10 Horrifying Haunted House Films

When the Maitlands - a newly married couple - are tragically killed in a car accident, they find they are bound to their idyllic country home as ghosts. In their house they find the Handbook of the Recently Deceased which outlines the rules they must now abide by.

While the Maitlands are still trying to puzzle out their new “life” as undead, their house is sold to the Deetzes: a dysfunctional and eccentric family.

Seeking help to drive away the Deetzes, the Maitlands turn to a freelance ghost named Beetlejuice. Describing himself both as a “bio-exorcist” and "the ghost with the most", Beetlejuice claims to be able to rid ghosts of the living; the Maitlands soon regret contacting Beetlejuice when they discover his methods include murder.

Some of the most memorable scenes in the film are the glimpses we get of the afterlife; this unique vision of limbo articulates as a depressing office waiting room filled with animate charred corpses, and cadavers with shrivelled shrunken heads, among many other grisly sights.

This leads to the scene where the Maitlands learn how to deform themselves so they can raise their scare game. The sight of the two stretching and reshaping their own heads into monstrous new shapes is genuinely effective body horror.