Top 10 Haunted House Movies Of All Time

How much money would convince you to spend the night in a haunted house?

It's a simple but effective premise which has been the main trope of the haunted house genre for years. Typically, a group of sceptical guests are invited to spend the night at a mysterious benefactor's haunted house in order to collect a huge prize. But what if the house really was haunted? Another trope involves new homeowners who discover they have to exorcise its ghosts by solving the riddle of a past, heinous crime. Whether its the solution to a decades old murder that took place there or the discovery of the house being illegally built on hallowed ground.

But what if a house was haunted by its guests?

What's always intriqued me about the haunted house genre isn't so much the ghosts and monsters who lie in wait when the electricity fails and the lights begin to flicker, it's the concept that the house itself is alive. In the best of the genre, the house becomes a malevolent force, manifested by grief or madness as the residents become quietly unhinged. It feeds on their deepest fears, reflecting them back like a mirror. Driving them to leave or die.

Watch the Top 10 haunted house movies below and pray you’ll still be alive, and sane enough, to collect the prize in the morning.

In descending order of greatness:

10. House (1985)

I remember watching this film when it first came out on direct to video when I was barely a teenager, and it certainly wasn’t age appropriate. The orginal House film was hugely entertaining and a runaway home video success that spawned countless sequels which never bettered the original formula of one man alone in a haunted house that he could never escape.

The sheer inventiveness of the practical effects on display and creativity was pretty astounding for a low budget straight to video affair. In fact, the bathroom scene where the protagonist breaks the bathroom mirror and finds a portal to an alternative dimension on the other side freaked me out for years. I’ve never liked shaving ever since.

House (1985) Movie Trailer

9. The Innocents (1961)

Despite the same title, this early classic is not to be confused with the excellent Norwegian film The Innocents from 2022.

This original The Innocents (1963) film is a slow burning creepy British classic based on an original ghost story by Henry James. It concerns a governess hired to look after two children who experience disturbing events which may or may not be in their own imagination.

8. The Amityville Horror (1979)

It’s a long time since I’ve watched this horror movie which was rumoured to have been based on a true story. It begins when a newly married couple purchase a house whose previous owners were murdered in their sleep. Evil still dwells in the house, invading the owners thoughts until they are no longer safe from each other. They obviously didn’t know about mindfulness in the 1970s.

Even now I wonder if I imagined the basement scene with James Brolin when the walls start to bleed. It horrified me for years. Either way, this 1970’s film is surpisingly bleak and oppressive, even now.

The Amityville Horror (1979)

7. Poltergeist (1982)

Directed by Tobe Hooper of The Texas Chainsaw movie fame, Poltergeist is ostensibly a family friendly film until the family’s youngest daughter, Carole Anne, seemingly becomes possessed. In the infamous night time scene, she communciates with the static of their TV set to a dead channel, revealing the house has been possessed by a poltergeist.

This big budget horror film was written by Steven Spielberg and succeeds on many levels. It even spawned a catalogue of sequels with the memorable medium who communicated with Carole Anne once she was sucked into the after life by the spirits of the house. The sequel was even weirder and the series entered into social myth after the death of its young leading actress and other cast members.

Poltergeist (1982)

6. The Legend Of Hell House (1973)

This film could almost be described as a modern remake of the original The Haunting film from 1963. There are so many similarities, it’s uncanny. Both films share the same premise when a group of people with varying motives enter a haunted house to investigate the possibility of life after death.

Roddy McDowell gives a compelling performance, as always, and the climax ramps up the sheer tension with crazy sound effects and over the top hysterics, buts its oddly compelling.

The Legend Of Hell House (1973)

5. Hausu (1977)

I have to admit that this crazy Japanese movie is the least scariest haunted house film on the list, but it deserves a special mention thanks to its wild and creative take on the genre. A group of school girls are forced to spend the night in a haunted house and are murdered by ghosts they have disturbed in more and more bizarre ways. I mean, for gods sake, it features an animated sequence of disembodied fingers playing a piano that devours its victims.

I’ve probably watched this film about three or four times just to reassure myself that it actually exists. It’s truly bonkers and you would be forgiven for thinking Director Tim Burton directed this quirky little number, despite predating his career by twenty years.

4. Dark Water (2002)

From director Hideo Nakata of the original Japanese Ringu ‘Ring’ (1998) film, comes Dark Water, his natural and logical progression within the genre. This oppressive haunted house film takes the viewer on a journey through one woman’s grief as she searches for her lost daughter in an apartment building.

Dark Water is a precursor to The Babadook and Heriditary which would later use the themes of externalising inner grief with supernatural demons some 12 years later. It was easily ahead of its time and a truly harrowing emotional experience.
Nakata’s film is a better and more atmospheric film than the original Ringu film, and one that has been sadly overlooked.

3. The Shining (1980)

Some would argue that Kubrick’s The Shining is the greatest horror film of all time. But I would argue that it isn’t the greatest haunted house movie of all time. Sure, its incredibly atmospheric with Kubrick’s cold and technical use of tracking shots and pure, unadulterated tension, but the ghosts are subtly pushed to the background. Right up until the moment the viewer sees the final shot of the Ballroom photo from over a hundred years ago and you realise Jack Nicholson has been here before, and is actually haunting himself. For me, this film is more about the breakdown of the family unit and the fear generated from within, explored through the fearful eyes of Danny. The Overlook Hotel is the catalyst to domestic abuse. It’s one hell of a movie and one of my favourite films of all time.

Stephen King famously hated this film because of its cold, clinical interpretation of his story and characters, which deviates from his original novel.

The Shining (1980)

2. The House By The Cemetery (1981)

It would be remiss of Freudstein if this list didn’t mention the classic movie which inspired our band name and all our musical death dreams, The House By The Cemetery.

This isn’t an orthodox haunted house genre film because Italian Horror simply doesn’t play by the rules. Lucio Fulci’s masterpiece features more scares for your money with a haunted house, zombie serial killer, incredible soundtrack, shocking deaths and buckets of realistic gore. The story follows the familiar trope of a family moving into a house in Boston only to discover there’s something lurking in the basement, and soon realise their new home was built on the site of an old graveyard. The protagonist’s son, Bob, is also receiving premonitions much like the character of Danny in The Shining.

House By The Cemetery is the third in Lucio Fulci’s Gates Of Hell Trilogy and features amazing practical effects, a wild and sometimes incoherent storyline, and one of the best zombie monsters in living dead history.

Dr Jacob Freudstein is ready to see you in the basement, now.

A stone cold classic.

1. The Haunting (1963)

Based on Shirley Jackson’s classic novel, The Haunting (1963) is a film steeped in dread atmosphere and sheer tension with its use of skewed camera angles, fish eye camera lenses, and eerie sounds effects to summon the supernatural. These techniques epitomise the haunted house genre as it slowly, and believably, disorientates its viewers. We experience the world from the house’s point of view through the eyes of Eleanor as she descends into madness, and we come to believe the house is truly alive. And in control.

Some may decry the lack of horror and violence in this creaking old classic. The director, Robert Wise, instead implied the presence of a house possessed, and never revealed the ghosts which drive its residents to madness and despair. Instead he leaves this up to our own imagination, using camera work that Sam Raimi, the original director of the Evil Dead, would go on to borrow when he relocated the story to that other famous trope, the cabin in the woods.

The Haunting (1963)

Orchestrator Of Storms: The Fantastique World Of Jean Rollin [2022]

Arrow Films have commissioned a new Jean Rollin documentary entitled Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin. For anyone familiar with Jean Rollin’s somewhat obscure horror film output, this is big news as his work has largely been ignored during his lifetime and in his native France. But fortunately for horror fans, Arrow TV are also celebrating his work with two retrospective collections - Jean Rollin: The Fantastique Collection Part I and Part II - which include many of his hard to find classics available to stream online.

Jean Rollin was a unique horror film maker whose work is often described as exploitative horror, but I would disagree and argue that his films are poetic, erotic and dreamlike when compared with someone like Jess Franco. Rollin’s films The Iron Rose, Fascination and Requiem For A Vampire fearlessly blended memorable imagery with melancholy, horror, sex and madness to address the human condition, while also having a hell of a lot of fun along the way. You can’t help but be drawn to his seductive, alluring and often beautifully doomed vampires and morbid characters until it’s too late to escape, and you ultimately pine to join them. Unlike most horror films, they are the protagonists of their own stories, and not the villains.

The new documentary, Orchestrator Of Storms, promises to feature interviews with relatives and regular collaborators Brigitte Lahaie, Madeleine Ledespencer, Francoise Pascal, Jeremy Richey, and David Hinds about the behind the scenes making of this true auteur’s unique films and world view.

Here is the press release from Arrow Films:

“Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin tells the story of one of Eurocult cinema's most singular voices. Deeply misunderstood and widely misrepresented, during his decades-long career as a film director (1958-2009), Rollin's work received absolutely no recognition in his native country of France, and was completely unknown anywhere else. In the nineties, because of home video, Rollin attained a marginal cult status in niche English speaking genre circles. Otherwise he has remained completely obscure.

Rollin was raised within the bosom of some of France's most influential and intellectual elites, thanks to his mother Denise's friendship with figures such as Maurice Blanchot, George Bataille, Jean Cocteau, as well as Jacques and Pierre Prévert.Similarly his father was a director in avant garde theatre, exposing Jean to some of France's most interesting aspects of culture. It is perhaps not surprising that when it came to making his films, Jean Rollin's were unlike anything else on the scene. Once you dig into the director's life and passions, what emerges is a strong connection to the French surrealists, to symbolist art, to the poetry of TristanCorbière, to the French anarchist scene in the sixties, and counterculture. Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin sets out to tell this story in an attempt to elevate the director's work by exploring it in depth alongside these major influences, as well as other key themes such as the tradition of the French Fantastique. The film also looks at his frustrations, the way in which he had to constantly grapple and scramble for funding as one of the only filmmakers predominantly working within the horror genre through the sixties and seventies. Most importantly, it examines his singular vision, one that ran completely counter to other western traditions in genre film.

The project began life on more modest terms, but after working very closely with Jean's family, including his surviving son Serge, and close family friend Véronique D-Travers, it became apparent there was a far deeper and richer story to tell. A story of struggle that led to the filmmaker falling into poverty and ill health in his later years, one in which he was never understood or given the credit he was due during his own lifetime, where he was forced to constantly battle to make the films he wanted to make. Filmmakers Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger hope to change that in presenting Jean's story as never seen before, with the help of some of his key collaborators, close friends, and experts in both film and cultural history, as well as those responsible for ensuring his work never completely fell out of sight.”

Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin is coming to Arrow Films and Arrow TV soon.

https://www.arrow-player.com/

https://www.arrowfilms.com/

Watch the trailer below :

It’s a short teaser trailer so remind yourself of the director’s unique vision with a montage of his classic film, Fascination :

William Gibson's The Peripheral TV Series [2022]

Want to see what the future looks like? Then forget what you think you know about the author William Gibson. Sure, his classic debut novel, Neuromancer, helped coin the term cyberspace, conceive of virtual reality and preempt the internet, but there's more to his work. Much more.

He's moved on from those once science fiction concepts and we can only hope to keep up to with his new dysotopian fables. His new Jackpot trilogy begins with The Peripheral and Agency entering alternative universes populated with spooks trying to engage and control alternative versions of reality - called stubs - where Trump was never elected and Brexit never happened.

And that's just for starters.

I was fortunate enough to attend William Gibson’s Agency book launch pre Covid in 2019 where he announced that the executive producers of the Westworld TV Series, Lisa Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, would be showrunning this new series. But, you know, stuff happened and it seemed doomed to never get off the ground once we found ourselves living in pandemic stasis inside a version of Gibson’s own making.

But now its finally almost here and I’m genuinely excited to watch this, having read Gibson’s later works. I doubt it could ever live up to the books but it’s going to be one hell of a reality gamechanger for Gibson’s fans with this serious adaption. Read the book and watch the show because this might never have happened in an alternative universe.

The Peripheral launches on Amazon Prime on October 21st, 2022.

Watch The Peripheral TV Series trailer below:

The Peripheral TV Series

Oberheim OB-8 / OB-X Series Synth Reborn In 2022

Oberheim are back in production after a 35 year haitus with legendary synth designer Tom Oberheim returning to helm the company. The company have marked their return to synth manufacture with their first synthesiser in over 40 years - a faithful recreation of their classic Oberheim OB-X, OB-Xa, and OB-8 in one incredible instrument. The OB-X8 comes fully fitted with 400-plus factory programs, including the full set of factory sounds for the OB-X, OB-SX, OB-Xa, and OB-8.

2021 was the year Roland recreated the JX-8P with the Boutique Series JX-08.

2022 belongs to the year Oberheim recreated the OB-8 and OB-X with the OB-X8.

https://oberheim.com/

Available now.

Garth Marenghi Returns With 'Terrortome' [2022]

Everyone’s favourite author, dreamweaver, visionary, plus actor, Garth Marenghi, returns with a brand new horror novel, TerrorTome. Although a brand new Darkplace TV series would be preferable, its frankly never going to happen, so we’ll have to thank his satanic majesty and enjoy the fictional author’s unforgettable Shaun Hutson 1980’s inspired horror satire instead. You’ll die laughing.

Here’s an excerpt from the book’s press release:

“When horror writer Nick Steen gets sucked into a cursed typewriter by the terrifying Type-Face, Dark Lord of the Prolix, the hellish visions inside his head are unleashed for real. Forced to fight his escaping imagination - now leaking out of his own brain - Nick must defend the town of Stalkford from his own fictional horrors, including avascular-necrosis-obsessed serial killer Nelson Strain and Nick’s dreaded throppleganger, the Dark Third. Can he and Roz, his frequently incorrect female editor, hunt down these incarnate denizens of Nick’s rampaging imaginata before they destroy Stalkford, outer Stalkford and possibly slightly further?

From the twisted genius of horror master Garth Marenghi – Frighternerman, Darkscribe, Doomsage (plus Man-Shee) – come three dark tales from his long-lost multi-volume epic: TerrorTome. Can a brain leak? (Yes, it can).”

Terrortome, the novel, is released on 10/11/2022.

Watch the horror master in action in the Darkplace TV Series as he effortlessly weaves between life, death and writing - almost as if he’s alive, could die at any moment, and can actually write, sort off…

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace TV Series

Caterina Barbieri - Spirit Exit LP [2022]

Caterina Barbieri is back with a new album, Spirit Exit, which loses itself inside the depths of her electronic studio with a wider sound palette, and unexpected introspection.

I’ve been a fan of Caterina Barbieri’s music since her Ecstatic Computation LP hynotised me with its unfolding dark electronic ambient sequences that unexpectedly explode into melody. So its been a three year wait, and we’re in a very different world since we last heard from this Italian synthesist, but it’s been worth the wait.

According to recent press releases, Caterina was forced to adopt a new song writing approach to Spirit Exit when the pandemic struck. She could no longer evolve tracks on the gig circuit, and was forced into the isolation of her studio during lockdown. This probably explains some of the new interesting soulful choral directions reminiscent of Holly Herndon’s vocal experimentation, but it’s the Wendy Carlos inspired melodic moments of modular synthesis work that truly make this an extraordinary album worth listening to.

Spirit Exit showcases a fiercesome artist on an inward electronic journey, unafraid to experiment, and you shouldn’t be afraid to join her.

Official Website: https://caterinabarbieri.com/
Buy at Bleep: https://bleep.com/release/292861-caterina-barbieri-spirit-exit

---

Check out Exit Spirit’s opening track, ‘At Your Gamut’ below :

Caterina Barbieri - At Your Gamut [2022]

---

Check out the full Ecstatic Computation album stream below:

Caterina Barbieri - Ecstatic Computation [Full Album] 2019

Dario Argento Returns To Giallo With 'Dark Glasses' [2022]

Legendary Italian horror film director Dario Argento returns to the giallo genre with his latest film, ‘Dark Glasses.’

Despite Argento’s career flatlining in his later years with ‘Giallo’ and ‘Dracula 3D’ resembling all the passion and production values of 1990’s made-for-TV movie, I’m seriously excited that ‘Dark Glasses’ may at least show some return to form. His framing of imagery and murder set pieces are unrivalled, even today, so there’s always the possibility of a late spark of genuine creativity from Argento as he returns to return to the giallo genre that made his name.

Ilenia Pastorelli and Asia Argento star in his latest and possibly last feature film. The film’s protagonist is Diana, a luxury escort, who loses her sight in a car crash while escaping the ‘Cello’ serial killer in Rome. Blind and scared, Diana must learn to start a new life and escape the killer’s clutches with the help of her suport worker, Rita. But the killing spree has only just begun.

Watch the Dark Glasses Italian trailer below:

Vangelis R.I.P 1943 - 2022

Legendary soundtrack composer, Vangelis, aka Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou, has died at the age of 79.

Vangelis wrote over 40 albums in his lifetime, but will no doubt be remembered for his contributions to popularising electronic music with Hollywood classics Blade Runner (1982), Chariots Of Fire (1981). But I will always fondly remember his low key classic album, L'Apocalypse Des Animaux (1973) which accompanied a tv documentary series of the same title. This mesmerising piece of work lovingly combined acoustic and electronic instruments with a light, deft touch, and a haunting melancholy that permeates the classic track ‘La Petite Fille De La Mer.’

You can hear the album below:

Vangelis enjoyed a long career, but in later years, he rejected his own overblown orchestral Hollywood scores and returned to his first love, electronic music, composing the wonderful ambient album, Rosetta (2016). The album celebrated the European Space Agency mission, Rosetta, which successfully landed a probe on a moving comet for the first time in history.

You can hear the album below:

R.I.P Vangelis.

Dismantling Science 2022 : The United Kingdom Of Complacency

Everyone laughed when Donald Trump suggested that Covid infection rates could be brought down if we simply stopped testing people for Covid.

Yet from April 2022, that’s exactly what the UK government has done. And it’s not funny any more.

The UK government has instigated the wholesale dismantling of Covid precautions, specifically the decision to end the Office For National Statistics study of infection rates and new variants, end free PCR tests, and abandon the clinically vulnerable and care homes. This is blatent perception management and without the Office For National Statistic’s ability to track new variants and infection rates, we will all be ‘living in ignorance’ as opposed to ‘living with covid.’

For an informed, unbiased and interesting exploration of the phases of a pandemic, watch Yale Sociologist Nicholas Christakis’s interview about how Covid Will Reshape Humanity. According to him, the pandemic is likely to end in 2024.

That’s 2 years away.

David Cronenberg's Crimes Of The Future [2022]

David Cronenberg returns with his first new feature film in eight years, Crimes Of The Future [2022].

According to the synopsis, Crimes Of The Future, takes place in the near future as humankind attempts to biologically adapt and evolve to keep pace with technology. The title alludes to Cronenberg’s early 1970 experimental short film of the same name, which may have been an influence, and sees the director coming full circle not with a remake, but a possible return to his roots.

In recent years, David Cronenberg has taken a backseat to directorial duties and watched his son, Brandon Cronenberg, flourish with his own excellent productions, Antiviral [2012] and Possessor [2020]. Now fans of the auteur will be excited to learn he has returned to the directors chair with classic Cronenberg sci fi horror preoccupations. Fears of technology’s effect on the human body and psyche are explored throughout most of his early work, including Videodrome [1983], The Fly [1986], and Existenz [1996]. These themes look set to continue in his latest work.

Crimes Of The Future reunites Cronenberg with his long time collaborator, actor Viggo Mortensen, and also includes Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart.

Watch the teaser trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVX7df79BNo

Men Trailer [2022]

Writer and Director Alex Garland returns with a new psychological horror film, simply called Men. Details are scarce, but the premise concerns one woman’s struggle with grief as she comes to terms with the death of her ex-husband in the English countryside.

Im a big fan of Garland’s sci fi work, including Ex Machina (2015), Annihilation (2018) and the gloriously underated DEVS TV series [2020], which was itself a study in determinism. All of Garland’s work is psychological, philosophical, or both at the same time. Well, apart from his screenplay and rumoured directorial role in (Judge) Dredd [2012]. So its an interesting and unexpected surprise that he’s chosen to return from Hollywood with a low key, slow burning British horror film, starring Rory Kinnear - with an eerie visual twist reminiscent of Chris Cunningham’s Aphex Twin treatment.

Men is released in cinemas on May 20th, 2022.

Watch the Men cinematic trailer below :

And if you haven’t seen it already, watch the excellent DEVS. Trailer below:

FREE Roland Studio 50 - Play The TB-303 and SH-101 In Your Browser

Good news for fans of Roland synthesisers and music equipment. In celebration of Roland’s 50th Anniversary the company have released the FREE Roland 50 Studio, a mini online browser-based studio featuring their legendary SH-101, TB-303, and TR-808 instruments.

Created in collaboration with sound designer Yuri Suzuki, these legendary instruments can be sequenced and controlled via your browser in real time. Admittedly, the audio fidelity is somewhat rudimentary in comparison to the original instruments, but it’s a whole world of acid fun!

More instruments are rumoured to be released on April 4th, 2022.

You can access the Roland 50 Studio here (no downloads required) :

https://roland50.studio/

Join Roland’s 50th Anniversary celebrations here:

https://www.roland.com/global/roland-50th-anniversary/

Folk Horror - Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched Documentary [2022]

What Is Folk Horror?

Folk Horror is a term often used to describe rural horror in isolated places, from pagan cults to folklore to collective mania, often forged in our ancestors’ past.

In recent years this genre has gained traction in literary fiction with anthologies such as The Fiend In The Furrows, Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney, The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers, and not forgetting Shirley Jackson’s classic short story The Lottery. But perhaps its greatest influence has been in British film and TV, famously with The Wicker Man [1973], Penda’s Fen [1974], and my personal favourite, the BBC’s Robin Redbreast [1970]. Recently there has been an explosion in filmmakers discovering and revising Folk Horror for modern audiences with the excellent A Field In England [2013], Midsommar [2019], and In The Earth [2021].

To most it is a pecularly British genre built on myth and magic in the darkest regions of the human mind. But Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is a new documentary which challenges this notion and maintains it is not a uniquely UK phenomenon, but is in fact a global genre, albeit one that has often been culturally overlooked.

The Unholy Trinity Of Folk Horror

Beginning with the unholy cinematic trinity of The Wicker Man, Blood On Satan's Claw and Witchfinder General - originally conceived by Mark Gatiss - Woodlands Dark Days Betwitched explores cultural mythology by studying over 200 film gems from all over the world. It investigates how Folk Horror has dripped blood from the earth to the silver screen as we attempt to come to terms with our own past beliefs in a bid to try and understand our world.

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched

As much as an exploration as an explanation of the Folk Horror phenomenon, this excellent documentary is available to view on Shudder or on DVD with a runtime of 3 hours and a huge cast of interviewees. It comes highly recommended for horror fans wanting to expand their Folk Horror knowledge or personal film collection wishlist.

Visit the website to purchase the DVD :
https://woodlandsdarkanddaysbewitched.com

Watch the full trailer :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSYBpdDSh9A

An Introduction To Pinky Violence Courtesy Of Collider

Explore the Pinky Violence film genre with this link to a beginners introduction to the Japanese exploitation movies of the 1970s, courtesy of Collider.

For the unitiated cinephile, this largely uncelebrated film genre is a wild mix of sex and violence that inspired a generation of film makers, including Tarantino with his Kill Bill series and its unashamedly wholesale cloning of scenes from Lady Snowblood. But for my money, the Female Prisoner Scorpion series is this genre’s crowning achievement. The series features spellbinding cinematography, a fantastic soundtrack, and the world’s most deadly beautiful female protatgonist, played by actress Meiko Kaji, as she wreaks revenge on the men who have wronged her.

Read the full Pinky Violence Collider article here:

https://collider.com/pinky-violence-japanese-exploitation-movies-examples-explained/

Watch the full Female Prisoner Scorpion 701 trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q12XJj05vw