10 Best Fake Horror Movies Within Horror Movies

7. The Midnight Phantom

Appears in: Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

The fake film: Fantasma De Medianoche, to give the film it's original title, features some time drug addict and ex-porn star Marina Ozores trying to make a career for herself in legitimate movies, albeit still staying well within the confines of exploitation style. Director Maximo Espejo always had an eye for an attractive female lead and even at this late stage in his career the veteran purveyor of on screen trash found another muse in Ozores. The film is a luridly coloured Euro horror in which Ozores' desirable damsel is stalked by the eponymous phantom, a mutilated muscleman with the masked visage of the Phantom of the Opera and the costume of a fetish loving pro wrestler.

The real film: Despite its seemingly horror style premise - porn star turned horror actress Marina (Victoria Abril) is kidnapped and tied up by a recently released mental patient who wants to force her to love him - Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is actually a rather warm hearted romantic comedy about gender roles, power relations and two damaged people learning to love each other.

Nevertheless, the disfigured stalker and his beautiful victim themes of The Midnight Phantom are obviously designed to reflect back on the situations of the main narrative. Director Pedro Almodovar, in what was at that point his finest film, repeatedly references classic horrors of identity like Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers and obviously has a huge love of all genres normally viewed as trash or camp. However, it was not until he re-teamed with Tie Me Up!... star Antonio Banderas after 21 years that Almodovar would give us his own unique take on a real horror with The Skin I Live In.