66 All-British Horror Movies: World of Terror

By Steve Hutchison

This book contains 66 reviews of horror films written and ranked by critic and blogger Steve Hutchison. Each description includes five ratings (stars, story, creativity, acting, quality), a synopsis and a review. All 66 movies were produced exclusively by the United Kingdom. How many have you seen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Feb 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778870569

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

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Tales of Terror’s

World of Terror 2019

66 All-British Horror Movies

INTRODUCTION

This book contains 66 reviews of horror films written and ranked by critic and blogger Steve Hutchison. Each description includes five ratings (stars, story, creativity, acting, quality), a synopsis and a review. All 66 movies were produced exclusively by the United Kingdom. How many have you seen?

#1

Ghost Stories

2017

A television personality who debunks supernatural myths investigates three cases of ghost manifestations.

Stars

7/8

STORY

6/8

CREATIVITY

6/8

ACTING

7/8

QUALITY

7/8

You’ll be completely sucked in from the first scene of the framing story onward. That story is interrupted three times; one for each segment, and it’s relatively slow compared to your average horror anthology wraparound tale. First things first; the only obnoxious thing about this movie is its anxiogenic jump scares, and they kind of grow on you. Otherwise, Ghost Stories is nearly perfect.

All three stories share a common structure; they’re all about men, alone, who are being haunted by ghosts. The first one is about a security guard inspecting a former asylum. The second one is about a young man who hits a demonic creature with his car, in the woods, at night. The last one is about a widower dealing with memories of a disastrous pregnancy.

Films like these are the reason some of us are scared of ghosts, late at night, alone. This story will follow you in the shower and in your bed. If you never believed in ghosts, now is the time. Ghost Stories doesn’t take for granted that we’ve seen hundred of ghost stories. It’s shot the way people who claim they’ve seen ghosts describe them. It’s certainly not for the faint-hearted.

#2

The Hole

2001

Four teenagers uncover and explore the depths of a sealed underground bomb shelter.

Stars

7/8

STORY

7/8

CREATIVITY

6/8

ACTING

8/8

QUALITY

8/8

The Hole is at times poignant, frustrating, disturbing, but there is more, here, than meets the eye. This is a legendary mindfuck. The story is simple enough, but it gets increasingly layered the deeper we get. Parallel to the main timeline is a psychiatric investigation. This leads to one of the most powerful twists in the history of horror films and it happens sooner than you’d think.

Things gets very sinister passed a certain point. The teenagers realize they are locked inside the bunker they were partying in. Claustrophobia ensues. All this happens while the main protagonist, played by Thora Birch shows her unrequited love for Mike, one of two jocks, played by Desmond Harrington. Keira Knightley plays the hot chick and Laurence Fox her fling. All four are exceptional!

We get a good understanding of who everybody is, and they all react appropriately through the obstacles ahead. They are not exactly stereotypes; they remind us of people we know. They remind us of us. This film has a great kick, but it particularly stands out because of how shocking it gets. The suspenseful score makes everything better, and what an immersive bomb shelter set!

#3

Hellraiser

1987

A revenant manipulates his ex-lover into seducing and killing men so he can restitute his flesh using their blood.

Stars

6/8

STORY

6/8

CREATIVITY

7/8

ACTING

6/8

QUALITY

6/8

Few movies depict hell with so much depth, inspiration and style. This sinister production tells the story arc of a spirit, or a demon, perhaps, putting in place an interesting scheme in order to come back to the world of the living. Hellraiser is sprinkled with scenes of lust, adultery and other perversions. It is a poetically romantic supernatural thriller with an ominously sexy ambiance.

The antagonists in Hellraiser stir common fears and phobias through their connection to the unknown. They do so in a way to arouse the audience’s psychological and sexual interest, and hints at social taboos like infidelity, BDSM, fetishism and the thin boundary between pleasure and pain. Chains and hooks are the stuff of cenobites; the hellish creatures the film centers on.

Few horror movies have such a strong signature. It is achieved through intricate storytelling, a dominant score, breath-taking gore and elaborate costume design. The cast is limited and so are the sets. Though the post-production effects are flaky, the tangible