Rebecca (1940)
The Horror House: Manderley is a sprawling, beautiful country house on the Cornish coast, where the new Mrs de Winter expects to live happily ever after. But the servants are creepy, and the spectre of her predecessor, the titular Rebecca, seems to lurk around every corner.
Who Lives There: Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), his second wife (Joan Fontaine), and their terrifying housekeeper, Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson).
Scariest Room: Rebecca’s bedroom, which has been kept exactly as she liked it – even though she’s been dead for a year.
How To Survive It: Stay away from the windows; flee to the continent.
The Last House On The Left (1972)
The Horror House: Just a normal, average family home, inhabited by the kind of friendly people willing to let a group of travelling salesmen stay the night.
Who Lives There: Dr Collingwood (Gaylord St James) and his wife, Estelle (Cynthia Carr).
Scariest Room: The bedroom belonging to Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel). Although it’s only horrifying if you’re the person who raped and murdered her.
How To Survive It: That’s pretty easy, unless you happen to be a murdering rapist.
The House On Sorority Row (1983)
The Horror House: After a cruel prank goes wrong, a group of sorority girls find themselves being picked off, one by one, by a mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of their sorority house.
Who Lives There: Lots of people: sorority sisters Katey (Kate McNeil), Stevie (Ellen Dorsher), Diane (Harley Jane Kozak), Vickie (Eileen Davidson), Jeanie (Robin Meloy), and Liz (Janis Ward), plus their house mother Mrs Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt), and her son Eric (Charles Serio).
Scariest Room: It’s not exactly a room, but the swimming pool is the worst part of the house.
How To Survive It: Don’t get involved in childish bullying and you’ll be okay.
House Of The Long Shadows (1983)
The Horror House: Bllyddpaetwr Manor is the kind of rundown gothic mansion no sensible person would want to spend the night in. Writer Kenneth Magee (Desi Amaz Jr) reckons the remote Welsh location is the perfect place to work on a novel – unfortunately for him, it’s hard to get much writing done when there’s an ancient family feud secretly unfolding in the supposedly empty manor house…
Who Lives There: Lord Grisbane (John Carradine) and assorted members of his family.
Scariest Room: The secret tunnels, hidden behind a bookcase.
How To Survive It: Just keep writing.
The Innocents (1961)
The Horror House: Bly is a fully staffed country pile, owned by a busy bachelor who can’t be bothered to look after his orphaned niece and nephew. But he probably ought to pay a bit more attention to exactly what his employees are getting up to in his absence.
Who Lives There: New governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), housekeeper Mrs Grose (Megs Jenkins), and kids Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens).
Scariest Room: The gardens are scarier than the inside of the house, though that’s spooky too.
How To Survive It: Stay out of the gardens, away from the windows, and out of the lake. And try to keep an eye on the kids…
The Wrong House (2012)
The Horror House: Horror movie families are forever moving into haunted houses, but the unfortunate families in The Wrong House don’t even get that far – when they go to view a potential future home, they find themselves trapped by a supernatural force that won’t let them leave. Ever.
Who Lives There: In theory, no-one, though plenty of people have tried.
Scariest Room: The rooms are all pretty nondescript, but they’d soon seem terrifying if you had to spend eternity there.
How To Survive It: You can’t. Once you’re in, you’re in.
House Of The Dead (2002)
The Horror House: A ramshackle old house on an island in the middle of nowhere, the house in question is the home of a demented former priest-turned-evil-scientist who’s working on a way to live forever. The house is full of his failed experiments – essentially, rubbish zombies.
Who Lives There: Castillo (David Palffy), though ‘lives’ might be pushing it.
Scariest Room: The underground tunnels, with their half-plant half-human monstrosities, are pretty scary.
How To Survive It: Take up fencing, and run like hell.
House Of Whipcord (1974)
The Horror House: This old house has been turned into a private prison by a cantankerous old judge and a former school matron, both of whom are really, really into corporal punishment. Any young woman unfortunate enough to end up here will be lucky to escape with her life.
Who Lives There: Justice Bailey (Patrick Barr) and Mrs Wakehurst (Barbara Markham).
Scariest Room: The dingy cells.
How To Survive It: Behave yourself.
The House On Skull Mountain (1974)
The Horror House: The mansion at the top of Skull Mountain belonged to Pauline Christophe (Mary J. Todd McKenzie), a voodoo practitioner. On her deathbed, she sends for all her living relatives to come to the house to hear her will – but when they turn up, they’re haunted by robed figures and killed off, one by one, in increasingly bizarre ways.
Who Lives There: Pauline’s live-in servants, Thomas (Jean Durand) and Louette (Ella Woods).
Scariest Room: The voodoo chamber hidden at the bottom of the lift shaft.
How To Survive It: Brush up on your voodoo rituals, and find a really good lawyer.
Bloodbath At The House Of Death (1984)
The Horror House: Headstone Manor, known by locals as the House of Death, has already seen one mass murder – eighteen people were killed in a Satanic ritual in the 70s – and it’s about to happen again, with added supernatural complications.
Who Lives There: No-one, though Dr Mandeville (Kenny Everett) and Dr Coyle (Pamela Stephenson) attempt to stay there.
Scariest Room: The bathroom, with its killer toilet.
How To Survive It: Between the ghosts, monks, and aliens, your chances aren’t looking good.
