12 Classic British Horror Films You Need To See

When it comes to British horror films, you’ve hopefully already seen the likes of 28 Days Later, The Descent and Mum & Dad. Maybe you’ve watched The Zombie Diaries, Eden Lake and Panic Button (if you haven’t, you should address that immediately).

As anyone of a certain vintage will inform you, Britain has a rich horror heritage, and there’s much more to the genre than Dracula and Frankenstein. There’s Witchfinder General, with Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins, a real-life prosecutor of witches, plus The Blood On Satan’s Claw, about 17th Century devil worshippers. And that’s just for starters.

Even if we eschewed Hammer and restricted ourselves to the “old school” horror actors (Price, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasance), the list would include Madhouse, Death Line, Theatre Of Blood and House Of The Long Shadows, among others. Again, not too shabby.

There are, of course, plenty of other films not deserving of your time, so in the interest of balance, we’ll just say that if you never watch a movie by Norman J Warren (Inseminoid), Robert Hartford-Davis (Incense For The Damned) or Harry Bromley Davenport (Xtro), you’ll be doing yourself a favour.

The following are not necessarily the Greatest Horror Movies Of All Time, they’re just intended as a guideline for anyone with a casual interest in classic British horror. So if you’re unfamiliar with such names as Pamela Franklin, Caroline Munro and Pete Walker, perhaps we can introduce you to some of their finest work. 

According to Hollywood, anthology films never work and fail commercially, so it fell to Amicus to make the pictures that came to define the genre (Dr Terror’s House Of Horrors, Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood etc.), the most fun of which is From Beyond The Grave.

Clever, atmospheric and (at times) very funny, the film comprises four stories (based on the work of R Chetwynd-Hayes) linked by Peter Cushing’s antique shop, Temptations Ltd, which has “lots of bargains. All tastes catered to – and a big novelty surprise comes with every purchase.”

The guest stars include David Warner (who purchases a haunted mirror), Donald Pleasance (who shows a child “an act of kindness” by murdering his parents) and Ian Ogilvy (who installs a door that opens on another that opens on another dimension). Special mention, however, must be made of Margaret Leighton as Madame Orloff, a flaky clairvoyant who specializes in exorcising elementals.