For years, horror, unlike , and , has been mistreated and subjected to vicious critical attacks. Thankfully, it looks like the horror genre is finally getting the recognition it deserves, with recent releases getting Oscar buzz and proving to be box office hits. To celebrate this often overlooked and thrilling genre, , writers, directors and actors to help us chose the 100 best horror films. Horror has traditionally been a genre bent on entertainment — however twisted — and so reminders of real-world tragedy tend to stifle the fun. On one level this is pure throwback, an old-school tentacles-and-all monster movie which really comes alive in its glittering monochrome DVD version. Amplas plays the title character, a lonely, wayward Pennsylvania teenager whose elderly, religious-maniac cousin is convinced that the boy is, in fact, Nosferatu. Tom Huddleston Director: Larry Cohen Cast: Tony Lo Bianco, Deborah Raffin Jesus loves you… a little too much The horror game can be tough. Larry Cohen is without question one of the most inventive, idiosyncratic American writer-directors of the 1970s, his outstanding oeuvre spanning low-budget social commentary, low-rent blaxploitation and a handful of the most politically engaged horror films ever made. Yet here we are, 35 years later, and he manages to scrape one film into our Top 100. The make-up technician was called Screaming Mad George. Says it all, really. TH Director: John McNaughton Cast: Henry Rooker, Tom Towles, Tracy Arnold Is it live, or is it Memorex? That synopsis should offer some insight into the kind of boiling Freudian gumbo Browning serves up. This is a giddy, subversive, wonderfully watchable silent shocker. Peter Mullan is superbly cast as Gordon, the boss of an asbestos removal company tasked with clearing out an abandoned mental hospital. One of the first movies to be shot on HD digital video, the film has an unearthly, real-but-not-real sheen that adds immeasurably to its heart-stopping atmosphere of impending doom. The film provoked outrage in many quarters, but, viewed now, any claims that it is pornographic seem ridiculous. But with proper financial backing and almost total creative freedom, these films were a world away from the cheapo grit of the grindhouse: directors like Stuart Gordon, Frank Henenlotter and Don Coscarelli had the funding to realise visions which would have been impossible a few years before, resulting in some of the most idiosyncratic movies in the horror canon. Over the course of three wild sequels, Coscarelli expanded his bizarre universe in a variety of imaginative and deliriously entertaining ways — but the original set the standard. TH Director: JA Bayona Cast: Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep Hide and Shriek What could be more scary than a haunted house? Laura Belén Rueda has bought the orphanage she spent part of her childhood living in, with her husband and seven-year-old son Simón Roger Príncep. But one day, reading Peter Pan, Simón says matter-of-factly that he will never grow old. Has he been listening at doors? And when Simón goes missing the ghost story begins. Several directors have tried; none have survived the night. That anxiety resonat
