4. The Child Catcher - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Unlike the majority of the films on this list, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is, in fact, not a particularly good or interesting film, and really the only reason to give it a watch is for its unnerving power, harnessed so well by the Child Catcher character. In our overly politically correct culture, this character seems even more unsettling; in this world, children are rounded up and jailed, and the Child Catcher helps do this by sniffing them out with his abnormally large nose, using sweets to lure the kids in, and deploying nets to ensure they cannot escape. There's a spine-tingling quality to Robert Helpmann's performance, undeniably creepy and gleefully over the top, a real embodiment of evil. Today, this sort of character probably wouldn't make it into a film, because red-top tabloids and the Daily Mail would have a field day saying how it was giving paedophiles ideas... The film might not be very good, but at least it is a frank, disturbing product of its time, one which will continue to strike fear into the hearts of kids everywhere.