Episode 098: What Horror Films Can Teach Us with Pete Turner

What can a great horror film teach us about sharper teaching, braver parenting, and better creative work? We sit down with Dr. Pete Turner—senior lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and author of books on The Blair Witch Project and found footage horror—to unpack how fear, craft, and constraint can sharpen our focus and help us let go of perfection.

Pete traces his path from running around the neighborhood with a camcorder to researching how found footage techniques steer the viewer’s mind. He shares a forthcoming study with a psychologist to test those cognitive theories, and opens the vault on his new book about underage viewing in 1980s UK. VHS scarcity made movies a social currency: kids bonded by retelling, misremembering, and gifting scenes, building status and processing emotion through talk. That same principle powers learning—discussion turns content into understanding.

We dive into modern parenting worries—Stranger Things, Squid Game, and the internet’s raw edges—and land on a durable insight: nothing is too much if we talk about it. Co‑viewing, pausing to analyze how scenes are built, and naming manipulation techniques give children agency and resilience. Sound design takes center stage too; audio cues often drive anticipation more than images, a reminder for teachers to use sensory details with intention. We also confront culture’s strange comfort with violence over sex, and how gendered memories from the 80s shaped what got censored at home.

Pete closes with a minimalist pointer drawn from Blair Witch: embrace imperfection. Ship the draft, pilot the routine, and let curiosity lead before polish. If you’re ready to turn constraint into clarity and fear into fuel, this conversation will give you practical ideas for media literacy, classroom focus, and purpose‑driven creativity.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review—your feedback helps more educators find meaningful, minimalist ideas.

This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services. 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Musiowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your school leadership edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem, each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

On this week's episode of the podcast, we speak with Dr. Pete Turner about what we can learn from horror films. His pead-own pointer is that we need to learn from the best horror films and do it imperfectly. Dr. Pete Turner is a senior lecturer in digital media production at Oxford Brooks University. He has twice been nominated by students for Brooks Union Teaching Awards for his inspirational teaching. Pete is the author of the Blair Witch Project for the Devil's Advocate series, as well as found footage horror films, A Cognitive Approach for Rootledge, and his new book titled Unsuitable Film and Video Audiences: Underage Viewing Memories and Practices in 1980s United Kingdom is slated for publication in February 2026 by Edinburgh University Press. This forthcoming work investigates the memories of people who watched age-inappropriate films when they were children in the 1980s.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Thank you for having me on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Oh, you are very welcome, and Tammy is here as well. How are you today, Tammy?

SPEAKER_02 1:58

I'm doing well. I'm excited for this conversation because it's one of our episodes where we're talking about something, you know, like education adjacent, we'll call it, right? So I'm super excited about this topic.

Childhood Filmmaking To Academic Path

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Absolutely, for sure. So we definitely want to talk to Peter about his new book, for sure, and the research that has gone into that and the findings that came out. But I would like to start with telling Tammy a little bit of a story. So Peter lived a couple of streets up from me when we were kids. So his family lived in Australia for a while, which is how we knew each other. But Pete was one of these kids that would run around the neighborhood with a handheld camera making amateur videos. And so he has taken that interest, that passion, that curiosity into the rest of his life. And now he is teaching about film, writing about film, researching about film. So I'd love Pete if you can tell us a little bit about that lifelong passion that you've had and where it's taken you to today.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Oh, well, yeah, uh that that is funny. That that's how you remember me. That's that's sweet. I still have video, uh, like I have video of you on a on a New Year's Eve from when you're probably about 15. So yes, that that's it's nothing dodgy. Don't weird out. I'm not freaking out anyone. Yeah, no, uh, gosh, I mean it started before that. My my my mum got me into like stage school when I was really little, and I I I think I was on a film set when I was maybe about six or something like that, and I hadn't realized that there was a behind the scenes, so it blew my mind, and I was I was just absolutely in love with the idea that films got made from that point on. And then my dad got us a video camera when I was, I don't know, maybe about 13 or something, and I just commandeered that, and it was my video camera, and and me and my friends spent a lot of time just making these silly movies where literally the first line of the movie was like somebody picking up a phone and saying, You've got 10 minutes to live or something. And so we'd just go straight into an action scene, and and and that was that, and yeah, and and and and then I studied film when I came back from Australia. I studied film at A level, and I just fell in love with that, went through uni, taught film and media, then decided I had to do a PhD on it, and then started writing books about it. And yeah, that's that is yeah, it's just I just I still absolutely love films.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

I love this journey and the fact that something that you were doing in childhood had propelled you, you know, that love for film, and you were one of those people who said, That's what I'm gonna do. Because that doesn't happen all the time, right? So, like think about there's plenty of us who had dreams as little kids or had hobbies that we thought were fun and didn't really know that they would be something you could have as a career. And so I think that like your journey to me is inspiring because it shows that if you love something, you can make it what your career is and what you live for. So I'm glad that we're talking about this with you because I think it can be this can be a great source of inspiration. So I have a lot of questions actually, but I I'm not sure where to start. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about since you kind of took us through your journey, if you can tell us. Normally we would end a show with like maybe what's next or something, but I want to to know more about what you're doing next. So you have written a book and you have a next step planned, which is super interesting and I think very relatable to what could be a piece that can be connected into education because I think there's like a gap there. So what you're doing, I think, is really interesting.

Found Footage Theory And New Research

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Yeah, so well, the next project is sort of it's it's it's in its very early stages. We're just trying to get ethical approval for it right now. So we're just writing ethical approvals and things. But I'm basically teaming up with a psychologist at Oxford Brooks, which is where I work. And we are going to hopefully test out some of the theories which I theorized in my previous book. My previous book was all about fan footage horror films. If anyone doesn't know what a fan footage horror film is, it's a horror film where the characters in the film are holding the camera, so like the Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, those sorts of things. And I basically came up with all these theories about what I think the viewer's mind is doing or what the techniques in the film are trying to make the the viewer's mind do, the cognitive processing. But I didn't test any of them, I didn't experiment with it. So now I'm I'm teaming up with this psychologist, and we're actually going to test if any of my theories are right, which could end up being very embarrassing if none of them are. But hopefully hopefully, you know, some of them might be. But we're we're really thinking about you know what like how these films are supposed to be ultra realistic, and what what those sort of realist techniques, yeah, what what what they what they do to our mind as we're watching what what what processes are kind of uh elicited.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Oh, I'm looking forward to seeing some of that. That sounds really cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Should be fun.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Yeah, absolutely. So the most recent book in early 2026, Unsuitable Film and Video Audiences. So the the premise of the research that you were doing, correct me if I'm wrong, is about kids who grew up in 80s and 90s, but somehow managed to get their hands on films that were for 18 plus for adult viewing audiences. And so it's really them looking back at those experiences as kids, but them now as adults and that might be parents themselves. And so there's a lot of interesting findings coming out there. But one of the things that I found really interesting was what you were talking about as film as a social activity, and that there was a lot of you know bonding around, you know, who's seen what films and what happened in the film, and even playing out the film, you know, and talking about building that social capital, gifting the storylines to other people. I really enjoyed hearing all about that, and you don't often think about that with film in childhood. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Underage Viewing In The 1980s UK

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting because like hearing it back from you is it it shows I think one of the I shouldn't go straight into the problems of my book, but this is this is this is the way my mind works, so I will. It's based on 300 questionnaires, and so yeah, 300 questionnaires, people that were sort of born between 1969 and 1980, so they would have been either young children or maybe early teens in the 80s. And yes, they there it's really I think most of the people that responded to this questionnaire really loved their experiences. They all had really positive experiences with watching films that they weren't allowed to watch, according to the the British border film classification who rated them 15 or 18 or whatever. But so they had overwhelmingly positive experiences. So, what you're talking about there, that that social bonding, the these people found that if you'd seen particular films, it kind of raised your social capital in the playground. Some people s sort of talked about how it it allowed them, talking about the film sort of allowed them to process it and allowed them to live with the film longer because you know that this was the days before the internet, and you could get hold of any any film you wanted at any time. So, so these people would maybe catch a film on late-night television, or maybe that the video would have been in their house, but only for a night or two, maybe it was being rented or whatever. And so they were so sort of overwhelmed and so drawn to these films that they were desperate to unpack them, they were desperate to talk about them. And that was a that was a really big part of the research, is that it it's not just about the experience of watching the film, it's that post-experience of discussing it and and sharing it with others and even passing on details, and sometimes the details were wrong, and so sometimes people were lying about what they were seeing or they were misremembering. There's all sorts of interesting stuff in there. Yeah, but but yeah, but basically it's it was lovely to see how how people bonded over this. What what what I don't think you're getting from the book is possibly the other side of that where some children probably felt really left out, I would imagine. You know, and and if you if there if there was no way they could get hold of these films, they either had to sit there and lie and and say they had seen them, which which some people had sort of half admitted to doing, or they maybe just got left out. And it and and people had a sort of there there was a an interesting thing in the responses where where people almost had a hierarchy of of the other kids in the school. So there was the kids that had watched loads of stuff, and then there was the kids that hadn't seen so many stuff. And if you happened to have like a pirate copy of a film, or if you managed to tape a film off TV, it automatically kind of raised your social capital. So there was this whole kind of like subculture of I I call them in the book early engagers with restricted entertainment. But yeah, it it's interesting. It kind of gave you subcultural capital.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

That's very relatable. I remember in when I was in grade six, I had my teacher was a first-year teacher. And so, you know, that's always rough. So the kid kids can sometimes take advantage of that. As we did, one of the things that we would do if we had like an indoor recess because it was snowy or something, we would roll the TV cart into the room at lunch and put in Friday the 13th.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

And so many stories like this.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's I it's such a core memory from that school year. And I I mean, it we thought our teacher didn't know, but she had to have known that's what we were watching. And so it makes me think to now like I'll go into schools and I see little kids like kindergarten at Halloween this year or last year dressed as a demogorgon from Stranger Things, or like the, you know, they're in second grade and they have a Stranger Things t-shirt. But I'm like, is it because it was set in the 80s and it just bring like I was so drawn to it because it's so nostalgic and it made me feel like I was going back to what films felt like then? And is that the draw? Like, what's the line too with parents on Stranger Things? Because you know, there's little ones watching it, and some in fifth grade aren't allowed to watch it. So I'm interested to hear from a parental perspective too. Like, how do you teach kids to watch this with a certain lens, maybe?

Film As Social Capital And Memory

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah, there's there's there's so much to unpack there. So lots of the lots of no, no, that's okay. That's good. That the lots of the people who who I lots of the participants, lots of the respondents in the study are now parents, and they often talked about their own concerns with things now. Squid Game came up a lot because Squid Game has been advertised in in Roblox, or you can get a I don't understand any of this stuff because my kids aren't aren't there yet, but like you can get a Squid Game skin or something, uh like a character skin or something in in so so kids know about Squid Game and some of the respondents were talking about how they were worried that some of the kids in in their child's class had seen Squid Game and so they all have these same kind of worries that their parents often did. And and you know, they'll often call that my respondents will often call themselves hypocrites because they're they're now thinking about how can I protect my child, but also they're far more worried, and and it's because video was new in the 80s, so it was the new technology, it meant that films were suddenly in the home, which you know they hadn't really been before. They they might have been on late-night television, but now videos was was sort of uh particularly in in in the UK, because in the UK video was was taken up like nobody's business. I think we were second only to Japan in in the uptake of video. Yeah, that so there's always these new worries around new technologies, and parents back then were worried about video. Now the respondents that are parents, they're all worried about social media and the internet for obvious, you know, reasons. And you know, but but they don't seem to be so concerned. Uh apart from you know, some some people talking about Squid Game and Stranger Things, although I don't actually think there was any mention of Stranger Things, weirdly, but there was lots of mention of Squid Game. People are it is essentially more worried that now their children are watching, you know, porn or beheading videos or or you know real life stuff on the internet. So so it's interesting how the the fears sort of move with with new technologies as they always do. But but yeah, I don't know. I mean, that what what really I think comes out of the book, and it comes from people speaking about their relationship with their own children, and it also comes out of them talking about their own relationship with their parents back then, is that essentially nothing can be that damaging if people are talking about it. Children will self-censor and they will find coping mechanisms to deal with what they see, and and we don't give children enough credit for their their kind of their agency. There are lots of examples of of people of kids sort of being being made to watch things by older cousins or older friends and things like that, but again, they found coping mechanisms, they found ways to deal with it. And and I think that the best examples, the the most I think interesting examples are people that watch things with their parents, and it feels like nothing is nothing is too much if you're watching it with a parent and you're talking about it and you're talking about how it's constructed and you're questioning and critiquing it, and these are things that children can do. I don't know at what age that starts, and I'm not certainly not gonna show my five-year-old squid game yet as much as I'd like to, but yeah, yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Yeah, absolutely. I was shown cujo as a small child by my cousins, and my coping mechanism was hiding under the sofa. That was how I dealt with it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

But so then then did that work? Because there's there's a lot of stories of people who said they didn't watch things and they just heard it and they heard the alien popping out of someone's chest, and it was their imagination was way worse than what the film could actually be.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

So yeah, possibly. I mean, the fact that I still remember it now is probably a bad sign.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

For sure. But you're laughing about it, so you're okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

So just kind of on that line of thinking, so you know how sometimes on in people's reels, they'll they'll have a scene from a movie or something and they'll change the music. So it it changes how you view something. So if you let a child or someone who's afraid of something like scary movies or shows just the video and took away the audio, would it be as scary? Because, like to me, the audio I think is something like it's I probably would plug my ears versus close my eyes.

Parenting, New Tech, And Modern Fears

SPEAKER_00 18:54

That's that's re yeah, that's really interesting. Uh there's a whole section in one of the chapters about film experiencing films as a multi-sensory thing, and audio does come up as a really big, a really big part of that. People remember specific noises. There's there's one specific scene in James Cameron's film Aliens where where where the Marines are sort of they're all there with their guns up and ready and and they're waiting to see what's going to be coming at them, and they have these sensors that are are sort of making this pulsing boom boom boom noise, and and they're just waiting for the for the aliens to get closer to them. And and so many people talked about that sound, just putting them sort of over the edge with anticipation. So, yeah, it it is it's definitely a multi-sensory thing. But again, I think that this is this is something you talk to your children about. If they if they you know, I I I really am a firm believer in sort of uh like you obviously I don't think you should force children to watch anything they they don't want to watch, but I I'm I the best way to sort of I don't want to say desensitize them, but it sort of is desensitise them is just to break it down to show them how it's constructed and to show them how they are being manipulated. So yeah, and and and parents did that with their children. Uh uh, you know, a lot of parents would sit with their children and watch these films. So so a surprising amount of of mums that loved horror would just they they would want to watch horror, so they'd get their kids and they'd sit and watch horror with them.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

That was that was quite an interesting part of your research as well, is the the different gender roles that came out with with the mums and the dads, and you know, when it's a bonding experience and when it's not, and what they wanted to censor and what they were quite happy to join their kids in. I thought that was a really interesting part too.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah, I I mean I I suspect there's it's not that surprising to many people, but it it's crazy how much sex is the bigger problem compared to violence. Like it is, it's crazy. I'm reading all these stories and pe and and you know, parents were so so freaked out about watching anything sexual in front of their kids. I I get, I get, so I don't know. I I I guess everyone relates to that. It's it's a it's a weird thing, but it's it's shocking to me that we, you know, people people the respondents would literally say things like, it was absolutely fine to watch heads getting decapitated, but I couldn't see a single boob or something. And you're just like, what? That's mad. That is insane. What what what are we what are we like? But it is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

It is so funny. Like it's it's so backwards.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Because because we can use film or you know. Viewing something as a teaching tool. We do it in classrooms all the time, right? And so I guess it's just that discomfort with the content, right? So like it's easier for someone to say, that's not real. They made that up. Yes. Versus what's real.

Coping, Co‑Viewing, And Media Literacy

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yes. Yes. Yes. I think that's it. And and yeah. And and and it all so much of it comes down to the worry of children imitating. So I think you I guess you are less likely to think that your children are going to imitate some of the terrifying things you see in a horror film. But the swearing and and sex, anything sexual, you're, you know, you might have genuine worries about. Like it's it's funny because my my oldest sister is actually in the study. I I made her do it because she's the right age and she she didn't want to take part. But I was like, I really want to get someone in who isn't in love with films. And so I made my sister do it. And she mentioned about our dad finding out that she was upstairs watching risky business, and there's a there's a quite an interesting sex scene with Tom Cruise on a on a train. And as soon as that came on, he he was watching it downstairs, and he came straight upstairs and switched off her TV. And there's so many examples like this, but but yeah, and it seems like mums are remembered more for being kind of generally speaking, that they're remembered more for being kind of sensors and then turning things off. But I wonder if that's a function of them being around the house more in the 80s. Like I asked people about what their mums and dads did. More mums were sort of either part-time work or or stay-at-home mums. So yeah, they're they're generally remembered for being a bit more sensorial, if that's a word, and the dads are more sort of a bit more permissive, and there's all these sort of stories of dad's friend bringing a video round and all those sorts of things, or thinking someone's dad was very cool because they let them watch films and things. But but it it's it's a it's a generalization, and it's yeah, it's also tainted by the fact that 70% of my respondents are are men and only 30% are women. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Interesting. Interesting. So if I'm gonna shift gears a little bit, going back to how you kind of landed in this place, you know, making your videos as a kid, if there was like if you were sharing some kind of life advice with young kids who had dreams to go into, like whether it's writing or filming or really anything that they're just passionate about, what would you say to them to kind of inspire them to keep on the path of like follow what your passion is?

SPEAKER_00 24:57

That's what I'd say to them. Follow what your passion is. No, gosh, what would I say to them? It it's funny because I I I I always thought I was going to be a filmmaker. And then as soon as I got a taste of professional productions, I I went very much off it. I I I don't like I don't like how long it takes, which is I think why I'm a little bit drawn to fan footage horror films, because they seem so cheap and quick and sort of easy to make. And and I and and horror films generally, they don't have to be as perfect. It doesn't it doesn't feel like everything has to be as perfect sometimes. So yeah, I I I guess I guess that that means my advice would be your your dream can sort of change. I I I thought I was going to be a filmmaker, but then I realized that actually I love talking, thinking, and writing about films. And so that's what I went into. And I've and I've basically dabbled in all of that. And yeah, so I teach about films so I can talk about them and share my passion and enthusiasm every day. And I write about films. I became a film journalist, which which sort of helped me to get on red carpets and do meet all sorts of cool people and and stuff and and get to watch films. So yeah, maybe, maybe don't, you know, you don't have to you yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you have to remember that there are often many jobs that are associated with with with the with the one thing that you might be thinking that you're going towards as a kid.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Yeah, it doesn't have to be too doesn't have to be too specific what the end goal is, but just keep an open mind in in what you're curious in.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

That's very cool. I think unfortunately, it is almost time for us to wrap up. Can't believe it. But what we like to do at the end of our episodes is to ask for a peer-down pointer. So something, a little tip or a tool that helps people, you know, become a little bit more minimalist.

Sound, Sensation, And Anticipation

SPEAKER_00 27:12

I think my my my tip would would be sort of going back to what I just said. Like, think like the best horror films. If you accept that the Blair Witch Project is one of the best horror films ever made, that is a film that didn't have a completed script. Its actors didn't uh weren't professional actors, its directors had never done it before. It was all largely kind of improvised. So I guess what I'm saying is trust yourself and and maybe tying in with you you guys' next project, like things don't have to be perfect. Things don't have to be perfect straight away, especially if it's stopping you from moving forward. I know too many people who procrastinate because they're trying to get things perfect first go. Don't don't do that. Just try and try and try and get your thoughts out of you.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

That is a really great way to end the show and just wrap up. Yeah, no, it's true. Like just trust yourself, right? Yeah. Go with just start, do something, don't sit on it. Relatable right there.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Good. I hope so.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Yeah. Thanks so much for being with us today, Pete.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

That's a pleasure. Cheers.

SPEAKER_03 28:39

This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services, supporting educators with forward-thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Driven by a vision to teach less, impact more, they help educators find purpose, prioritize what matters, and simplify their practice. Learn more at planzeducation.com.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit planzeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.