Carrie (1976)

The high esteem in which Carrie is held has as much to do with its portrayal of high-school life as it does with any of the film’s shocks or scares. Although it’s been a very fertile area for all manner of teen films - good and bad - since, Brian de Palma’s classic was one of the first films to really get inside the brutal caste system that many teenagers grow up with. Sissy Spacek plays Carrie White, an emotionally crippled schoolgirl who has developed powers of telekinesis, which enable her to move objects with her mind. Of rather more concern to her is the bullying she receives at school and the terrible treatment she gets at home from her psychotic, bible-bashing mother. The situation improves when a concerned classmate sets her up with a date for the prom, but as her confidence grows, she has no idea that the tempestuous Christine Hargenson is planning one last humiliating prank - a prank which forces Carrie to use the full extent of her powers to devastating effect… Read more

Horror Hotel (1960)

Horror Hotel-or ‘The City of the Dead’ to give it it’s U.S. video title-is a superb occult thriller which overcomes a clearly limited budget and some occasionally hit-and-miss acting and delivers a real classic. Read more

Salem’s Lot (1979)

I’m always delighted when I watch a film and stumble across a scene that has been parodied on The Simpsons but whose provenance has, until then, eluded me (I was a lonely child). If you’ve seen the Halloween special where Mr. Burns is Dracula (it’s one of the early ones, when they were still funny) you might remember the bit where Bart is bitten and appears outside of Lisa’s window one night beckoning her to join Burn’s burgeoning army of the undead. If you’ve also seen Salem’s Lot you’ll be aware that this is where Mr. Groening drew his inspiration from, though he went on to execute a brilliant bit of story-making which rather leaves Tobe Hooper’s ponderous tale behind. Read more

Season of the Witch (1973)

Or: George Romero does feminism. This might not seem like the most obvious conceit for a movie, but Romero’s at his happiest (and best) when exploring social themes and concerns under horror / supernatural premises, and this rarely-seen feature, recently exhumed on DVD in the US, is a flawed but worthwhile addition to the director’s canon. Season of the Witch was Romero’s third film, following the epochal Night of the Living Dead and the scarcely-mentioned romantic comedy There’s Always Vanilla, and tells the story of Joan, a bored and repressed middle-aged housewife who finds release and fulfillment through the occult. Her confidence grows as she begins to identify herself as a witch, even though she finds a new lease of life, she also takes on a whole range of new problems… Read more

The Exorcist (1973)

The Exorcist is that rare beast - a genre film that becomes a genuine cinematic and cultural touchpoint. A controversial phenomenon on its release - and banned in the UK until the late 90s - it achieves its unique power through William Friedkin’s deliberate, un-flashy direction and author / screenwriter William Peter Blatty’s absolutely rigid plotting and pacing. Read more

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Roger Corman was nearing the end of his Edgar Allen Poe adaptations when he made The Masque of the Red Death, perhaps the most vividly interpreted and original of his offerings. That’s not to say that he takes artistic licence with it as he did with some of the earlier offerings (I’m thinking particularly of The Raven here). In fact it stays pretty faithful to the original text and the viewer will forgive Corman’s occasional flights of fancy as they tend to enhance rather than detract from the final product. Corman had intended this to be his second Poe picture following the success of House of Usher in 1960, but he passed it over because of the release of Bergman’s The Seventh Seal in 1957, which he held to be too similar in places. Read more

The Ninth Gate (1999)

In light of his excellent Rosemary’s Baby, a film which brings together Roman Polanski, Johnny Depp and Lucifer naturally invites high expectations. You’ll be consistently under-whelmed though, as The Ninth Gate offer up the promise of an edgy, compelling and suspenseful little movie and instead delivers a flaccid and unemotional tale that limps woefully on to its disappointing conclusion. Read more

The Omen (1976)

One of the strangest things I’ve ever found on the Internet was a PowerPoint version of the Book of Revelation. Quite how or why I stumbled across it I’ve no idea, but at the time I remember wondering precisely why anyone would ever want to render the such a extraordinary tale in that sterile form. Could it really be that when the Seventh Seal was opened and the angels sounded their trumpets of destruction the plagues, firestones and blood would be preceded by a PowerPoint presentation on what it was all about, with additional reading at the end? Hardly the most dramatic way to herald in the downfall of humanity. Given its ultimate consequences I’ve personally always consoled myself to the inevitable with the thought that at least it would look dramatic and exciting for a bit.

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The Wicker Man (1973)

Although it’s often named the best British horror film of all time, the impact of Robin Hardy’s incredible film lies in the fact that it ultimately has very little to do with the shocks and scares we normally associate with horror. The whole film is one giant red herring; the overt referencing of magic and paganism led me to expect a more supernatural conclusion, whereas there is in fact nothing in the film that one couldn’t expect to encounter in everyday life. The magnificent denouement yielded not terror but instead a sickening sense of realisation that such an outcome was glaringly obvious almost from the start, but I’d effectively been looking the other way. Read more

Witchfinder General (1968)

The tragically early death of director Michael Reeves (aged just 25) means that Witchfinder General very quickly established itself as something as a cult classic. It is certainly an outstanding film - and one can only imagine what Reeves would have gone on to achieve had he live a little longer – but there are one or two little niggles. Read more