Films about Satan and his minions remain popular for a number of reasons, but a key one must be the fact that, when depicting the infinite power of the Devil, filmmakers can get away with just about anything. The Omen is chock-full of creepy business: the weird nanny and her rottweiler sidekick, the zoo animals behaving erratically, the young lad on his tricycle bumping his mother over the banister, the church lightning rod spearing the priest where he stands, and, of course, cinema’s most iconic beheading scene, shown from multiple angles in juicily slow motion. Like many classics of the genre, Donner’s first feature wasn’t especially well-received by critics at the time, but it’s remained a mainstay on late-night TV and ‘best of horror’ lists. DA

In which Bruce Campbell reveals himself to be the Fangoria generation’s answer to Buster Keaton. The Evil Dead had humour but it was still, at heart, a video nasty: that tree scene tended to kill the chuckles. But in Evil Dead 2, the fact that Raimi and Campbell had begun their career alternating between horror shorts and Three Stooges knockoffs paid massive dividends: this is without doubt the most successful blend of horror and comedy, and a classic in either field. The breakthrough moment comes midway, as Campbell’s own hand is possessed by an evil spirit, leading to some of the most jawdropping slapstick imaginable (and a peerless Hemingway gag). But Raimi never forgets to keep the blood flowing: limbs fly, eyeballs explode, and you don’t even want to know what goes on in that woodshed. TH

The best Japanese horror film of the modern era: Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and John Landis have all confessed to being freaked out by Audition. Encouraged by his teenage son and best friend, a film producer stages a fake casting session, interviewing beautiful young woman for the imaginary role of his new wife. Smitten with the modest, mysterious Asami (Eihi Shiina), he later discovers that she is a disturbed victim of childhood abuse, with some serious trust issues. The textured relationships are subtly convincing, as the film builds inexorably towards its unbearably painful climax, which involves skilfully deployed acupuncture needles (‘Kiri, kiri, kiri, kiri’) and a limb-sawing wire. An astonishing achievement, particularly as it succeeds in preserving a degree of empathy for its beautiful but sadistic femme fatale. NF

The Haunting is the quintessential haunted house movie: Martin Scorsese even rated it his number one scariest film. Anthropologist Dr Markway (Richard Johnson) is investigating paranormal activity at a tombstone of a gothic pile in New England. The house was born bad, so the story goes – the wife of its first owner dropped dead moments before setting foot in it. The doctor has brought along two young psychic women, boho free-spirit Theo (who has one of the choicest wardrobes ever, designed by Mary Quant) and repressed Nell, who is the main attraction as far as the ghosts are concerned. Director Robert Wise executes a masterpiece of the power of suggestion. We never see a ghost, but the face of the devil Wise’s camera makes out in the ornate carving of a wooden door is more scary than anything make-up or effect could rustle up. CC

What’s always been most striking about John Landis’s lycanthropic thriller is the brilliant way it veers from comedy to gruesome terror and back again, in the blink of an eye. Figure in the services of make-up supremo Rick Baker, some of the most inventive shocks imaginable (those zombie Nazis!) and a dynamite selection of moon-related FM radio classics (not to mention Jenny Agutter’s face), and there’s no wonder it placed so high on this list. Horror parody was always going to be a doozy for Landis, given that he’d previously made such classic funnies as The Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House and The Blues Brothers – but there’s no doubt that American Werewolf is his crowning achievement. DA

She wasn’t the favourite to play ‘creepy Carrie’, but it’s impossible to imagine anyone other than Sissy Spacek (looking like she’s stepped into the ‘70s from another time altogether) in the role. Stephen King got the idea for the novel, his first, in the girls’ locker room of a college where he was working as a caretaker. Teenage girls can be pure evil and it’s in a locker room that we meet Carrie, who’s just had her first period and is being told to ‘plug it up!’ by the mean girls. Carrie’s secret is that she has telekinetic powers, which are about to wreak an apocalypse at the school prom. As for the pig’s blood scene, it doesn’t matter how many times you watch it, you’re willing that bucket not to drop. Spacek gamely offered to be covered in real pig’s blood, but in the end was drenched with a mix of syrup and food colouring. CC

It has been pipped to the honour of best British horror (only just, mind) by Don’t Look Now. But The Innocents has still got friends in high places. Martin Scorsese called it ‘beautifully crafted and acted, immaculately shot ... and very scary.’ The story is adapted from Henry James’s 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw. Deborah Kerr plays governess Miss Giddens, employed to look after the orphaned niece and nephew of a wealthy man (Michael Redgrave). The children behave like little angels. But why has Miles been expelled from boarding school for being a bad influence? Miss Giddens becomes convinces that the children are possessed by the spirits of dead lovers, the former governess, Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop), and ex-valet Quint (Peter Wyngarde). Are they? Or are these the fantasies of a never-been-kissed governess? Films rarely pull off the ambiguous ending anything like as satisfyingly. Little wonder Truffaut called it ‘the best English film’ after Hitchcock left for America. CC

Modern horror cinema started here. Romero’s low-budget nightmare movie blazed a trail for all those to follow, including Wes Craven (The Last House on the Left), David Cronenberg (Shivers), Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead). With its radically subversive approach to generic conventions, uncompromisingly nihilistic social vision and Vietnam War-inspired political anger, this groundbreaking zombie movie broke the rules and trampled on taboos. Holed up in an isolated farmhouse, Barbara and a small group of fellow survivors are besieged by an ever-swelling tide of shambling undead flesheaters, whose dietary habits are portrayed in gory, visceral detail. Romero later expanded his apocalyptic world view with Dawn, Day and Land of the Dead; but these sequels never matched the gut-wrenching, nerve-shredding intensity of this game-changing début. NF

It’s the flirtation with the supernatural and, of course, that startling ending (when the mysterious little figure in the red coat finally – outrageously – shows its true face) that have propelled Nicolas Roeg’s ghostly, beautifully photographed and tenderly acted adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s short story to a place so high on this list. But however much Roeg leans on signs and suggestions of occult behaviour, the real horror of his film is the deeply felt horror of grief and how it warps our perceptions of the world. It’s there from the very beginning when Donald Sutherland discovers his young daughter drowned in a lake in his garden, and it’s there as Sutherland and his wife (Julie Christie) travel to Venice and try to keep even a loose grip on life and their relationship. Disturbing and brilliant. DC

It starts like any other let’s-get-it-on teen movie, at a late night beach party. Boy meets girl. They slink off to skinny dip. She runs ahead, throwing off her clothes, splashing into the water ... only to be pulled under screaming. Welcome to the tourist island of Amity. Jaws broke box office records, but the production had been such a disaster the crew renamed it ‘Flaws’. The shark looked fake, the effects were terrible. Spielberg made a virtue out of necessity in the edit, switching the focus to the actors’ reactions: most chillingly after the shark strikes on a crowded beach. Parents have scooped up their children, all but one mother, a look of blind terror on her face. For some cinema-lovers, the biggest horror story of all is that with his game-changing big hit, Spielberg inadvertently invented the popcorn blockbuster. CC