The films

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The Hills Have Eyes

A nuclear family against a family mutated by nuclear testing. By the end there is no difference in method.

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Black Christmas

Four years before Halloween and still the most frightening film in the category.

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Dawn of the Dead

The best zombie film ever made, set in a shopping mall, and much funnier than people remember.

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Suspiria

Barely a plot and possibly the most beautiful horror film ever shot.

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The Last House on the Left

Craven remaking Bergman on no money. To avoid fainting, keep repeating: it's only a movie.

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The Wicker Man

A musical about a policeman with no sense of humour. The best British horror film ever made.

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Don't Look Now

Grief, Venice, and an edit that keeps showing you the ending before you can read it.

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Deliverance

Not marketed as horror and the founding text of an entire horror subgenre.

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The Omen

A film about a man realising his son is not his. Jerry Goldsmith won the Oscar and earned it.

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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Almost bloodless and completely unbearable. Heat, noise and exhaustion doing all the work.

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Eraserhead

Five years of weekend shooting, and it is about being a father and being terrified of it.

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Carrie

De Palma's split screens, a bucket of blood, and the last thirty seconds that made an entire genre of ending.

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Alien

A haunted house film in space, and the crew are contractors arguing about bonuses.

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Halloween

Cost 300,000 dollars, took 70 million, and contains almost no blood at all.

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Jaws

The mechanical shark did not work, so Spielberg shot around it and accidentally made the best one.

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The Exorcist

Ten Academy Award nominations and ambulances outside cinemas. Still the commercial ceiling for horror.