver a 5-10 minute talk about their research to their peers and to a panel of academic experts from Northumbria’s Film and Television Research Group, providing a short introduction to their current project and identifying several questions for discussion. After each presentation, there will be an opportunity for the academic panel and other workshop participants to feedback to each speaker, and to ask follow-up questions.

The workshop is intended to be a small scale networking opportunity for scholars with shared research interests, and to provide a relatively informal opportunity for those newer to academia to engage in dialogue with more established researchers.
The event will close with a short presentation by James Campbell from Intellect Books, who will give advice about academic publishing (including converting a PhD thesis into a monograph).

The academic panel will comprise:
• Dr Russ Hunter (Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, co-editor of Italian Horror Cinema)
• Dr Steve Jones (Head of Media, author of Torture Porn: Popular Horror After Saw, co-editor of Zombies and Sexuality)
• Dr James Leggott (Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, author of Contemporary British Cinema: From Heritage to Horror)
• Dr Sarah Ralph (Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, co-author of Alien Audiences: Remembering and Evaluating a Classic Movie)
• Dr Jamie Sexton (Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, co-author of Cult Film: An Introduction, founding series co-editor of Cultographies)
• Dr Johnny Walker (Senior Lecturer in Media, author of Contemporary British Horror Cinema: Industry, Genre and Society and co-editor of the Global Exploitation Cinemas book series)

Applicants are reminded that there are only twelve spaces available. Lunch and light refreshments will be provided throughout the day.

Please submit a 250 word summary of your project and a 50-100 word bio to the organiser, Dr Johnny Walker (johnny.walker@northumbria.ac.uk), by Friday 30 March 2018. Applicants will be notified of the outcome the following week.

Final Reminder: PhD Studentship Opporunity

Northumbria University are advertising a number of fully funded PhD scholarships. I am advertising for a project entitled “New Approaches to Contemporary American Horror Film”. 

For details about the project and how to apply, click here. 

The studentship includes a full stipend, paid for three years at RCUK rates (for 2017/18, this is £14,553 pa) and fees. 

The deadline for applications is 28th  January 2018, and the funding would begin on 1st October 2018. 

If you know of anyone who would be interested in applying, please share the link: 

https://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=92582

Project Description

Horror films have been subject to examination from a variety of angles in recent years, but much of the scholarship on contemporary American horror is based in one of three commonplace approaches: a) reflectionist national readings (such as post-9/11 readings of American horror); b) psychoanalytic models (drawing from Carol Clover and Barbara Creed’s work in particular); c) Deleuzian affect-based readings. Although each is useful in its own right, these well-established approaches are limited in their potential to yield new insights. In order to push the field forward, more needs to be done to understand contemporary horror texts using innovative conceptual approaches and theoretical tools. 

The aim of this project is to investigate contemporary American horror film by drawing on the kinds of conceptual approaches and theoretical tools that have not traditionally been applied to horror film. These can be drawn from other disciplines (such as philosophy, gender studies, politics, psychology, the sciences), and can encompass discussion of studio horror or independent productions originating from America, so long as it has been created within the last decade (approximately). 

The nature of this project is that it is open to a wide variety of approaches. Possible topics could include, but are certainly not limited to, the following: 

- Gender in contemporary American horror (moving beyond psychoanalytically infused models such as ‘the gaze’, ‘the final girl’, and so forth) 

- Moral or ethical problems within contemporary American horror 

- Narrative construction and playful representations of time within contemporary American horror

- Conceptions of social or legal justice within contemporary American horror 

- Cycles within contemporary American horror (such as ‘the found footage film’) 

- Psychology and contemporary American horror: depictions of selfhood, personality disorders, fractured identities (and so forth) 

- Autonomy and entrapment within contemporary American horror 

- Victimhood within contemporary American horror 

- Contemporary American horror and sex 

This PhD studentship is based within the Department of Social Sciences and builds upon the extensive research into horror cinema already undertaken at Northumbria University. 

Eligibility and How to Apply

Please note eligibility requirement: 

• Academic excellence of the proposed student i.e. 2:1 (or equivalent GPA from non-UK universities [preference for 1st class honours]); or a Masters (preference for Merit or above); or APEL evidence of substantial practitioner achievement. 

• Appropriate IELTS score, if required. 

• Applicants cannot apply for this funding if currently engaged in Doctoral study at Northumbria or elsewhere. 

For further details of how to apply, entry requirements and the application form, see 

https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/postgraduate-research-degrees/how-to-apply/

Please note: Applications that do not include a research proposal of approximately 1,000 words (not a copy of the advert), or that do not include the advert reference (e.g. RDF18/…) will not be considered. 

Deadline for applications: 28 January 2018 

Start Date: 1 October 2018 

Northumbria University takes pride in, and values, the quality and diversity of our staff. We welcome applications from all members of the community. The University holds an Athena SWAN Bronze award in recognition of our commitment to improving employment practices for the advancement of gender equality and is a member of the Euraxess network, which delivers information and support to professional researchers 

Funding Notes

The studentship includes a full stipend, paid for three years at RCUK rates (for 2017/18, this is £14,553 pa) and fees

Recent publications by supervisors relevant to this project: 

• Jones, S. (2017) “Cartesianism and Intersubjectivity in Paranormal Activity and the Philosophy of Mind”, Film-Philosophy, 21:1. 
• Jones, S. (2016) “A View to a Kill: Perspectives on Faux-Snuff and Self”, in Jackson, N., Kimber, S., Walker, J. and Watson, T. (eds.) Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media. New York: Bloomsbury. 
• Jones, S. (2016) “Torture Pornopticon: (In)security Cameras, Self-Governance and Autonomy”, in Aldana Reyes, X. and Blake, L. (eds.) Digital Horror: Haunted Technologies, Network Panic and the Found Footage Phenomenon. London: IB Tauris. 
• Jones, S. (2015) “Torture Born: Representing Pregnancy and Abortion in Contemporary Survival-Horror”, Sexuality & Culture, 19:3. 
• Jones, S. (2014) “Pretty, Dead: Sociosexuality, Rationality and the Transition into Zom-Being”, in Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. 
• Jones, S. (2013) Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan

Reminder: PhD Studentship Opportunity

Northumbria University are advertising a number of fully funded PhD scholarships. I am advertising for a project entitled “New Approaches to Contemporary American Horror Film”. 

For details about the project and how to apply, click here. 

The studentship includes a full stipend, paid for three years at RCUK rates (for 2017/18, this is £14,553 pa) and fees. 

The deadline for applications is 28th  January 2018, and the funding would begin on 1st October 2018. 

If you know of anyone who would be interested in applying, please share the link: 

https://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=92582

Project Description

Horror films have been subject to examination from a variety of angles in recent years, but much of the scholarship on contemporary American horror is based in one of three commonplace approaches: a) reflectionist national readings (such as post-9/11 readings of American horror); b) psychoanalytic models (drawing from Carol Clover and Barbara Creed’s work in particular); c) Deleuzian affect-based readings. Although each is useful in its own right, these well-established approaches are limited in their potential to yield new insights. In order to push the field forward, more needs to be done to understand contemporary horror texts using innovative conceptual approaches and theoretical tools. 

The aim of this project is to investigate contemporary American horror film by drawing on the kinds of conceptual approaches and theoretical tools that have not traditionally been applied to horror film. These can be drawn from other disciplines (such as philosophy, gender studies, politics, psychology, the sciences), and can encompass discussion of studio horror or independent productions originating from America, so long as it has been created within the last decade (approximately). 

The nature of this project is that it is open to a wide variety of approaches. Possible topics could include, but are certainly not limited to, the following: 

- Gender in contemporary American horror (moving beyond psychoanalytically infused models such as ‘the gaze’, ‘the final girl’, and so forth) 

- Moral or ethical problems within contemporary American horror 

- Narrative construction and playful representations of time within contemporary American horror

- Conceptions of social or legal justice within contemporary American horror 

- Cycles within contemporary American horror (such as ‘the found footage film’) 

- Psychology and contemporary American horror: depictions of selfhood, personality disorders, fractured identities (and so forth) 

- Autonomy and entrapment within contemporary American horror 

- Victimhood within contemporary American horror 

- Contemporary American horror and sex 

This PhD studentship is based within the Department of Social Sciences and builds upon the extensive research into horror cinema already undertaken at Northumbria University. 

Eligibility and How to Apply

Please note eligibility requirement: 

• Academic excellence of the proposed student i.e. 2:1 (or equivalent GPA from non-UK universities [preference for 1st class honours]); or a Masters (preference for Merit or above); or APEL evidence of substantial practitioner achievement. 

• Appropriate IELTS score, if required. 

• Applicants cannot apply for this funding if currently engaged in Doctoral study at Northumbria or elsewhere. 

For further details of how to apply, entry requirements and the application form, see 

https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/postgraduate-research-degrees/how-to-apply/

Please note: Applications that do not include a research proposal of approximately 1,000 words (not a copy of the advert), or that do not include the advert reference (e.g. RDF18/…) will not be considered. 

Deadline for applications: 28 January 2018 

Start Date: 1 October 2018 

Northumbria University takes pride in, and values, the quality and diversity of our staff. We welcome applications from all members of the community. The University holds an Athena SWAN Bronze award in recognition of our commitment to improving employment practices for the advancement of gender equality and is a member of the Euraxess network, which delivers information and support to professional researchers 

Funding Notes

The studentship includes a full stipend, paid for three years at RCUK rates (for 2017/18, this is £14,553 pa) and fees

Recent publications by supervisors relevant to this project: 

• Jones, S. (2017) “Cartesianism and Intersubjectivity in Paranormal Activity and the Philosophy of Mind”, Film-Philosophy, 21:1. 
• Jones, S. (2016) “A View to a Kill: Perspectives on Faux-Snuff and Self”, in Jackson, N., Kimber, S., Walker, J. and Watson, T. (eds.) Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media. New York: Bloomsbury. 
• Jones, S. (2016) “Torture Pornopticon: (In)security Cameras, Self-Governance and Autonomy”, in Aldana Reyes, X. and Blake, L. (eds.) Digital Horror: Haunted Technologies, Network Panic and the Found Footage Phenomenon. London: IB Tauris. 
• Jones, S. (2015) “Torture Born: Representing Pregnancy and Abortion in Contemporary Survival-Horror”, Sexuality & Culture, 19:3. 
• Jones, S. (2014) “Pretty, Dead: Sociosexuality, Rationality and the Transition into Zom-Being”, in Jones, S. and McGlotten, S. (eds.) Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland. 
• Jones, S. (2013) Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan