There were few films more legendary when I was a child, The story of a monster clown preying on children was especially horrifying. IT was shown on TV surprisingly early after its US release here in the UK. It was the stuff of nightmares and as a child it was hard not to be terrified of it.
As a kid, we had a VHS player for the sole reason of taping one thing on one channel, whilst watching something on the other. Which was pretty common back then. I had a habit of looking through the paper to see what was on and then setting the channel accordingly and sneakily setting the button to record before heading to bed. Then I'd get up at 5 in the morning and sit and take in the forbidden delights of late night TV before anyone was even up. I saw many of my favourite films for the first time that way. One of those films was James Cameron's Aliens. 
Saw is one of those films thats a lot to take in, its flashy and over done, a very MTV generation film, and that works to its
Back in the 90's I would quite often find myself in a little video shop in my home town, usually down to the fact that one of my friends was obsessed with video rental. Every night we would go to the rental shop and look for hours at the titles laid out in what was in essence a large cupboard. There was one film in particular that kept catching my eye, but the cover itself terrified 11 year me so much, that I wasn't sure I would ever be able to watch it. The cover featured a door opening slightly and from behind the door peered a creature, barley visible, but that scared me to death. The Leprechaun. 
Ok, so anyone who's seen the film knows that it's ridiculous, but as a kid I really couldn't figure out how a film about a Leprechaun was going to play out and that made it even more terrifying. Seeing it years later and realising that its star TV's Jennifer Anniston took all the scares out of it, but replaced it with what I considered to be an enjoyable little pseudo monster amock movie. It works and its just serious enough and just funny enough to keep your attention for 90 minutes. 
If Romero was surprised by the popularity of his own zombie series then I wonder what he thinks about the current trend for all things zombie? Personally I am a massive fan of most zombie spin-offs and this is thanks to Romero’s Dead series (along with Lamberto Bava’s Demons 1 and 2). They certainly made me consider boarding up every window in the house and hoarding tinned food at the time. However, as much as I loved these reanimated freaks, I have to admit that back then I didn’t think that anyone but myself would view them as cool. Never in a million years did I think that zombies would gnaw their way into the very flesh of popular culture, as they have over the last decade.
Whether you’re a fan of the series or not, you can’t deny the popularity of the show and not just because of the stats above. I guarantee you all know at least one person who isn’t a horror fan but who LOVES The Walking Dead. Perhaps that is why there is almost an air of snobbery from true horror fans regarding the programs standard and credentials. Sometimes when something becomes so accessible we don’t feel like it’s our own anymore and therefore reject it. Another angle of course is fans of the comic (the T.V shows origin) don’t approve of the slower pace that the drama is shown at. Which although is a valid point, is also a little unfair due to the sheer volume of work required in television production.
I complete my bloody circle by pointing out the fact that a certain Mr. Romero turned down the chance of directing some episodes of The Walking Dead. That’s not to say he doesn’t approve of the concept, far from it, in a 2011 interview he acknowledged that Frank Darabont had “done a good job” and that he was waiting to have the time to watch the entire first season. I agree that Darabont has fought admirably in the format of television but I do get excited at the thought of what might have been if I’m honest.
REANIMATOR is simply an epic film, just trying to write a synopsis for it reminded me use how bug the whole thing is, I have uncovered just the tip of the iceberg there. The effects are amazing and the comedy and horror mixture is just perfect. It's hard to believe that it's based on the series of short stories by HP Lovecraft, which were much more serious in tone.
One of the films I was most excited about when I was a kid, was American Werewolf In London. Growing up their weren't a whole lot of great werewolf movies around, I never liked the 'wolf-man' style werewolf because his make up for the most part always felt like a cop out to me and I wanted werewolves to be monsters, big horrible creatures of the night. American Werewolf was one of the first films to give us that.
I caught the film just as the hype was starting to build, die hard horror fans were talking about it, but of course, it was just before people starting calling it the scariest movie of all time etc. I think had that been the case before I caught it, I might not have enjoyed it as much. It's seems however that I caught it at the right time, and saw it really with a fresh perspective and no idea what to expect. 
The film follows Simon, a captured serial killer locked in mental institution, who has become the subject of a new paper by sensationalist writer Dr Karen Schumaker. They begin to uncover why Simon killed the people he did and he talks about 'The Ugly', A series of voices forcing him to do it. However when we discover what the Ugly really are, or at least may be, where the true shocks come into play. 
Growing up as a filmmaker I quickly became familiar with a man named Robert Rodriguez. He had become a Hollywood darling after making his debut feature El Mariachi for little over $7000. I became a fan after seeing his 3 million studio effort Desperado and since then I've been hooked on his off the wall filmmaking style and his approach to making said films, treating them as independents whilst still moving through the studio system.
I was 11 years old, when, whilst sat a friends house his older sister came in and blurting on about a film that as out today on video. Being much older than us, she had seen It at the cinema and couldn't wait for us to be exposed to it. She told us it was based on a true story and she called it scariest thing she had ever seen. She was not far off. This is one of the films that started my fascination with the effect that horror films have on people, it was directly responsible for about 3 years of sleepless nights and was probably one of a few that started my love of all things horror.
Childs Play follows the story of Andy who receives the hottest toy around for his birthday, A Good Guy Doll. Quite a find by his mother who had to procure it from a homeless man in an alleyway. However this doll turns out to be housing the spirit of legendary serial killer Charles Lee Ray, who is still dead set on continuing his murderous rampage dragging Andy along for the ride.
Childs Play is one of those films that goes on every media player or anything like that I have, I always have a copy of it on my phone or laptop. Its re-watch value is amazing and sometime I can sit and watch it 4 or 5 times in a row, it really is just that good. The film has spawned 5 sequels to date and it really is an amazing movie and an amazing series of movies. Brad Douriff (or at least voiced) has played the plastic perpetrator since 1988 and latest entry to the franchise Curse Of Chucky really feels like a love letter to the fans. 
Moving into a large English house, an American man and his adulterous wife, set in motion the escape of the the husbands brother from his holding cell in hell. Turns out his wife, Juila, is infatuated with the bad big younger brother of her husband and before she knows it she is hiding good old skinless Uncle Frank in the attic and feeding him fresh, sex hungry business men. Soon hell comes for Frank and young Kirsty is dragged into a nightmare from which she must be more cunning than the prince of hell to escape.
Picking up after the original Kirsty is now stuck in a mental institution after witnessing hell decending upon her family home. She quickly meets a young doctor who believes her story and after a visit from her father begging to be saved from hell, She and her new friend break into the institutes head surgeons house only to find that the sinister Doctor Chenarde has resurrected Julia, and has his sights set on becoming the king of hell. Now lost in the labyrinth of corridors that make up the leviathans realm, Kirsty searches hell for her father only to find that someone else has brought her there. The scene soon becomes set for the fight between the Cenobites and Chenarde as the battle for supremacy in the afterlife as hell crumbles around them.
You know you can't have a list of inspirational Horror movies without Elm Street coming into it, Wes Craven's 1984 slasher appeared late in the day, landing right at the end of the slasher craze started some half a decade earlier by a certain John Carpenter film. But Cravens film didn't stalk and slash us in the woods or even in our own homes. It struck at us where we were most vulnerable, it struck at us in our sleep. 
The film carries a heavy legacy, one that has spanned across films, television shows, comics, action figures, I even own a set of Kruger cups and bowls. This child murders face has been on everything and his presence took the world by storm, he's more famous than most presidents and has become the biggest icons, not just in modern horror, but within the genre as a whole. 
The film follows a group of paranormal detectives who head up to an old hotel in search of strange activity and instead find themselves become the latest victims of the curse of the puppet master as each of them are picked off one by one by pint sized terrors that feature names like Blade, Tunneler, Leech Lady and Pinhead. We soon discover that the puppet master is indeed one of thier fold but the puppets also have an agenda of thier own and it appears no one is set to get out alive.
The films center around a young Jessica Harper, who has travelled to a private ballet school only to discover that the girls there are being terrorised at night by strange and often deadly things that hide I the dark corridors of the old building. Dragged into the nightmare she soon discovers the secrets of the school and finds an age old coven that feeds on its young residents.
