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Dr Johnny Walker

Associate Professor

Department: Northumbria School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries

Johnny Walker is Associate Professor of Media and Film, and Head of Visual Communication and Digital Cultures, in the School of Arts, Design and Social Sciences. He is Vice Chair of the British Assoiciation of Film, Television and Screen Studies.

Johnny began working at Northumbria in 2013, prior to lecturing in Film Studies at De Montfort University and Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sunderland. He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, written or edited several books in the fields of media history and popular culture and from September 2021 - June 2023, he was the Principal Investigator on an AHRC-funded Fellowship: Raising Hell: British Horror Film of the 1980s and 1990s.


Johnny's books include the monographs Rewind, Replay: Britain and the Video Boom, 1978-92 (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) and Contemporary British Horror Cinema: Industry, Genre and Society (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) and the edited volumes Hammer and Beyond: The British Horror Film (by Peter Hutchings, 2021), Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media (co-editor, Bloomsbury, 2016) and Grindhouse: Cultural Exchange on 42nd Street, and Beyond (co-editor, Bloomsbury, 2016). His scholarship has appeared in the likes of the New Review of Film and Television Studies, the Journal of Popular Culture, the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, the Journal of British Cinema and Television, Post Script and Horror Studies, as well as in books such as Merchants of Menace: The Business of Horror Cinema, Italian Horror Cinema, the Routledge Companion to British Cinema History, the Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema, ReFocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay, and Transnational Horror, Folklore and Cultural Politics.

Johnny is an editorial board member for the book series Horror Studies (University of Wales Press) and journal MONSTRUM, and has provided expert commentary on such topics for international news and other media outlets.

He has delivered research seminars and guest lectures at universities throughout the UK and beyond, as well as keynote talks or plenary sessions at a range of academic conferences. He is asked regularly to peer-review manuscripts for leading journals and academic presses, and has examined PhD theses at national and international institutions.

​Johnny is founding co-editor of Bloomsbury's Global Exploitation Cinemas series, and former co-chair of the SCMS Horror Studies Scholarly Interest Group.

Johnny supervises a number of PhDs and welcomes inquiries from prospective PhD students on topics relating to his research interests.

Johnny Walker

Campus Address

Squires 306c
City Campus
Newcastle Upon Tyne

  • The horror genre across film and media
  • Film and media distribution, circulation and regulation
  • British cinema 
  • Popular fiction of the 1970s and 1980s

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • By the Numbers: Roberta Findlay and the Modern American Horror Film, Walker, J. 1 Jan 2023, ReFocus, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press
  • Less Punk, More Splatter: Heavy Metal, Horror Video and the Literary Nasties of Shaun Hutson, Walker, J. 1 Oct 2022, In: The Journal Of Popular Culture
  • Rewind, Replay: Britain and the Video Boom, 1978-92, Walker, J. 30 Jun 2022
  • Activist Horror Film: The Genre as Tool for Change, Walker, J. 3 Apr 2022, In: New Review of Film and Television Studies
  • Contemporary British Horror Cinema: Industry, Genre and Society, Walker, J. Oct 2015
  • Video nicies: re-thinking the relationship between video entertainment and children in Britain during the early 1980s, Walker, J. 1 Sep 2017, In: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
  • Reliability, quality, and a reputation for great entertainment: the promotional strategies of Britain’s early video distributors, beyond the video nasties, Walker, J. 1 Feb 2017, In: Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities
  • Introduction: 42nd Street, and Beyond, Walker, J., Fisher, A. Jun 2016, Grindhouse: Cultural Exchange on 42nd Street, and Beyond, London, Bloomsbury
  • Knowing the unknown beyond: "Italianate" and "Italian" horror cinema in the twenty-first century, Walker, J. Jun 2016, Italian Horror Cinema, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press
  • Traces of snuff: black markets, fan subcultures and underground horror in the 1990s, Walker, J. 28 Jan 2016, Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media, London, Bloomsbury

  • Madelaine Culver-Goldstein An Intertextual Exploration of Woman-led Narratives in British Horror Cinema of the New Millennium Start Date: 01/06/2021
  • Adam Herron Queering the Porn Theatre: Sexual Spaces in New York City, 1967-1980 Start Date: 01/10/2019
  • Rui Trindade Oliveira Supranational Horrors: An Examination of Italian and Spanish Horror Film Production: 1968-2018 Start Date: 01/10/2015 End Date: 21/09/2020
  • Adam Herron Start Date: 01/10/2019 End Date: 27/11/2019
  • Rui Trindade Oliveira An Examination of Southern Europeanness in Italian and Spanish Horror Cinema: 1968-2018 Start Date: 01/10/2015 End Date: 27/11/2019
  • Erin Wiegand Start Date: 01/10/2017 End Date: 27/11/2019
  • Erin Wiegand Mondo Movies: A Historical Study of a Polysemous Genre Start Date: 01/10/2017 End Date: 22/06/2022
  • Adam Herron Queering the Porn Theatre: Sexual Spaces in New York City, 1967-1980 Start Date: 01/10/2019 End Date: 18/11/2021

  • PhD April 01 2013
  • Fellow (FHEA) Higher Education Academy (HEA) 2015


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