Steve Jones

If you are in Newcastle Upon Tyne on 25th November, please join us as we welcome Gavin Miller and Georgia Walton (University of Glasgow), who are presenting work coming out of their Leverhulme funded project ‘A Mutual Fascination: British Horror and the Psy Disciplines c. 1955-Present’ Date/Time: 25th November 2026, 3-4pm Location: SQB 316, Squires Building, Northumbria Univeristy Title: ‘Horror, Desensitisation and Video Violence – Secret Knowledge, Public Health Abstract: This paper...

Many postmodern slasher films such as Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer are murder-mysteries that invite viewers to guess the killer's identity. In this video series, Dr Steve Jones argues that the invitation to play detective is a trap. Through withholding, misdirection, false information, and by turning fans' own subgenre knowledge against them, these films keep viewers at an epistemic disadvantage. Resultantly, these whodunit movies illuminate the tone of irony, paranoia and...

At our annual conference, Horror Studies Now, we present the Peter Hutchings Award for Outstanding Contribution to Horror Studies, in conjunction with Studies in the Fantastic Journal. Here is our 2025 winner, Katherine Lucia Prentice, who will also be joining the PhD programme at Northumbria in October. Katherine's essay 'Cripping the Monstrous-Feminine: Reading Disability in Recent Pregnancy Horror Films' is available in issue 20 of Studies in the Fantastic Here are our honourable mention...