There is a great zombie segment in the special features section of the Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog DVD.

I have borrowed that DVD so I'll check it out, thanks

(Presumably online too, but I couldn't say where.)

There are no zombie versions of Twilight. There is no Interview with a Zombie. The closest seems to be schlocky…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGIgL0Kaqvw&feature=related

Excellent Simon Pegg piece on why zombies must lurch slowly, inexorably towards you, preferably making a low moaning noise.

Not as excellent as Charlie Brooker's reply.

Speaking of fantasy worlds, apologies for being: a) indulgent and b) nerdy, but I have to defend myself here. Last week Simon Pegg wrote…

a much earlier occult-fantasy freak-out for kids called Ace of Wands. Anyone heard of this?

Yes. I bet it's aged badly though. Did that screen here? I remember it from the UK. Tarot, and his owl Ozymandias (?). I shall now look at the fansite. And probably regret doing so…

Raised (or reanimated?) as I was by whiteware-wolves on a diet of frisson chips...
and early British fare like the scary Day of the Triffids and Quatermass
I'd have to offer that The Shining – the film and The Shining – the book are really two different beasts…

Just saying.

Re: "Blink" – very much so. Reminds me of the old Buffy episode with the Gentlemen, where everyone loses their voice. That one managed to be both the funniest and the scariest episode of the season – possibly the series.

Careful Josh, that's my geek button you're pushing.

We just…

About ten years ago, there was apparently an obsessively faithful mini-series of The Shining, with King closely involved.…

I keep walking past the big box set of Sapphire and Steel in Whitcoulls and just not being sure if I dare. I don't remember the plots but I do remember the fear.

Yes! Although I saw a clip of one episode within the last few years and couldn't quite…

The Dr Who episode that haunts me the most is "The Empty Child". My chest tightens a little just thinking of it. Lovely stuff.

Also Stephen Moffat. And what's he working on now? Tintin.

"Snowy? Snowy? Where'd you go, boy..."

Except if you turn you back on him, he's biting your face off.

I'm not quite sure that works anatomically :)

Oh and I agree with everything you said. The beginning of The Thing with the guys shooting at the dog was fucking weird and had (me at least) hooked…

The Dr Who episode that haunts me the most is "The Empty Child". My chest tightens a…

Thanks for the snowmobile, Willie!

You don't mind if we leave your slowly cooling corpse in the lobby 'til spring, do ya?

We have a telepathic kid and a ghostly barman — I wouldn't say Kubrick removed the supernatural element entirely.

True, but the latter seems to be merely a figment of Torrence's mind (the scenes which feature him are also my favourites in the film btw).
And the Hitchcock comparison is…

For my child self, it was H R Pufnstuff.

Don't even get started on freaky puppets (or costume things)

Best part of the shining is the telepathic cook.

Aye boy, you just use that "shin" of yours and Willie'll come a-runnin'

for my child-self, it'll always be Children of the Stones.

Which is an odd title for a horror thing, in a way, because if you were a child of, say, Keith Richards, you would probably never be frightened of anything. Again.

For my child self, it was H R Pufnstuff.…

Sunning himself on a tropical island somewhere when he gets the telepathic call for help from the little kid.

Drops everything, fights his way through holiday traffic and flight cancellations. Eventually gets back in the right state and at the foot…

You're right about Kubrick's mechanical pushing of audience buttons or directing of their responses, but Hitchcock did the same thing: Psycho being the best example.

One thing that's so striking is how he essentially…

his story of a surgeon stranded on an island facing starvation creeps me out just recalling it

lady fingers they taste like lady fingers

Fan site here:

http://www.aceofwands.net/

An episode…

The first half the week was spent looking forward to it and the second trying to forget.

still, nothing that hiding behind the couch couldn't fix.

Careful Josh, that's my geek button you're pushing.

Curiously, I feel violated by that comment, when it seems it should be the other way around...

Blink was so well written.

Oh, which reminds me, you know what else was scary? Stephen Moffat's Jekyll . James Nesbitt was completely terrifying in that.

We just rewatched Hush with the kids, and it was as I remembered it – creepy and hysterically funny.

That mime of the staking is the funniest thing ever and yes also a super creepy episode. Then again how can you go wrong with weird guys in suits taking people's…

We just rewatched Hush with the kids, and it was as I remembered it – creepy and hysterically funny.

That mime of the staking is the funniest thing ever and yes also a super creepy episode. Then again how can you go wrong with weird guys in suits taking people's…

The Shining = most definitely not scary. Stephen King in fact colourfully lambasted Kubrick for his total cluelessness in this regard on more than one public occasion.

While Stephen King has a masterful control of horror and creepiness in writing (his story of a surgeon stranded on an island facing…

Re: "Blink" – very much so. Reminds me of the old Buffy episode with the Gentlemen, where everyone loses their voice. That one managed to be both the funniest and the scariest episode of the season – possibly the series.

Careful Josh, that's my geek button you're pushing.

We just…

Re: "Blink" – very much so. Reminds me of the old Buffy episode with the Gentlemen,…

that includes the Blink episode with the statues which scared me more than anything else I've seen as an adult.

Blink was so well written.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_(Doctor_Who)#Reception

Video games is a whole new can of worms.
I still haven't finished Silent Hill 2. The Silent Hill games are amazing.

and when I was little the Daleks did scare me.

Daleks are the only thing to so far scare my daughter, and that includes the Blink episode with the statues which scared me more than anything else I've seen as an adult.

The most genuinely frightening experiences for me have been while pc gaming

There are some quite good games for making you scared. If the game can draw you in then the character really becomes you and you really get scared for your "life".

I'm currently playing Fallout 3 and there…

Apart from all the obvious, a standout for me was the 1976 Doctor Who 6-episode story The Seeds of Doom wherein various people became infected with a virus (or something) that gradually turned them into plant-creatures.

I've never been good with scary movies, but I remember being horrified by the…

Apart from all the obvious, a standout for me was the 1976 Doctor Who 6-episode story The Seeds of Doom wherein various people became infected with a virus (or something) that gradually turned them into plant-creatures.

That was great, freaked me out as a kid too. The most genuinely frightening…

A horrible death is bad enough, but one so slow was just, to me,…

Shaun of the Dead: I didn't like it. There I said it.

I'm with you Hadyn. It's a shame, as it is one of my best mate's favourite films ever and he keeps trying to "reintroduce" it to me.
And I really liked Hot Fuzz, which he just can't understand.…

I see all of your zombie/splatter/exorcist moves and raise you Sapphire and Steel.

There was one episode of that where they had a variation of the plague (I think) in a petrie dish, and this guy got the petrie dish flung at his face, and then his face just sort…

Watching now, Sapphire and Steel looks like Tarkovsky's Stalker mixed with Dr Who and Magritte. Science fiction with none of the traditional trappings of the genre, no space-ships, no rayguns: no anthropomorphic foes, only the unravelling fabric of the corridor…

Glad someone mentioned Sapphire and Steel. That one went beyond scary into weirdly, unidentifiably troubling.

It's a kind of existential horror, where the very nature of existence unravels in inexplicably malevolent ways. Plus, the editing is superb and visceral: despite the shoddy effects, something as simple as a door bursting…

Watch The Shining backwards and it becomes a redemptive tale: after a night in the cold and a period of mental instability, Jack Torrence and his family leave the scary hotel and he becomes a healthy novelist.

Seven – there's some twisted shit in that, and the ending is suspense-city.

I saw this on video with a mate who was house-sitting at the time. Just the two of us, alone in a darkened house, with all the doors locked. Right at the end, at maximum tension time,…

Shaun of the Dead: I didn't like it. There I said it.

What? SOTD is in, like, my top... one. Bah!

I loved Signs, I though it was a fairly plausible look at how alien invasion shit would go down. SPOILER: Apart from the water. /SPOILER

My personal top Horror…

It's also nice to know I was right about 28 Days Later being taken from Day of the Triffids. I thought as…

Shaun of the Dead: I didn't like it. There I said it.

Tremors: great and funny and well thought out, it's like Jaws on dirt.

Richard, I think you would like Night of the Hell Hamsters

Another unsettling film I saw recently (it was on the telly a couple of weeks ago) was Children of Men. Not exactly a classic horror film, but set in a world of horrors.

Definitely unsettling. Some of it was filmed behind Shoreditch tube station, which was close to where I…

Excellent Simon Pegg piece on why zombies must lurch slowly, inexorably towards you, preferably making a low moaning noise.

Bloody hell. Unafraid of the link to the Nazi death marches, was he?

I read this semi-recently, which is why I was able to find it so quickly.

In the foreword, King states that when he was writing the story was intended to be allegorical on several levels. Having re-read…

And I am totally onto the new trend

I think a film of this type which scared the bejesus out of me more than any other was Threads.

It was about Copyright Must Change, wasn't it? You can tell us.

I find that the horror movies that scare/unsettle me most are the more "plausible" ones – anything with the breakdown of society, really

I think a film of this type which scared the bejesus out of me more than any other was Threads. I recall that it had one screening on…

One day someone will make the perfect zombie flick too

Shaun of the Dead?

I think I've got that at home, I can lend it to you if I find it. It was part of the Richard Bachman collection and also contains the Running Man (love that film!)

Odd coincidences – I was reading this collection on holiday a while back. The other two…

Watership Down = Hands Down most traumatising film ever experienced by kids of our generation. That beating exposed heart in the drain pipe. Holy Sheeat. WTF were my parents thinking.

They were probably thinking, "Oh, a cute cartoon with bunnies in it!!!!" without realising the horrible reality.

A friend of…

Zombie films are the best horror films. For some reason I just love them.

Boy, do I have a blog post for you. (With masterful comment by our own Jake.)

And Hadyn you're a pussy, they're meant to give you nightmares, that's part of the fun...

One day…

Unafraid of the link to the Nazi death marches, was he?

And the Bataan death march, the death marches during the Armenian Genocide.... Just think of it as a variation on a road movie.

which is then interrupted by the telephone ringing VERY LOUDLY made the entire theatre jump, followed by a round of nervous laughter...

Jose Barbosa (on bfm) has a great story like this, I'll try and get him to write it up.

I was also remembering that there is a scene…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Walk

Wai thank yew kaind sah

I think I've got that at home, I can lend it to you if I find it. It was part of the Richard Bachman collection and also contains the Running Man (love that film!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Walk

Wai thank yew kaind sah

one of the stories is about a guy who is in a competition where you've gotta keep walking along a road or you get killed. I wish I knew its name so I could read it again. Can anyone help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Walk

That viewing contained some of the best audience reactions I've ever seen. The bit when the priest…

Two movies I had the misfortune of being shown as an under-5-year-old were De Lift and Arachnophobia.…

Another unsettling film I saw recently (it was on the telly a couple of weeks ago) was Children of Men. Not exactly a classic horror film, but set in a world of horrors.

Philip Matthews (I think) noted in his Listener review for that week that the most unsettling thing…

I find that the horror movies that scare/unsettle me most are the more "plausible" ones – anything with the breakdown of society, really.

I'm with you on that. I saw 28 Days Later when I was living in London. Those scenes of central London streets empty of people were just…

Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy

Well, yeah definitely, but... Rubber Johnny?

I find that the horror movies that scare/unsettle me most are the more "plausible" ones – anything with the breakdown of society, really. So…

People who were trained in body movement and could easily add a sort of unnatural jerky twitchiness to their movements, with their limbs or head moving in the 'wrong' manner when they run or attack.

Ever seen that Tool video with the people (with antlers) on all fours swinging their…

more unsettling than the crazed husband gouging his wife's eyes out in her hospital bed?

'unsettling' more than 'gross'. Things that move in ways that they shouldn't stick with me more than plain old vanilla gross-out.

Although there was a large element of 'deeply unsettling' in that particular scene. Thanks…

By far and away the most unsettling thing to watch in the film.

Wait a minute, more unsettling than the crazed husband gouging his wife's eyes out in her hospital bed? That sort of stayed with me.

I quite liked Dead Ringers for creepy, unsettling but not overly gory body…

The story was called "Copyright Must Change".

Horrible. You long for someone to step on the zombie's face, just to put it out of it's misery, but the awful petty-pointscoring yibbling continues right through the end credits.

something that looks like a person but isn't moving or acting correctly.

The sequel to '28 days later' – '28 weeks later' – is not a particularly good film (or particularly scary), but some of the extras on the dvd are interesting.

Most of the zombie extras were played by…

Another story that scared me I don't remember the name of or the author, but involved a person climbing a circular tower, never getting to the top and unable to stop as there was 'something' behind them.

The story was called "Copyright Must Change".

Watership Down = Hands Down most traumatising film ever experienced by kids of our generation. That beating exposed heart in the drain pipe. Holy Sheeat. WTF were my parents thinking.

Oh yeah. I remember watching that as a kid and realising suddenly that the world was a very cruel place.…

So the Communist threat of the Bodysnatchers became the consumer-culture zombies of Dawn of the Dead which became the anger-fuelled hordes in 28 Days Later which became (for some reason) CGI vampires trying to kill Will Smith.

It should be noted that I Am Legend in various forms predates the…

Sin, Punishment, Redemption/Salvation – is a whole horror sub-genre all by itself.

Nothing Mel Gibson couldn't have told us...

Sin, Punishment, Redemption/Salvation – is a whole horror sub-genre all by itself.

There are a few common factors to horror and suspense movies that I have thought about over the years

Here are the three ingredients to most horror films (no spoilers):

1. Sin – someone does something ethically questionable (sex, drugs, stealing, murder)

2. Punishment – the evil whatever (undead dude…

The Omen – Still have memories of sneaking down the stairs and peaking through the rails to see the journalist…

Warning – Here be spoilers

1. Made you Jump! – example : the hand-from-the-grave in Carrie , any of the Friday the Thirteenth series. Good…

No zombies in Suspiria, no. Some pretty vicious killings. Boy.

A review of this movie appears in Peter Nicholls' Fantastic Cinema under the heading 'Are Italians Sadists?'

I'm just sayin'.

It's vicious, but it's also... eerie. Unsettling. Uncanny valley, except the valley is an art deco ballet school.

Suspiria: The Only Thing More Terrifying Than The Last 12 Minutes Of This Film Are The First 92.

Sounds interesting, but if it's actually scary I'm probably not going to see it. Any zombies in it?

I've heard good things about Suspiria. And by good I mean bricks were shat.

Oo, thanks Sam, I'd forgotten about Suspiria, that was well creepy.

Scariest story I've ever read was a Stephen King short story about a guy talking to his therapist about how the Boogie Man had stolen…

Giovanni you tough old bastard. What is the scariest film then?

Can I also say that I'm the whimpiest man on earth? But evidently I don't cover the whole spectrum because while I enjoyed The Shining, part of the reason why I enjoyed it is that it didn't scare me,…

The Shining = most definitely not scary

Giovanni you tough old bastard. What is the scariest film then?

werewolves ever were the ones in Harry Potter (followed by the Nazis in American Werewolf in London)

I only recall being totally freaked out by a fillum once as a kid – a TV movie called 'Satan's Triangle'.

It showed on NZ tv in about 1977. Kim Novak had an…

The scene where Shelley Duvall walks up the stairs and sees a person in a bear suit is fucking terrifying.

You are incorrect. Anything with anyone in bear costumes is awesome. It is a Truth Universally Acknowledged!

My kids have almost open access to my bookshelves.

Give them Lunar Park…

Alien = scary
Aliens = gory not scary

My kids have almost open access to my bookshelves. I've told my son to let me know…