var galleryData = [{"captionHeading":"100 Best Horror Films","caption":"<p>The truly horrible Anti-Christ got us in the mood for horror. So we've sorted our Craven from our Carpenter, thrown in some Shimizu and Del Toro, and come up with the very best horror movies ever released (and some were banned!). <\/p><p>But be warned, it ain't a pretty sight...<\/p>","url":"2009/7/28/warning-sign.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"warning sign"},{"captionHeading":"PEEPING TOM (1960)","caption":"<p><b>Vivian:<\/b> <i> \"What would frighten me to death? Set the mood for me, Mark.\" <\/i><br>\r\n<b>Mark:<\/b><i> \"Imagine... someone coming towards you... who wants to kill you... regardless of the consequences.\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Vivian:<\/b><i> \"A madman?\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Mark:<\/b><i> \"Yes. But he knows it - and you don't.\" <\/i><br> <\/p><p>Producer-director Michael Powell made one of the most horrifying contributions to the cinema of the macabre since World War Two. Written by Leo Marks, who co-scripted the equally controversial Twisted Nerve, it tells of Mark, a psychopathic young cameraman who photographs his victims' terrified death agonies, the most horrifying being Moira Shearer's wannabe actress Vivian. The scandal surrounding the film basically sounded the death knell for Powell's career.  Other candidates for the role of Vivian were Joan Plowright (rejected as 'too sympathetic') and a young Julie Andrews (rejected as 'too famous').<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Peeping-Tom.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Peeping Tom"},{"captionHeading":"THE HUNGER (1983)","caption":"<p><b>Alice Cavender: <\/b><i>\"What's wrong with him?\" <\/i><br>\r\n<b>Miriam Blaylock:<\/b> <i> \"He'll be all right. He's having trouble sleeping.\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Catherine Deneuve slipped sinuously into the role of the sexy bloodsucker dating back to ancient Egypt while Dame David Bowie was - at a relatively chipper 200 years old - her vampire lover. Unfortunately, something goes wrong (no, not Tin Machine) and he begins to age (it comes to us all, Dave) so she finds her eyes wandering to haematologist Susan Sarandon. Ever the perfectionist, Bowie learned to play the cello for the part.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/The-Hunger.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Hunger"},{"captionHeading":"CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)","caption":"<p><b>Lucas:<\/b> <i> \"I can tell you something about this place. The boys around here call it the Black Lagoon - a paradise. Only they say nobody has ever come back to prove it.\"<\/i><\/p><p>One of the finest creature features ever made, this tells the story of a scientific expedition searching for fossils along the Amazon River which discovers a prehistoric \"Gill-Man\" in the legendary Black Lagoon. After escaping their clutches, it returns to kidnap the lovely Kay, fiancée of one of the expedition. The creature was played by the short-sighted stuntman Ben Chapman who had to remain standing for the 14 hours a day he wore the suit and who scraped actress Julie Adams' head against the wall when carrying her in the grotto scenes because he couldn't see very well.<\/p>","url":"2008/11/24/Creature-From-The-Black-Lagoon-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Creature From The Black Lagoon"},{"captionHeading":"RE-ANIMATOR (1985)","caption":"<p><b>Dan Cain:<\/b> <i> \"What if we get caught?\" <\/i> <br>\r\n<b>Herbert West:<\/b> <i> \"What'll they do? Embalm us?\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Based on HP Lovecraft's parody of Frankenstein, director Stuart Gordon's story of a Swiss medical student experimenting with a reanimating fluid which brings corpses back to life soon strayed far from its gory source material. Horror totty Barbara Crampton ends up strapped naked to a lab table as an object of a hateful admirer, who, by this time, has literally lost his head. A true splatter movie, the special effects department went through 25 gallons of fake blood during the shoot.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Re-animator-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Re-animator"},{"captionHeading":"FRANKENSTEIN (1931)","caption":"<p><b>Frankenstein:<\/b> <i> \"Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!\" <\/i><br><\/p><p>Notices posted at the entrance to cinemas warned those with weak hearts to leave immediately. If they didn't: \"Well...we've warned you.\" Still regarded as the definitive version of Mary Shelley's gothic yarn, this had director James Whale to thank for its atmosphere of doom plus a career-making performance by Boris Karloff. Colin Clive played the deranged scientist who assembles a living being from parts of exhumed corpses. The confrontation between the monster and a little girl which, with its tragic aftermath, remains a little masterpiece.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Frankenstein-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Frankenstein"},{"captionHeading":"BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)","caption":"<p><b>The Monster:<\/b><i> \"I want friend like me.\"<\/i><br> <\/p><p>Despite wanting to get out of the evil experiment business, Dr Frankenstein (Colin Clive) is persuaded by mad scientist Dr Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) - after he's kidnapped his wife (17-year-old Valerie Hobson) - to help him create a new creature to be a companion to Boris Karloff's monster. Dudley-born horrormeister James Whale's body-part classic was almost never made as he had to be persuaded - over the course of four years - to make a sequel.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/The-Bride-of-Frankenstein.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Bride of Frankenstein"},{"captionHeading":"REPULSION (1965)","caption":"<p><b>Carole Ledoux:<\/b><i> \"I must get this crack mended.\"<\/i><br> <\/p><p>Roman Polanski's disturbing film was such a critical and public success that it quickly established itself as a classic. The chilling feeling of incipient madness has seldom been realised with such skill and imagination and many of its more famous hallucinatory scenes have been imitated since. As Carole, the girl whose revulsion for men leads her along the corridors of lunacy to the flashpoint of violence, Catherine Deneuve shows all the agony of a tormented mind in her eyes. Intriguingly, it features the first depiction of female orgasm (sound only) to be passed by the British Board of Film Censors.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/Repulsion.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Repulsion"},{"captionHeading":"THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI (1920)","caption":"<p><b>Francis:<\/b><i> \"You fools, this man is plotting our doom! We die at dawn! He is Caligari!\"<\/i><br> <\/p><p>Widely considered to be the first horror film ever made, this silent German chiller still has the power to shock. A fairground somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) exhibited by Dr Caligari (Werner Krauss), becomes the prime murder suspect when a man whose demise he predicted is found dead. Murderous mayhem ensues in a cock-eyed artificial landscape of over-sized furniture and ill-formed spiky trees where everything tends towards spirals and spider webs.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/The-Cabinet-of-Dr-Cagliari-1920.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Cabinet of Dr Cagliari (1920)"},{"captionHeading":"DON'T LOOK NOW (1973)","caption":"<p><b>Laura:<\/b> <i> \"This one who's blind. She's the one that can see.\"<\/i><br> <\/p><p>One of the all-time cult horror classics, this Nicolas Roeg-directed chiller whips up an atmosphere of almost unbearable tension concluding with a murder of surreal violence. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie play Laura and John Baxter, a bereaved couple who believe they are being haunted by their dead daughter - clad all in red - as she suddenly appears alongside canals and down alleyways in a wintry Venice. To complement a genuinely hair-raising performance,  Sutherland wore a curly toupee throughout the entire shoot.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Dont-Look-Now.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Don't Look Now"},{"captionHeading":"GINGER SNAPS (2000)","caption":"<p><b>Ginger:<\/b><i> \"I get this ache... and I, I thought it was for sex, but it's to tear everything to f***ing pieces.\"<\/i><br> <\/p><p>Sisters, rebels and outcasts, Brigitte and Ginger (Emily Perkins, Katharine Isabelle) hit back at those they hate at night, which is when they are attacked by a creature that's been tearing out the throats of neighbourhood dogs. Ginger's appalling wounds amazingly heal, but sprout hair - and soon she has the beginnings of a tail. Brigitte, unaffected, fights to find a way out, while her sister develops an appetite for beating up girls, raping boys and attacking what's left of the local canines. Offbeat horror that somehow manages to use werewolfism as a metaphor for puberty. Or something.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Ginger-Snaps-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Ginger Snaps"},{"captionHeading":"SLITHER (2006)","caption":"<p><b>Bill Pardy:<\/b><i> \"Don't let them in your mouth!\" <\/i><br> <\/p><p>Dawn of the Dead writer James Gunn's directorial debut is a masterclass in pinching the prime cuts from horrormeisters David Cronenberg, John Carpenter and George A Romero. A meteor disgorges something nasty into the redneck townsfolk of Wheelsy and before you know it the place is crawling with cannabalistic slugs and businessmen-turned-squids. Kind of. A must-see and squirm for fans of gonzo horror made all the more enjoyable in the knowledge that sfx boffins constructed the parasites from therma gel - a staple of the \"adult novelty industry\" - and the production swallowed up 300 gallons of methylcellulose slime. Nice.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Slither-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Slither"},{"captionHeading":"BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (1992)","caption":"<p><b>Dracula:<\/b> <i> \"The blood is the life... and it shall be mine.\" <\/i><br> <\/p><p>Francis Ford Coppola delivers a massively stylish, sexy and Oscar-winning adaptation of the classic vampire tale. Young lawyer Harker (Keanu Reeves) is captured and imprisoned by the undead Count Dracula in the mists of Eastern Europe. Gary Oldman's Count then travels to London having become obsessed with Mina, Harker's betrothed (Winona Ryder). Prince Vlad's scream after he drives his sword into the cross is not the voice of Gary Oldman but Lux Interior, lead singer of punk band The Cramps.<\/p>","url":"2009/1/15/Bram-Stokers-Dracula-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Bram Stoker's Dracula"},{"captionHeading":"LES DIABOLIQUES (1955)","caption":"<p><b>Christina Delassalle: <\/b> <i>\"Don't you believe in Hell?\" <\/i><br>\r\n<b>Nicole Horner:<\/b><i> \"Not since I was seven.\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Christina Delassalle:<\/b><i> \"I do.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Suspicion and tension are served ice-cold as a heartless teacher (Paul Meurisse) is murdered by his wife Christina (Vera Clouzot) and mistress Nicole (Simone Signoret). Thinking that's an and to their troubles they don't realise they've only just begun. Oft-imitated but never bettered, this mesmerising mystery French thriller has an ending which palpitating audiences have been asked not to give away... for over 50 years!<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Diabolique-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Diabolique"},{"captionHeading":"BLOOD FEAST (1963)","caption":"<p><b>Fuad Ramses:<\/b><i> \"Yes, Mrs. Fremont. I do cater to unusual affairs. What do you consider to be unusual?\"<\/i><br> \r\n<b>Mrs Fremont:<\/b> <i> \"Oh, I don't know. What do you recommend?\" <\/i><br>\r\n<b>Ramses:<\/b><i> \"Have you ever had... an Egyptian Feast?\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Hailed as the original splatter film, this gore-swamped B-movie featured Mal Arnold as the malevolent Egyptian caterer Fuad Ramses, who kills various pneumatic women in Miami to use their body parts to bring to life a dormant Egyptian goddess. Director Herschell Gordon Lewis, whose subsequent offerings included Miss Nymphet's Zap-In and The Gore Gore Girls, broke the blood bank in a rhesus heavy no-budget classic and cult favourite of gorehounds everywhere.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/Blood-Feast-2.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Blood Feast 2"},{"captionHeading":"BRAINDEAD (1992)","caption":"<p><b>Paquita:<\/b><i> \"Your mother ate my dog!\" <i><br> \r\n<b>Lionel Cosgrove:<\/b><i> \"Not all of it.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>After being bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey while spying on her son Lionel and his girlfriend Paquita, domineering mum (Elizabeth Moody) turns her toes up...and then comes back to life with a healthy appetite for dogs, neighours...you name it, she'll nosh it. Director Peter Jackson would go on to find fame with Lord of the Rings but in this early 90s gore-fest he showed a warped obsession with stomach-turning horror. During the scene where a lawnmower ran amok movie blood was pumped at five gallons a second.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/Braindead.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Braindead"},{"captionHeading":"JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (2004)","caption":"<p><b>Karen:<\/b><i> \"The whole time I was in that house I felt something was wrong. What happened there?\"<\/i> <br><\/p><p>Purists will always maintain that when it comes to horror, the Japanese originals are always the best. However, director Takashi Shimizu's decision to remake his own spine-chiller with an American cast paid doomladen dividends. Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Sarah Michelle Gellar played Karen, the American nurse living and working in Tokyo who is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse which locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim. By the way, the spooky popping sounds that accompany the appearance of the female ghost were made with a hair comb.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/27/Ju-On-The-Grudge-01-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Ju-On The Grudge 01"},{"captionHeading":"HOSTEL (2005)","caption":"<p><b>Natalya:<\/b><i> \"I get a lot of money for you, and that makes you MY bitch.\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>The blood-soaked standard-bearer of the torture porn sub-genre, this followed the fateful descent of three lustful backpackers after they are told about a hostel in Eastern Europe. This is the sort of place where the local girls will do anything for foreigners. South Shields? Anyway, the rumour turns out to be true... but why do people keep leaving without a word? Book in for torture, gore-caked horror and vicious street urchins: Hostel does for InterRailing what Titanic did for sea cruises. Director Eli Roth asked the President of Iceland for an official pardon for making Icelanders look like drunken sex maniacs with the character of Oli.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/2/Hostel-12-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Hostel 12"},{"captionHeading":"THEM (2006)","caption":"<p><b>Child:<\/b><i> \"We just want to play with you... won't you play with us?\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Simple yet highly-effective French horror-thriller relating how an ex-pat teacher and her writer husband are terrorised by unseen assailants in their home in a rambling villa on the outskirts of Bucharest. Never descending into fantasy or farce, this genuine bone-chiller marked an auspicious debut for directors Xavier Palud and David Moreau. And hardly a drop of blood is spilt. Director Bryan Bertino remade it for the American market as Strangers with Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Them-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Them"},{"captionHeading":"HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986)","caption":"<p><b>Otis:<\/b><i> \"I'd like to kill somebody.\" <\/i> <br>\r\n<b>Henry:<\/b><i> \"Say that again.\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Otis:<\/b><i> \"I'd like to kill somebody.\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Henry:<\/b><i> \"Let's me and you go for a ride, Otis\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Loosely based on the real life crimes of US serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, this grim, grainy home movie-style chronicle of a psychopath isn't for the faint-hearted. Arriving in Chicago, mum-killer Henry (Michael Rooker), moves in with ex-con Otis (Tom Towles) and starts tutoring him in the ways of the serial murderer. Yet while Otis savours each kill, whooping like a drunken redneck, Henry approaches his slayings without a shred of emotion. The British Board of Film Classification initially refused to release it at all after their American equivalent, the MPAA, claimed that they \"wouldn't know where to begin cutting\".<\/p>","url":"2009/3/3/Henry-Potrait-of-a-Serial-Killer-02-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer"},{"captionHeading":"ERASERHEAD (1977)","caption":"<p><b>Mr. X:<\/b><i> \"Well Henry, what do you know?\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Henry Spencer:<\/b><i> \"Oh, I don't know much of anything.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Weird. Just plain weird. David Lynch's surreal directorial debut starred John Nance as Henry, a young man who discovers he has fathered a monstrous baby. A work of extraordinary imagination, its nightmarish tone and bleak atmosphere contributed to it being regarded as the most sheerly bizarre film ever made. After completing the film, the embalmed calf used to play the baby was buried by Lynch in an undisclosed location. Of course, at the wrap party, they had a mock wake for it.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Eraserhead-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Eraserhead"},{"captionHeading":"THE DEAD ZONE (1983)","caption":"<p><b>Greg Stillson:<\/b><i>\"I have had a vision that I am going to be President of the United States someday. And nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to stop me!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The perfect movie marriage of horror-writer Stephen King and nutjob David Cronenberg resulted in this disturbing story of creepy clairvoyance. Christopher Walken (who else?) plays a car crash victim who wakes from a five-year coma to find that he has strange psychic powers and can see into the future. By simply touching hands with someone, he can see their fate - an ability that helps him rescue a child from a burning house and solve a series of murders. But then he has a brush with Martin Sheen's cynical politician Greg Stillson.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/The-Dead-Zone-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Dead Zone"},{"captionHeading":"FUNNY GAMES (1997)","caption":"<p><b>Georg:<\/b><i> \"Why are you doing this to us?\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Paul:<\/b><i> \"Why not?\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>A real love it or loathe it outing from writer-director Michael Haneke. It's a terrifying, persuasive and frighteningly in-your-face look at the escalating violence that can attack when you least expect it. The vile story is brilliantly handled...but no one can pretend it's an easy experience to watch. Two pleasant-looking, credible young blokes (Arno Frisch, Frank Giering) turn up at the lavish lakeside home of a husband and wife holidaying with their young son, but it soon turns out the lads are evil itself and bit by bit they block every move of the couple to get rid of them. Haneke would go on to pointlessly remake it with Tim Roth and Naomi Watts.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/Funny-Games-1997-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Funny Games (1997)"},{"captionHeading":"THE DEVILS (1971)","caption":"<p><b>Baron De Laubardemont: <\/b><i>\"A nun is reported to be having commerce with your Isacaaron in the form of a three-legged dog.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Writer Aldous Huxley's story of political and spiritual conflicts in turbulent 17th century France is given the old Ken Russell treatment. In other words, this film is a vivid collection of gross and horrific images, plus a fair bit of flesh just to keep your attention (naughty nuns, pernicious priests and androgynous aristos - the usual things). It's all wrapped together - Spanish Inquisition and all - in Russell's inimitable fashion and about as subtle as a kick in the nads. The role of Sister Jeanne was originally offered to Glenda Jackson, who turned it down because she was tired of playing sexually neurotic leads in Russell movies.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/The-Devils-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Devils"},{"captionHeading":"PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975)","caption":"<p><b>Edith:<\/b><i> \"May I come, too, please?\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Marion:<\/b><i> \"So long as you don't complain.\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Edith:<\/b><i> \"I won't, I promise.\"<\/i> <br> \r\n<b>Miranda:<\/b><i> \"And don't worry about us Mademoiselle. We shall only be gone a little while.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Director Peter Weir’s profoundly disturbing story of the unexplained disappearance of three virginal teenage girls and their teacher. The missing four - on an expedition from the posh Appleyard College to the forbidding Hanging Rock on a hot summer’s day - vanish into the sweltering air. One of Oz cinema’s most terrifying moments. Entirely fictitious but with a spine-chilling veneer of authenticity, its supernatural grip would stay with the viewer long after leaving the cinema.<\/p>","url":"2008/12/8/Picnic.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Picnic"},{"captionHeading":"DAY OF THE DEAD (1985)","caption":"<p><b>Dr Logan:<\/b><i> \"It wants me! It wants food! But it has no stomach, can take no nourishment from what it ingests. It's acting on INSTINCT!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The gory third instalment of George A Romero's cult series. Civilisation is finished. The dead outnumber the living by half-a-million to one. A small handful of surviving humans is holed up in a claustrophobic missile silo, where the military members of the group are at odds with the scientists. Among them is the crazed Dr Logan (Richard Liberty) who is experimenting at trying to 'tame' the zombies and Sarah (Lori Cardille), a doctor who is attempting to reverse the process of the dead returning to life. The gore and entrails used in the disembowelling of Captain Rhodes (Joseph Pilato) were real pig intestines and blood from a nearby slaughterhouse.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Day-of-the-Dead.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Day of the Dead"},{"captionHeading":"THE BROOD (1979)","caption":"<p><b>Juliana:<\/b><i> \"Thirty seconds after you're born you have a past and sixty seconds after that you begin to lie to yourself about it.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Therapist Oliver Reed, bizarelly miscast, fights a losing battle trying to cope with disturbed patient Julians (Samantha Eggar), not least because her turbulent mental state somehow begets a brood of deadly midget creatures - 'the children of her rage' - who club people to death with baseball bats. Director David Cronenberg, who was going through a nasty divorce and child custody battle when he wrote the film, claimed Eggar's character possessed some of the characteristics of his ex-wife.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/The-Brood.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Brood"},{"captionHeading":"MARTYRS (2008)","caption":"<p><b>Doctor:<\/b><i> \"Lucie won't say what she endured.\"<\/i><br><\/p><p>The Gallic shocker that had hardgore horror fans retching in the aisles at London FrightFest is destined to become one of the most ferocious, uncompromising horror movies of recent memory.  French director Pascal Laugier’s dark, twisted spin on a traditional revenge story - a disturbed young woman's quest for vengeance against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child - should carry a government health warning. The fact that the BBFC passed it uncut is a minor miracle - it's a movie that will not be quickly forgotten by those who can stand it.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs5.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_5"},{"captionHeading":"AUDITION (1999)","caption":"<p><b>Asami:<\/b><i> \"This wire can cut through meat and bone easily.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>You'll never look at a cheesewire in quite the same way again... A middle-aged widower (Ryo Ishibashi) runs into a fetching psycho when he holds an 'audition' for a new wife in this weird and way-out Japanese psychological horror thriller. The young woman (Eihi Shiina) - apparerently identifying him as representative of all mankind's wickedness (a bit harsh) - wreaks appalling vengeance on him. With the aforementioned kitchen implement. Apparently, the dog bowl of vomit fed to Asami's (Eihi Shiina) prisoner is in fact the actual vomit of the method actress. More cheese Gromit?<\/p>","url":"2009/3/2/Audition-01-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Audition 01"},{"captionHeading":"JAWS (1975)","caption":"<p><b>Hooper:<\/b><i> \"That's a twenty footer.\" <\/i> <br>\r\n<b>Quint: <\/b><i>\"Twenty-five. Three tons of him.\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Steven Spielberg's seminal aquatic thriller is acknowledged as the film that launched the blockbuster. Simple yet terrifyingly effective, it alarmed cinemagoers around the world that it was never safe to go back in the water. When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief (Roy Scheider), a marine scientist (Richard Dreyfuss)  and grizzled fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw) set out to stop it. Fins would never be the same again. Lee Marvin, who was considered for the role of Quint by Spielberg, thanked him but replied that he'd rather go fishing.<\/p>","url":"2009/5/12/Jaws-18-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Jaws 18"},{"captionHeading":"CLOVERFIELD (2008)","caption":"<p><b>Beth McIntyre: <\/b><i>\"What the hell is that?\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>It all begins when a leaving party is rudely interrupted by an earth tremor and a series of explosions. Then the Statue of Liberty’s head comes crashing through midtown Manhattan… followed by something even bigger. Producer and Lost creator J.J. Abrams promised “Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project”, and that’s exactly what he delivers in a sense-pummelling barrage of high-concept hysteria and monster special effects. SPOILER: At the end of the movie, camcorder footage shot at Coney Island before the attack clearly shows the satellite carrying the monster splashing down in the sea.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/24/Cloverfield.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Cloverfield"},{"captionHeading":"THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)","caption":"<p><b>Old Man:<\/b><i> \"Those girls... those girls don't wanna go messin' round no old house!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Oft imitated but rarely bettered, Tobe Hooper's chilling yarn of redneck dysfunction sent a generation of cinemagoers scuttling for exits. On hearing that the graveyard where her grandfather is buried has been vandalised, Sally (Marilyn Burns) and a group of hippy friends go to stay in her grandfather's old farmhouse. Unfortunately, the neighbours are a bunch of grave-robbing cannibals, the worst of whom is the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen). So what do the kids do? Go and ask for a cup of sugar. Bizarelly, for a film that suggested violence rather than wallowed in gore, it was only passed uncut by British censors in 1999.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/3/The-Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre-1970-03-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - 1974"},{"captionHeading":"SE7EN (1995)","caption":"<p><b>William Somerset: <\/b><i>\"This isn't going to have a happy ending.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Director David Fincher gave the ailing American horror industry a welcome shot in the arm with this rain-drenched chiller which defied convention to sign off on a very un-Hollywood note (Brad Pitt refused to make it if the ending were changed). Veteran homicide detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and his young partner David Mills (Pitt) pursue a serial killer who is selecting his victims according to the Seven Deadly Sins. Dark and very disturbing, it's not one to watch on your own.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/2/Seven-01-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Seven 01"},{"captionHeading":"[REC] (2007)","caption":"<p><b>Angela:<\/b><i> \"We know nothing. They haven't told us a thing. We saw special forces, health inspectors wearing suits and masks, and it's not very comforting.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Spain consolidated its newly-won position as Europe's finest purveyor of horror with this neat chiller remade in America as Quarantine. A fly-on-the-wall TV documentary team spend the night on call with the crew of a Barcelona fire station. In the early hours an alarm proves to be anything but routine when they get the shout to an apartment block where an elderly resident has gone doolally. Then things turn darker still when a cop on the scene is bitten by the old biddy. There's worse to come... Simple yet effective zombie horror. Think Cloverfield's nasty little Spanish cousin.<\/p>","url":"2008/12/18/REC-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"REC"},{"captionHeading":"THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE (2001)","caption":"<p><b>Casares:<\/b><i> \"What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again?\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro has gone on to make name for himself with Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth. But his early Spanish Civil War allegory still packs a chilling punch. As the fighting comes to an end with Franco victorious, the 10-year-old son of a Republican war hero is taken to remote orphanage run by the kindly Casares. Bullied by the other boys, he discovers the eerie ghost of a previous young resident down in the cold, damp cellar. The spectre latches onto the boy, warning him: \"Many of you will die...\"<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/The-Devils-Backbone.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Devil's Backbone"},{"captionHeading":"THE MIST (2007)","caption":"<p><b>Dan Miller:<\/b><i> \"Don't go out there! There's something in the mist!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The fearful residents of a small Maine town are plunged into the unknown when an ominously thick mist has them cowering in the local supermarket. Something is lurking outside, but nobody has the foggiest what it might be. All they know is that it’s something… monstrous. Bleaker than The Shawkshank Redemption and bloodier than The Green Mile, writer-director Frank Darabont’s third big-screen Stephen King adaptation is a creeping, crawling descent into an otherworldly nightmare. And he insisted on sticking with the grim, downbeat scripted ending.<\/p>","url":"2009/4/3/The-Mist03-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Mist_03"},{"captionHeading":"FREAKS (1932)","caption":"<p><b>Hercules:<\/b><i> \"They're going to make you one of them, my peacock!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Tod Browning's disturbing love story, featuring real circus freaks, packs even more of a punch than it did 70 years ago, when viewed from the politically correct high ground of the new millennium. The director, himself a former circus contortionist, tells the story of a midget who makes the mistake of falling in love with a duplicitous trapeze queen. Browning's decision to use real circus freaks - the half-boy, the living torso and the armless woman among them - sent audiences screaming from cinemas upon its release.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Freaks-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Freaks"},{"captionHeading":"THE EVIL DEAD (1981)","caption":"<p><b>Ash:<\/b><i> \"You b*****ds, why are you torturing me like this? Why?\"<\/i> <br><\/p><p>Using money borrowed from local businesses, Play-Doh special effects, no-budget ingenuity, and a nasty sense of humour, Sam Raimi and friends created the world's first rock and roll fright film. Plots don't come much simpler - five friends travel to a cabin in the woods where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons - but the controversy it created resulted in the \"zombies make mincemeat of teens in the woods\" shocker only finally being seen uncut by British horror fans in 2001.<\/p>","url":"2009/5/14/evil-dead-2.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"evil dead"},{"captionHeading":"WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962)","caption":"<p><b>Blanche:<\/b><i> \"You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I weren't still in this chair.\" <\/i><br>\r\n<b>Jane:<\/b><i> \"But you are, Blanche! You are in that chair!\"<\/i> <br><\/p><p>Psychological horror yarns don't get much darker (or better) than this pitch black melodrama starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as fading stars living together in mutual loathing in a gloomy mansion. Davis, an booze-wrecked former child star, decides to revive her career and wheels her disabled sister into a locked room to keep her out of the way. The two stars loathed one another in real life - during the kicking scene Davis kicked Crawford so hard in the head she needed stitches. In retaliation, Crawford put weights in her pockets so that when Davis had to drag her near-lifeless body, she strained her back.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Whatever-Happened-to-Baby-Jane-2-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Whatever Happened to Baby Jane 2"},{"captionHeading":"INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS (1956)","caption":"<p><b>Dr Miles J Bennell:<\/b><i> \"They're here already! You're next! You're next, You're next...!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Smalltown doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) discovers that the population of his community is being replaced by alien duplicates. Sublimely performed and shot through with a genuine sense of trepidation and unease, the film was remade by Philip Kaufman (original director Don Siegel had a small cameo role) in 1978, and by Abel Ferrara in 1993. Original director Don Siegel has always denied conspiracy theories that the sci-fi classic was a cautionary allegory about communists or McCarthyists. However, he was forced by the studio to add both pro and epilogues to \"lighten the tone\".<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Invasion-of-the-Bodysnatchers-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Invasion of the Bodysnatchers"},{"captionHeading":"THE WICKER MAN (1973)","caption":"<p><b>Lord Summerisle:<\/b><i> \"Do sit down, Sergeant. Shocks are so much better absorbed with the knees bent.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Revered as probably the best British horror film ever made, this erotic and mesmerically chilling tale of lethal pagan rights cast a supernatural spell of its own. Edward Woodward gave a powerful and unsettling performance as Sgt Howie, a puritanical Christian copper who travels from the Scottish mainland to Summerisle, a remote Western Isle to investigate an anonymous report of a missing girl.\r\nBut the whole island denies ever seeing her and Howie discovers that, under the leadership of Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), the locals practice Pagan worship. Also notable for a naked dance from Britt Ekland and less notably for the appalling Nicolas Cage remake.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/Wicker-Man.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Wicker Man"},{"captionHeading":"THE HAUNTING (1963)","caption":"<p><b>Eleanor Lance:<\/b><i> \"God! God! Whose hand was I holding?\" <\/i> <br>\r\n \r\nFaint hearts may not be up to this truly frightening ghost story (remade in 1999 to less effect) about a house that was 'born bad' and claims the souls of those who enter it. The film's great strength lies in the fact that the 'thing' is never seen; and the infra-red camerawork makes the walls of the house - 'leprous' one of the characters call them - seem almost alive, bringing the horror right out of the screen. Director Robert Wise sets electricity crackling into the audience with a hair-raising opening, and rarely lets the chilling temperature rise.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/The-Haunting.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Haunting"},{"captionHeading":"AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)","caption":"<p><b>Dart Player: <\/b><i>\"Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors.\"<\/i>  <br>\r\n<b>Chess Player:<\/b><i> \"Beware the moon, lads.<\/i> <br><\/p><p>David Naughton and Griffin Dunne star in this excellent tongue-in-cheek horror film as two American backpackers who, despite warnings from the locals in The Slaughtered Lamb pub (look out for a fleeting shot of Rik Mayall), find themselves straying from the path and wandering about the Yorkshire moors in the thrashing rain, where they are attacked by a werewolf. Dunne is killed and Naughton wakes to find himself in hospital in London, where it's only a matter of time before his dead friend is visiting him from beyond the grave telling him that he is now a werewolf and must kill himself to end the curse. Jenny Agutter looks nice in a nurse's uniform.<\/p>","url":"2009/1/21/An-American-Werewolf-in-London-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"An American Werewolf in London"},{"captionHeading":"THE INNOCENTS (1961)","caption":"<p><b>Miles:<\/b><i> \"It was only the wind, my dear.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Deborah Kerr plays an inexperienced governess to an orphan who lives in a rambling country house with just a housekeeper and servants for company. When they start seeing apparitions, she begins to suspect there might be dark forces at work. Based on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and inspiring the likes of The Haunting and The Others, this is a classic ghost story beautifully served by Kerr's understated performance. She maintains it was her best.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/The-Innocents-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Innocents"},{"captionHeading":"THE OTHERS (2001)","caption":"<p><b>Grace:<\/b><i> \"Where's my daughter? What have you done with my daughter?\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Anne:<\/b><i> \"Are you mad? I am your daughter.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>With a knowing nod to the horror classic The Innocents, this classic chiller gave Nicole Kidman one of her most underrated roles. She plays Grace, a mother whose husband is away at war and whose children are photo-sensitive and cannot be exposed to light. leaving their remote house in near total darkness. Her servants walk out...and then, unbidden, three replacements led by, yes, Eric Sykes, turn up. Cue weirdness - a piano that plays itself, a shaking chandelier and sudden glimpses of a little boy... Bleak and disturbing, it boasted a twist as cold as the grave.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/The-Others-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Others"},{"captionHeading":"THE DESCENT (2005)","caption":"<p><b>Beth:<\/b><i> \"I'm an English teacher, not f**king Tomb Raider.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>It's Deliverance underground when six female extreme sports nuts head into an Appalachian Mountain cave system and find they're not alone. Descending ever deeper, they discover a hideous breed of mutant \"crawlers\" with a taste of firm totty flesh.  British horror doesn't come much better than Neil Marshall's nerve shredding, spine snapping \"chicks-with-picks\" gore fest. Not for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached. The American version was altered to make its ending happier. The wusses.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/The-Descent-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Descent"},{"captionHeading":"HOUSE OF WAX (1953)","caption":"<p><b>Prof Jarrod:<\/b><i>  \"You shouldn't have done that my dear!\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Vincent Price's gleefully horrid performance as disfigured wax museum proprietor Professor Jarrod, who uses real bodies as a basis for his immobile exhibits, was a dastardly 3-D delight. A shrieking Phyllis Kirk, with splendidly resonating vocal chords, plays the heroine who the nutty prof wants to mould into a waxwork of Marie Antoinette. Most wondrously of all, the film was directed by André de Toth who, because he had only one eye, was unable to enjoy the full effect. <\/p><p>In 2005, an inevitable remake - bearing scant resemblance to the 1953 classic - featured six disposable American teens (Paris Hilton being the most disposable) who come a cropper at a House of Wax in a strangely empty Louisiana backwater.<\/p>","url":"2008/11/24/House-Of-Wax.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"House Of Wax"},{"captionHeading":"THE ORPHANAGE (2007)","caption":"<p><b>Laura:<\/b><i> \"Simone. Simone, SIMONE!\"<\/i><br><\/p><p>You may find your spine fusing into one big icicle only to be jolted back into life by this sublime Spanish chiller. A troubled mother (Belen Rueda) returns to the orphanage she escaped as a child to run a home for damaged kids. However, malevolent spirits - not to mention an eerie old biddy - are not happy about her plans...and conspire to stop her. Guillermo \"Pan's Labyrinth\" del Toro produces a cleverly constructed frightener which owes much to the Deborah Kerr classic The Innocents.<\/p><p>Wryly noting the inevitable US remake, director Juan Antonio Bayona said: \"The Americans have all the money in the world but can't do anything, while we can do whatever we want but don't have the money\".<\/p>","url":"2008/12/18/El-OrfanatoThe-Orphanage-13-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"El Orfanato_The Orphanage 13"},{"captionHeading":"PAN'S LABYRINTH (2006)","caption":"<p><b>Capitán Vidal:<\/b><i> \"I choose to be here because I want my son to be born in a new, clean Spain.\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Alice is definitely through the looking glass in this Spanish fable, but this is a land of terror as much as wonder. Guillermo Del Toro's adult fairytale, about a young girl discovering a fantastical underworld beneath 1944's fascist Spain, is a strikingly original marvel. <\/p><p>Sergi Lopez genuinely terrified as Franco's sadistic resistance-hunter Captain Vidal but the film belonged to Del Toro's spine-shuddering creations, including American actor Doug Jones' Pale Man. Apparently, for the \"fairy eating\" scene, he had to bite on condoms filled with fake blood.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Pans-Labyrinth-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Pan's Labyrinth"},{"captionHeading":"THE MUMMY (1932)","caption":"<p><b>Im-ho-tep: <\/b><i>\"You will not remember what I show you now, and yet I shall awaken memories of love... and crime... and death...\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>With the ancient Egyptian priest disinterred for Brendan Fraser's modern Mummy caper series, it's instructive to look back more than seventy years to the original. Boris Karloff, who in real life was a charitable English gent with a penchant for cricket, delivered the definitive version. His mummy - caked in filaments of make-up layer upon layer - genuinely gave the impression of having been hidden away for centuries. Apparently Karloff, after spending hours being swathed in bandages, told make-up artist Jack P Pierce: \"Well, you've done a wonderful job, but you forgot to give me a fly!\"<\/p>","url":"2008/8/4/The-Mummy-1932-Boris-Karloff-3.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Mummy - 1932 Boris Karloff"},{"captionHeading":"POLTERGEIST (1982)","caption":"<p><b>Carol Anne:<\/b><i> \"They're here.\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Surely the best warning ever for not leaving your telly on overnight. Dozing dad Craig T Nelson forgets to flicks the off switch and the next thing you known his cute-as-a-button daughter is being sucked into the \"Devil's lantern\". And that's just the beginning. \"Take your hands off my babies!,\" screams mum JoBeth Williams as her house is besieged by writhing wraiths, gaping ghouls, malevolent corpses and even the very jaws of hell.  If your nerves can stand the pounding director Tobe Hooper and producer/co-writer Steven Spielberg give them in the last hour of this, they're up to anything.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Poltergeist-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Poltergeist"},{"captionHeading":"MIMIC (1997)","caption":"<p><b>Susan Tyler:<\/b><i>\"They mimic us. We mimic them.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Monster mayhem rarely gets more malevolent than this story of scientist Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) who breeds a new species of insect to halt a plague...only for the bugs to evolve into deadly, giant predators. The \"mimic\" of the title is the ability of the mutant cockroaches to ape humans. Living deep below the streets of Manhattan they hop out at subway stations to drag victims to their lair. Oooh-er. Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro - with his American debut - delivers a stylish creature-feature despite frequent on-set bust-ups with producer Bob Weinstein.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Mimic-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Mimic"},{"captionHeading":"CABIN FEVER (2002)","caption":"<p><b>Karen:<\/b><i> \"That guy asked for our help. We set him on fire. You'll understand if I'm not in a particularly social mood.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Director Eli Roth would go on to decimate the Eastern European weekend break business with Hostel but here demonstrates his promise with a neat slice of horror. An identikit group of American college teens find themselves being devoured by a flesh-eating virus when they take a holiday in the woods. Thing get worse - they really do - when they also attract the attentions of homicidal locals. Apparently, sound mixer John Neff survived the real flesh-eating bacterium contracted in a hospital during minor surgery.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Cabin-Fever-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Cabin Fever"},{"captionHeading":"THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)","caption":"<p><b>Heather:<\/b><i> \"I'm afraid to close my eyes, I'm afraid to open them.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>A myth-making viral internet campaign ingeniously raised anticipation levels of this chiller to fever pitch...and then backed them up with one of the scariest films ever made. Shot entirely on Hi8 video and 16mm black-and-white film, this all-too-believable told the story of three film students who disappeared while making a documentary about Maryland's Blair Witch ghost legend. The \"recovered footage\" has such a creeping menace about it that you will be left feeling quite drained by the finale. The genuine fear and panic that the three leads (Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard) portray once they are lost in the woods is mind heart-stoppingly magnificent.<\/p>","url":"2008/11/7/Blair-Witch-Project-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Blair Witch Project"},{"captionHeading":"THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979)","caption":"<p><b>Cop:<\/b><i> \"Jesus Christ, it gets worse all the time.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The film that did for the Amityville real estate business what sharks did for swimming in Jaws, this follows the (mis) fortunes of newly-weds James Brolin and Margot Kidder when they move into a rambling clapboard pile on the shores of a lake. Barely has she been carried over the threshold, than Margot's recoiling from banging doors and inexplicably freezing rooms. Then stuff starts oozing through the floorboards. Rod Steiger plays the sympathetic priest, but it's the house itself - a glowering gothic pile - that is the real star of the (horror) show. The movie was based on the alleged experiences of the Lutz family who moved into a house a year after it was the scene of a mass murder.<\/p>","url":"2008/12/4/the-amityville-horror-01-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"the amityville horror 01"},{"captionHeading":"BREAKDOWN (1997)","caption":"<p><b>Red:<\/b><i> \"You can just keep your f**king money, Jeff, and I'll keep your wife. And I'll mail you pieces of her from time to time.\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Criminally underrated on release, Jonathan 'Terminator 3' Mostow's heartstopping thriller sticks to a tried-and-trusted genre template but goes through the gears to reach a high level of suspense. When their car breaks down, driver Kurt Russell becomes frantic when his wife mysteriously disappears. Enter the late, great JT Walsh as a good - if slightly creepy - samaritan who is not quite what he seems... Think The Vanishing reset in the great American mid-west.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Breakdown-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Breakdown"},{"captionHeading":"FRIGHT NIGHT (1985)","caption":"<p><b>Peter Vincent:<\/b><i> \"Apparently your generation doesn't want to see vampire killers anymore, nor vampires either. All they want to see slashers running around in ski masks, hacking up young virgins.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Darkly comic vampire jaunt that paved the way for The Lost Boys. When horror film-obsessed teenager Charley (William Ragsdale) becomes convinced that his suave new neighbour (Chris Sarandon) not only wants to feast on his blood but also his girlfriend, he enlists the help of TV horror host  Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall). However, the old stager doesn't believe in things that go bump in the night and signs up purely for the money. Big mistake. A pointy-toothed treat with smashing special effects and fun in its veins. The name Peter and Vincent was derived from the horror stalwards Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.<\/p>","url":"2009/1/15/Fright-Night-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Fright Night"},{"captionHeading":"CHRISTINE (1983)","caption":"<p><b>Will Darnell:<\/b><i> \"I knew a guy had a car like that once. F**kin' b***ard killed himself in it. Son of a b*tch was so mean, you could've poured boiling water down his throat and he would've p***ed ice cubes!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Stephen King's tale of a demonically possessed roadster gets a thorough MoT from horror maestro John Carpenter in this customised hybrid of Carrie and Knight Rider. Arnie is a high-school nerd who has just found his first love: a neglected 1958 Plymouth Fury. But in restoring the rust-bucket to her former glory, Arnie undergoes a frighteningly dramatic makeover himself. Evil, gun your engine.<\/p><p>To get the effect of the car body unbuckling, plastic panels resembling metal ones were \"sucked in\" by hydraulic pumps and cable pulleys...and then the footage was reversed.<\/p>","url":"2008/9/12/cool-cars-christine-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"cool cars christine"},{"captionHeading":"NEAR DARK (1987)","caption":"<p><b>Jesse:<\/b><i> \"Let's put it this way: I fought for the South. We lost.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>This refreshingly original take on the vampire legend has been remorselessly cannibalised in a whole welter of bloodsuckers from 30 Days of Night to Underworld. Combining the traditional vampire bloodlust with the romance of the classic Western, debut director Kathryn Bigelow followed a ever-dwindling band of nomadic bloodsuckers wandering the twilight hours in search of prey. While verging on the romantic, it could also pack one hell of a punch - check out the troupe making mincemeat of the rednecks at a scruffy bar. Unusually, for a vampire fim, nobody actually mentions the word.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/Near-Dark-3.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Near Dark 3"},{"captionHeading":"ALIEN (1979)","caption":"<p><b>Ripley:<\/b> <i> It's using the air shafts.<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Space mining vessel The Nostromo picks up an SOS call from a nearby planet and the crew investigate. However, while the rescuers probe what appears to be an alien hive, the Nostromo's onboard computer works out the SOS is in fact a warning. Often copied but never bettered, Ridley Scott's space chiller hits all the right notes from HR Giger's dark design to Sigourney Weaver's indomitable heroine.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/2/Alien-27-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Alien 27"},{"captionHeading":"JEEPERS CREEPERS (2001)","caption":"<p><b>Darry:<\/b><i> \"He dumped something down that pipe.\" <\/i> <br>\r\n<b>Trish:<\/b><i> \"Wrapped in a sheet.\"<\/i>  <br>\r\n<b>Darry:<\/b><i> \"Wrapped in rope and a sheet.\" <\/i> <br>\r\n<b>Trish:<\/b><i> \"Wrapped in rope and a sheet with red stains... just get us out of here!\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>From the moment a battered van tailgates them Duel-style, you know that student siblings Trish (Gina Philips) and Darry (Justin Long) are in for the ride of their lives. It turns out that they've attracted the attentions of the Creeper, mysterious flesh-eating fiend on the last day of a ritualistic eating spree. Following years of dull formula, director Victor Salva came up with one of the most terrifying horror yarns in an age - a straight-forward, no-nonsense frightener that, while featuring some delicious black humour, never let go of the original premise - to scare the living daylights out of you. It may only last 90 minutes but most of those will be spent with your face in your hands.<\/p>","url":"2009/1/19/Jeepers-Creepers-01-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Jeepers Creepers 01"},{"captionHeading":"EDEN LAKE (2008)","caption":"<p><b>Brett:<\/b><i> \"Follow the blood.\" <\/i><br><\/p><p>This grim demonisation of the chav sub-class could have been the work of the Daily Mail Film Unit. A romantic weekend by the lake turns into a terrifying ordeal for Jenny (Kelly Reilly) and Steve (Michael Fassbender) when they confront a mob of vicious local tearaways. Frequently crossing the pain threshold, James Watkins’ blood-drenched survival thriller is a grim reflection of a society where teenage kicks can become a matter of life or death. This Is England’s Thomas Turgoose goes delinquent once again.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/24/eden-lake-06-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"eden lake 06"},{"captionHeading":"NOSFERATU (1922)","caption":"<p><b>Orlok:<\/b><i> \"Is this your wife? What a lovely throat.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The original vampire movie - a dreamlike silent version of the Dracula story, made in Germany by FW Murnau, and based without permission on the Bram Stoker novel - features Max Schreck as a truly frightening and grotesque Count Orlok. His look was one of a vampire taloned, shaven-headed, skeletal and other-worldly - a classic vision on which Klaus Kinski based his own interpretation in the inferior (if interesting) 1979 remake. Intriguingly, the character of Nosferatu is only seen on screen for less than nine minutes in total throughout the whole film. Twilight it most certainly ain't.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Nosferatu-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Nosferatu"},{"captionHeading":"DARK WATER (2002)","caption":"<p>Few modern thrillers have captured the warped imagination like Nicholas Roeg's terrifying masterpiece Don't Look Now. However, thirty years on, Japanese director Hideo Nakata returned to similar ground in this nail-bitingly assured shocker. The watery theme evoked by a wintry Venice of lapping canals is revisited in a dripping apartment block shot in muted tones of blue and grey. Where Roeg layered the creeping horror around the death of a child, Nakata uses the mysterious disappearance of a schoolgirl to build a haunting tension. However, don't for one minute think this is a derivative cop-out  - Nakata's menacing mystery story is very much its own creation and really, really creepy.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Dark-Water-Jap.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Dark Water (Jap)"},{"captionHeading":"DARK WATER (2005)","caption":"<p><b>Dahlia:<\/b><i> \"There's water everywhere! She can't be here!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The 2002 Japanese chiller is expertly reworked into an American setting by Motorcycle Diaries director Walter Salles. Jennifer Connelly is the single mum fighting for her sanity against dark forces after moving into a creepy apartment building with her young daughter. Dark, sombre and totally terrifying, this could be the best American Jap horror remake yet. The next time you see a damp patch...you won't call the plumber. You'll move.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Dark-Water-US-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Dark Water (US)"},{"captionHeading":"THE FOG (1980)","caption":"<p><b>Stevie Wayne:<\/b><i> \"There's something in the fog!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Horror-meister John Carpenter wrote and directed this story of a North California fishing town whose fathers cynically lured a leper ship onto rocks and pinched all the gold. A hundred years later the undead sailors sweep into town for revenge using the banks of rolling fog as camouflage. For some reason Jamie Leigh Curtis scarpered up a lighthouse to escape. Mistake. Carpenter's approach may be simple but such a good idea works well. Director Rupert Wainwright would remake a pretty successful version with Selma Blair in 2005.<\/p>","url":"2008/12/4/the-fog-02-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"the fog 02"},{"captionHeading":"THE VANISHING (1988)","caption":"<p><b>Raymond Lemorne:<\/b><i> \"You see, Mr Hoffman. For me, dying is not the worse thing.\"  <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Director George Sluizer's nerve-shredding psychological thriller about the abduction of a Dutch girl holidaying in France. Her frantic boyfriend eventually has to concede that she is gone...only for him to hear from her kidnapper three years later. This terse original completely wrongfooted the viewer, concluding with a terrifyingly uncompromising ending. Unfortunately, the American remake - again directed by Sluizer - with Jeff Bridges didn't have the guts to stick with it and was all the weaker as a result.  Comparable to many of Hitchcock's teasing thrillers, the film's villain Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) is a genuinely disquieting creation.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/The-Vanishing-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Vanishing"},{"captionHeading":"DUEL (1971)","caption":"<p><b>David Mann:<\/b><i> \"Come on you miserable fat-head, get that fat-ass truck outta my way!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Hell hath no fury like a trucker honked. This classic cat-and-mouse chase-and-suspense thriller was the first mainstream film to be directed by Steven Spielberg. Dennis Weaver gives one of his very best performances as a motorist who, after hitting the horn to pass a slow-moving juggernaut, suddenly finds himself harried and eventually terrified by the huge truck (a Peterbilt was chosen because the cab resembled a face) and its sadistic driver, whose face he can never see. Shot on location in just 13 days, Spielberg never lets up as he maintains the whole nightmare situation at fever pitch. A thrilling movie.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Duel-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Duel"},{"captionHeading":"HELLRAISER (1987)","caption":"<p><b>Cenobite:<\/b><i> \"No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>British fantasy author Clive Barker wrote and graphically directed this confident frightener about a dissolute adventurer (Sean Chapman) who discovers the gateway to a world of unimaginable pleasure and pain. Having lost his earthly body to a trio of S&M demons - the Cenobites - he appeals to his former mistress (and sister-in-law) to help bring him back to life. Unfortunately, his erstwhile painb-inflciting chums won't be best pleased. Well, that's nailed it.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Hellraiser-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Hellraiser"},{"captionHeading":"THE HITCHER (1986)","caption":"<p><b>John Ryder:<\/b><i> \"You wanna know what happens to an eyeball when it gets punctured? Do you got any idea how much blood jets out of a guy's neck when his throat's been slit?\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>A psycho killer, Ryder (Rutger Hauer), who murders the drivers from whom he hitches lifts, seems to decide that his latest good Samaritan, teenager Jim (C Thomas Howell), is the man to end his torment. 'Stop me,' he grates, with a knife to Jim's cheek. When Jim's answer is to propel Ryder from the car, his nightmare begins. Director Robert Harmon's slick mesh of road movie and battle between good and evil - apparently inspired the Doors song Riders on the Storm - got the thumbs up from the gore-hungry and thrill-seeking.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/The-Hitcher-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Hitcher"},{"captionHeading":"EVENT HORIZON (1997)","caption":"<p><b>Dr Weir:<\/b><i> \"You can't leave. She won't let you.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The crew of a recovery vessel encounter an evil presence on board a deserted spacecraft - The Event Horizon. Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill star in this superior sci-fi chiller occupying the same extra-terrestrial territory as Alien. It looks great - the ship's design was apparently based on Notre Dame cathedral - and provides a real chill as the crew realise they are trapped at the gateway to hell. British band Orbital and traditional composer Michael Kamen \"meshed\" orchestral and techno tracks for the soundtrack.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Event-Horizon-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Event Horizon"},{"captionHeading":"CUBE (1997)","caption":"<p><b>Quentin:<\/b><i> \"I'm not dying in a f**king rat maze!\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>In director Vicenzo Natali's ingeniously unpleasant shocker a seemingly random group of women and three men - all named after prisons in their respective countries - find themselves trapped in a series of interlocking cube-shaped rooms, some of which contain deadly traps. None of them know why they are there, but they soon realise that they must find a way out of the maze or die in the attempt. Excellent twists and shocks in this little-known, Kafkaesque low-budget piece ensure its place in the horror hall of fame.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Cube-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Cube"},{"captionHeading":"ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)","caption":"<p><b>Rosemary:<\/b><i> \"They use blood in their rituals, and the blood with the most power is baby's blood!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Roman Polanski's fiendish chiller stars Mia Farrow as the young mother-to-be who fears that the outwardly nice old folks in her apartment block have diabolical plans for her unborn child. Hormones gone crazy or neighbours from Hell? Either way, she also starts to suspect that husband John Cassavetes has sympathy for the Devil too. As disturbing as The Exorcist, this is birth control in movie form.<\/p>","url":"2009/4/3/Rosemarys-Baby-01-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Rosemary's Baby 01"},{"captionHeading":"WOLF CREEK (2005)","caption":"<p><b>Liz:<\/b><i> \"Thanks again for helping us out.\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Mick Taylor:<\/b><i. \"No worries.\"<\/i> <br> \r\n<b>Liz:<\/b><i> \"Obviously it would be great to get going as soon as possible.\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Mick Taylor:<\/b><i> \"No worries.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Two British backpackers and a newfound Oz chum on a carefree holiday down under take a road trip into the Outback - and not all of them survive to wish they hadn't. Director Greg Mclean's efficiently executed horror yarn will find legions of fans among the gore-philes but the levels of gleeful sadism displayed certainly won't appeal to everybody. Apparently, a court asked the distributor to delay screening the film until after the trial of Bradley John Murdoch, accused of murdering British backpacker Peter Falconio.<\/p>","url":"2008/12/5/Wolfcreek.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Wolfcreek"},{"captionHeading":"A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)","caption":"<p><b>Nancy:<\/b><i> \"Whatever you do don't fall asleep...\"<\/i> <br><\/p><p>This outstanding shocker introduced one of the most infamous movie villains in the singed countenance of Freddie Kreuger, the child killer sporting a metal clawed brown leather glove with which to slash his adolescent victims. Director Wes Craven's ingeniously fiendish twist was that Freddie could attack his helpless conquests from within their own dreams. It was enough to give you nightmares. Apparently, over 500 gallons of fake blood were used during the making of the film.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/a-nightmare-on-elm-street.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"a nightmare on elm street"},{"captionHeading":"NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)","caption":"<p><b>Johnny:<\/b><i> \"They're coming to get you, Barbara, there's one of them now!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The first and arguably the best of George A Romero's zombie horror thrillers. A young woman visiting her father's grave is attacked by a shambling, undead corpse and eventually finds sanctuary - for a while anyway - in the cellar of a farmhouse as an army of zombies relentlessly clambers to get in. Filmed in black and white and shot from the viewer's point-of-view, this was quality horror that also delivered edge-of-your-seat suspense. Intriguingly, the word \"zombie\" is never used. The most common euphemism used to describe the living dead is \"those things.\"<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Night-of-the-Living-Dead.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Night of the Living Dead"},{"captionHeading":"CARRIE (1976)","caption":"<p><b>Margaret White:<\/b><i> \"Witch. Got Satan's Power.\"<\/i> <br>\r\n<b>Carrie:<\/b><i> It has nothing to do with Satan, Mama. It's me. Me. If I concentrate hard enough, I can move things. <\/i> <br><\/p><p>Director Brian De Palma delivered a thunderously overwrought piece of Grand Guignol horror from Stephen King's source novel, the first to be filmed. Sissy Spacek gave an anguished performance as the high-school girl whose sheltered upbringing (by a religious fanatic mother) has in no way prepared her to deal with the supernormal gift of telekinesis. Look out for a young John Travolta in there somewhere among the guts and gore. If you succeed in surviving the ensuing bloodbath, be prepared for the ending, which is one of the great shocks of the cinema.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Carrie-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Carrie"},{"captionHeading":"DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)","caption":"<p><b>Sheriff: <\/b><i>\"Danny, put another round in that woman over there! Look! She's a twitcher!\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>An injection of mordant wit and a transfusion of black humour ensured that Zack Snyder's remake of the George A Romero horror classic isn't braindead. A cross-section of American society hides inside a Milwaukee shopping mall while zombies threateningly maraud outside. Unlike the 1979 original, the undead don't lumber around randomly but have a turn of speed that put you in mind of a flesh-devouring Roadrunner.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Dawn-of-the-Dead.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Dawn of the Dead"},{"captionHeading":"THE FLY (1986)","caption":"<p><b>Seth:<\/b><i> \"It wants to... turn me into something else. That's not too terrible is it? Most people would give anything to be turned into something else.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Jeff Goldblum stars as  Seth Brundle, a scientist who begins to mutate after his genes are scrambled with those of a fly during a teleportation experiment. \"Depraved\" David Cronenberg's superior sci-fi remake of the 1958 original is fired by superb performances, especially from Goldblum, who has never been better. Geena Davis - later to become his wife - plays his understandably concerned girlfriend who delivered the immortal line: \"Be afraid. Be very afraid.\"<\/p>","url":"2008/12/4/the-fly-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"the fly"},{"captionHeading":"HALLOWEEN (1978)","caption":"<p><b>Sheriff:<\/b><i> \"It's Halloween, everyone's entitled to one good scare.\" <\/i> <br><\/p><p>John Carpenter's psycho-killer classic spawned a number of feeble imitators...but the original still has you searching for somwhere safe to hide. The maniacal Michael Myers escapes from an asylum and returns to his home town after 15 years to kill again.. Jamie Lee Curtis made an eye-catching big-screen debut and the suspense is racked up to breaking point thanks to ingenious camera shots around the rooms of a house.<\/p>","url":"2008/12/4/Halloween-02-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Halloween 02"},{"captionHeading":"THE RING (2002)","caption":"<p><b>Rachel Keller:<\/b> <i> \"I think before you die, you see the ring...\" <\/i><\/p><p>While attending the wake of oer 16-year-old niece, investigative reporter and mother-of-one Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) hears about a deadly video that brings a premature end to those who see it. Tracing it to a remote mountain chalet, she has a butchers...and the next thing you know the phone's ringing with news of her impending death. The first of the Japanese shockers featuring a long-haired waif coming on like Yoko Ono with food poisoning, this remake provided plenty of mounting dread and a cast iron argument for trading up to DVD.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/The-Ring.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Ring"},{"captionHeading":"THE OMEN (1976)","caption":"<p><b>Father Brennan:<\/b><i> \"He must DIE, Mr. Thorn!\"<\/i><\/p><p>There are hellish goings-on when the American ambassador to Italy (Gregory Peck) swaps his stillborn child - at the suggestion of the hospital priest - for the baby of a woman who died in childbirth. Years go by uneventfully...until the grisly deaths begin. The child's nanny hangs herself and a priest is speared to death in a freak accident. Why - because Gregory has inadvertently adopted the antichrist. Look out -  little Damian is out to crucify (or at least decapitate) anyone who stands in his diabolical way.<\/p>","url":"2009/5/1/The-Omen-1976-04-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Omen (1976) 04"},{"captionHeading":"THE EXORCIST (1973)","caption":"<p><b>Father Damien Karras:<\/b> <i> \"Take me. Come into me. God damn you. Take me. Take me.\"<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The movie that one director rejected as 'too cruel to children\" has gone down in horror film lore as one of the most terrifying ever made. Ellen Burstyn plays the actress mom told by a priest (Jason Miller) that her daughter (Linda Blair) is possessed by the devil and needs an exorcist (Max von Sydow). With its Oscar-winning script by author William Peter Blatty, this is still brilliantly scary stuff that exerts an icy grip. Apparently the sound the accompanied the 360-degree turning of Regan's head, was made by twisting a sound crew member's old leather wallet in front of a microphone.<\/p>","url":"2009/7/6/The-Exorcist-2.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Exorcist 2"},{"captionHeading":"THE BIRDS (1963)","caption":"<p><b>Cathy Brenner:<\/b><i> \"Can I bring the lovebirds, Mitch? they haven't harmed anyone.\"<\/i> <br> \r\n<b>Mitch Brenner:<\/b> <i> \"Oh, alright; bring them.\"<\/i> <br><\/p><p>Alfred Hitchcock followed Psycho with this classic Nature Bites Back chiller that has man's feathered friends suddenly sharpening their beaks on human flesh and bone. Tippi Hedren is heroically victimised by the ornothological meanies and Hitchcock's camera, while the Master of Suspense contributes more all-time great cinema moments, most notably when blackbirds slowly gather on a climbing frame before setting upon a class of school children.<\/p>","url":"2009/4/6/The-Birds01-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Birds_01"},{"captionHeading":"FINAL DESTINATION (2000)","caption":"<p><b>Alex Browning:<\/b><i> \"I got this feeling... a weird feeling.\"<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>The fiendishly ingenious premise is that a premonition tells of an impending disaster, giving the opportunity for potential victims to adjust their diary accordingly. The trouble is Old Nick resents this fateful escape...and wants his pound of flesh. In the first outing, Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) boards a plane only to suffer a vivid flash-forward of a fiery fate. Fighting his way off the plane, he - and six other escapees - watch in horror as the jet explodes. Then Death comes looking for them...<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Final-Destination.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Final Destination"},{"captionHeading":"MISERY (1990)","caption":"<p><b>Annie Wilkes:<\/b><i> \"I thought you were good Paul... but you're not good. You're just another lying ol' dirty birdy.\"<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Caught in a blizzard on the way back from the wilds of Colorado after finishing his new book, novelist James Caan is rescued after his car crashes. With both legs broken, he awakes in a house in the countryside. But he has a problem - his nurse saviour (Oscar-winning Kathy Bates) is his number one fan...but isn't happy with a sneak-peek of his latest opus. Out comes the blocks of wood and heavy hammers in a scene that leaves Caan literally shattered and still makes you wince after all these years.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/18/Misery-01.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Misery 01"},{"captionHeading":"THE THING (1982)","caption":"<p><b>Clark:<\/b><i> \"I dunno what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pi**ed off, whatever it is.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>An alien organism infiltrates an Antarctic research station and takes over the crew at a cellular level - the cue for a shape-shifting orgy of some of the most gory and disturbing special FX ever put on the big screen. Director John Carpenter's finest moment, it's a smorgasborg of special effects not least a head that sprouts legs spider-style and scuttles across the room. It's also a movie Quentin Tarantino cites as a key influence for Reservoir Dogs.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/29/The-Thing.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Thing"},{"captionHeading":"28 DAYS LATER (2002)","caption":"<p><b>Jim:<\/b><i> \"What do you mean there's no government? There's always a government, they're in a bunker or a plane somewhere!<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>With a knowing nod to George A Romero's zombie series, Danny Boyle couldn't get further away from Slumdog Millionaire with this spine-chilling horror. A devastating psychological virus has been unleashed on the world, turning the population into blood-crazed psychopaths driven only to kill and destroy the uninfected. A bitter struggle to get out of a ravaged London is embarked on by courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) to a military encampment at Manchester...but it could be the worst decision he's made.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/28-Days-Later.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"28 Days Later"},{"captionHeading":"REAR WINDOW (1954)","caption":"<p><b>Lisa:<\/b><i> \"A murderer would never parade his crime in front of an open window.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>In one of his best-loved mysteries, Alfred Hitchcock presents a typically twisted view of the world through the eyes of incapacitated photographer L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart). Housebound with a broken leg, ‘Jeff’ amuses himself by following events in the surrounding apartments. All good, voyeuristic fun… until he and his girlfriend (Grace Kelly) begin to suspect one of the neighbours of murder. Filmed on one giant indoor set, it’s a marvel of sly, witty observation and suspense.<\/p>","url":"2009/4/6/Rear-Window15-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Rear Window_15"},{"captionHeading":"PSYCHO (1960)","caption":"<p><b>Norman Bates:<\/b> <i> \"A boy's best friend is his mother.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Fleeing thief Janet Leigh lives to regret checking into the lonely motel owned by twitchy mummy's boy Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). But not for long. Hitchcock's lesson in cold-blooded suspense moved horror out of the B-movie and fantasy ghetto and into an all too believable modern day America. The result was a seismic blockbuster that grossed over 32 times its cost, and influenced everything from Pulp Fiction to The Simpsons. A masterpiece - even after the curtain falls.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Psycho-196002-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Psycho - 196002"},{"captionHeading":"SAW (2004)","caption":"<p><b>Dr Lawrence Gordon:<\/b> <i> \"He doesn't want us to cut through our chains. He wants us to cut through our feet!\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>This full-blooded gore-fest is not quite the sort of thing you'd expect from a director whose previous outings include More Great Vegetarian Dishes. James Wan put such nourishing TV offerings behind him to write and direct this fiendishly contrived horror yarn. Two men wake up chained to the wall of a subterranean bathroom to be told that one must kill the other in order to survive. Their judge and jury is the mysterious Jigsaw - a calculating sadist who uses his time dreaming up ever more elaborate methods for his victims to die.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/16/Saw.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Saw"},{"captionHeading":"ALIENS (1986)","caption":"<p><b>Newt:<\/b><i> \"We'd better get back, 'cause it'll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night... mostly.\"<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Director James Cameron adeptly moves the Alien series on from a space-set horror yarn to a full-blown action adventure. Flight Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is induced to return to the alien-infested planet - along with a crack company of marines - when it's discovered that a little girl called Newt (Carrie Henn) has survived. Nerve ends are frayed and spines chilled in a sci-fi blockbuster to end them all.<\/p>","url":"2009/6/17/Aliens-2.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Aliens 2"},{"captionHeading":"THE SIXTH SENSE (1999)","caption":"<p><b>Cole Sear:<\/b><i> \"You ever feel the prickly things on the back of your neck?\" <\/i> <br> \r\n<b>Malcolm Crowe:<\/b><i> \"Yes.\"<\/i> <br> \r\n<b>Cole Sear:<\/b><i> \"And the tiny hairs on your arm, you know when they stand up? That's them. When they get mad... it gets cold.\" <\/i> <br> <\/p><p>He sees dead people - but can you see what's coming? Months after a vicious assault, child psychologist Malcom Crowe (Bruce Willis) takes the unusual case of Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a boy who claims he can see ghosts. But as the investigation progresses, it seems that Crowe and his wife (Olivia Williams) are becoming ever-more distant. Extremely classy chiller-with-a-twist from M Night Shyamalan, which provides moments of real terror.<\/p>","url":"2009/1/15/The-Sixth-Sense-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Sixth Sense"},{"captionHeading":"THE SHINING (1980)","caption":"<p><b>Danny Torrance:<\/b> <i> \"Do you really want to go and live in that hotel for the winter?\"<\/i> <br> \r\n<b>Wendy Torrance:<\/b> <i> \"Sure I do. It'll be lots of fun.\"<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Heeeeeeere's Johnny! Stanley Kubrick's terrifically creepy adaptation of the Stephen King novel finds novelist Jack Nicholson gradually losing the plot while spending a winter as the caretaker of a remote mountain hotel. The blood starts to run when his paranormally gifted son picks up on the opulent hideaway's evil past, while distraught wife Shelley Duvall discovers there's nowhere to hide from the madness.<\/p>","url":"2008/6/25/the-shining-3.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"the-shining"},{"captionHeading":"THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)","caption":"<p><b>Jack Crawford:<\/b><i> \"Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.\"<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>In a desperate bid to catch a serial killer who skins his victims alive, FBI agent Jodie Foster, approaches America's most feared prisoner, psychiatrist-turned-mass murderer Hannibal the Cannibal. Anthony Hopkins makes the cultured psychopath with a taste for human flesh at once a frightening and an almost sympathetic character. Almost.  Adapting Thomas Harris' bestselling novel, director Jonathan Demme keeps the tension tight as the film moves to its terrifying night-vision goggles climax.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/19/The-Silence-Of-The-Lambs-12-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Silence Of The Lambs 12"},{"captionHeading":"DRACULA (1958)","caption":"<p><b>Count Dracula:<\/b> <i> \"I am Dracula and I welcome you to my house.\"<\/i> <br><\/p><p>The original Hammer classic which gave Christopher Lee iconographic status as the dapper bloodsucker and put Bela Lugosi's Dracula firmly in the shadows. Under the direction of horror veteran Terence Fisher, the urbane British actor turns the count into a seductive monster sinking his gleaming fangs into the porcelain white necks of Hammer's boudoir of willing fillies. Hacked to pieces by the censors, cinema legend has it there exists a gorier Japanese version.<\/p>","url":"2009/7/2/Dracula.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Dracula"},{"captionHeading":"FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969)","caption":"<p><b>Professor Richter: <\/b><i> \"I fancy that I am the spider and you are the fly, Frankenstein.\" <\/i><\/p><p>The fifth in Hammer's Frankenstein series, this came closest to novelist Mary Shelley's original vision. The Baron (Peter Cushing) is at his most villainous (rape, murder, blackmail) while his monster (Freddie Jones) is at his most sympathetic as the pathetic yet love torn and vengeful creature. The scene - not in the original script - where Frankenstein rapes Anna (Veronica Carlson) was filmed despite the objections of both the actress and Peter Cushing to keep American distributors happy.<\/p>","url":"2009/7/2/Frankenstein-Must-Be-Destroyed.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed"},{"captionHeading":"JACOB'S LADDER (1990)","caption":"<p><b>Doctor:<\/b> <i> \"There is no out of here. You've been killed, don't you remember?\"<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Tim Robbins is a Vietnam veteran plagued by demonic hallucinations in a genuinely disturbing horror thriller from Fatal Attraction director Adrian Lyne. Art aficionados will detect the hellish influence of Francis Bacon while pure movie lovers will be thinking more along the lines of Hellraiser (or \"oh hell, is that Macaulay Culkin?\"). A surreal journey into the psychological trenches.<\/p>","url":"2009/7/2/Jacobs-Ladder.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Jacob's Ladder"},{"captionHeading":"SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004)","caption":"<p><b>Ed:<\/b><i> Don't forget to kill Philip! <\/i> <br><\/p><p>This romantic comedy (with zombies) took the cinema by storm, proving that Britain (in the form of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright) can still cut it on the comedy stage. Electricity store assistant Shaun (Pegg) decides to turn his life around and win back his girlfriend against a backdrop of blood-crazed undead reeling around his suburban neighbourhood. Conferred with instant cult status, this cleverly combines the funny, the violent and the poignant.<\/p>","url":"2009/7/2/Shaun-of-the-Dead.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Shaun of the Dead"},{"captionHeading":"SUSPIRIA (1977)","caption":"<p><b>Sarah:<\/b> <i> \"Susie, do you know anything about... witches?\"<\/i> <br> <\/p><p>Showers of maggots, razor wire and \"the most vicious murder scene ever filmed\" are all part of the fearful fun in Italian director Dario Argento's masterpiece of shake'n'scream. American ballet student (Jessica Harper) arrives at a prestigious ballet school (a scarlet-painted academy worthy of Edgar Allen Poe) in Freiburg only for unpleasant - and then very unpleasant - things to start happening. <\/p><p>Argento commented that fear is a 370 degree body temperature.  With Suspiria he wanted to turn it up to 400.<\/p>","url":"2009/7/2/Suspiria.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Suspiria"},{"captionHeading":"LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008)","caption":"<p><b>Oskar:<\/b><i> \"Are you a vampire?\" <\/i><br> \r\n<b>Eli:<\/b><i> \"I live off blood...\" <\/i> <br>\r\n \r\nJust when it seems the vampire film is doomed to an eternity of drippy teen Goth-drams (*cough* Twilight), this Swedish chiller delivers a much needed transfusion of ideas and excitement. In early 80s Stockholm 12 year old Oskar suffers daily at the hands of school bullies, and is smitten with Eli, the strange girl who has moved into the flat next door. Standing between a happy union is the fact that she’s a vampire, but even that has its uses in this sparkling coming-of-age horror story. <\/p><p>To achieve the right sound effects, the film-makers chewed on sausages to replicate biting into skin and flesh and drank yogurt to sound like drinking blood.<\/p>","url":"2009/5/5/Let-The-Right-One-In-10-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Let The Right One In 10"}];