The Gore Connoisseurs

Slasher movies have been preoccupied with the most inventive ways to kill folks for decades. Here's ten of horror's most elaborate murders from artisans such as Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Art the Clown. The kills are ranked on originality, gore effects and just how much they make your stomach turn. There's also a bit of info on how the special effects team worked their magic. It hardly needs saying, but be advised there are some bloody images and video clips below. 10/ Caught in a cat flap - Scream (1997) Killer: Ghostface Victim: Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan) What goes down: Tatum is confronted by Ghostface while grabbing some beers from the garage. What she thinks is a prank escalates quickly as the masked killer pulls a knife. Tatum looks to have the upper hand as she batters a flailing Ghostface with fridge doors and beer bottles. Yet then she makes the ill advised decision to try and squeeze through a cat flap. Ghostface can't beli...

The set-up for this low-key 2014 horror flick may seem like a Sinister rip-off, but stick with it and chills will ensue. The opening of The Canal leans into haunted house clichés hard. Mark (Rupert Evans) and his pregnant wife Claire (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) are introduced in the midst of a house viewing . Mark straight up sees a ghost, but still goes ahead with the purchase. Some may argue he deserves what's coming for him. Yet these are patient ghoulies. We flashforward five years to find Mark has discovered through his job as a film archivist that - surprise, surprise - the house boasts a history of gruesome murders. More pressingly, it looks like Claire might be having an affair with a Hot Ponytail Dude. The parallels to Sinister are clear. Mark - like Ethan Hawke's dickish true crime writer - has a job which makes him naturally inclined to deep dive into his new home's dark past. There's a lot of business with old timey film projectors and creepy ar...

Bored of werewolves and Brundleflies ? Creature feature horror has headed down some weird back alleys - here are five of the most bizarre. Cat People (1942 & 1982) In a sentence: The Wolf Man for cat lovers. What goes down: Irena is cursed to turn into a bloodthirsty panther every time she has sex. The original was a Wolf Man ripoff which ended up being a hugely influential early horror movie. The 80s remake is a surprisingly well-made erotic thriller with crazy incest vibes. Did you know? The original coined the 'Lewton bus' effect - where mounting tension is released via a false jump scare. In this instance, when we're expecting Irena to attack at any moment, the hissing sound we mistake for a panther is actually just a bus pulling away. Black Sheep (2006) In a sentence: Ninety minutes of sheep fucking jokes. What goes down: In this enjoyably bloody New Zealand horror comedy, a mutant sheep gives the flock a taste for human flesh, wh...

IT: Chapter Two may be one of the mostly hotly anticipated horror flicks this year, but the first part of Andy Muschietti's adaptation of Stephen King's novel was far from perfect. Although  IT: Chapter One is undoubtedly enjoyable and gloriously nostalgic, it also has some glaring problems. Such as: 1) It's easy to escape Pennywise - just shut the door One of the most annoying shots in the entire film is the resigned look on Pennywise's face when Bill (Jaeden Martell) escapes his clutches by fleeing the basement and shutting the door. Surely it's not beyond the remit of a demonic clown to follow Bill through said door. Shit like this keeps happening. In the movie's homage to The Ring and Sinister,  Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) emerges from the image on the projector, only to promptly disappear again when the kids open the garage door. No tenacity, this clown. 2) The heavy-handed Carrie callback In what comes across as a clunky homa...

Typewriter , Netflix 's latest Indian horror, blends pre-teen comedy, clever scares and ghoulish gore. It narrowly gets away with it. The plot of five-part Netflix series Typewriter is incredibly busy. It involves school-age paranormal investigators, creepy-as-hell doppelgangers and a long-dead mass murderer looking to make a comeback from beyond the grave. The scares, when they come, are arresting, but they're dotted inbetween gentle comedy and heartfelt character development. The supernatural mechanics at play may be elaborate, but at the heart of the series is Sam (Aarnaa Sharma) - a kid who becomes obsessed with ghosts in the hope of reconnecting with her deceased mother. Sam leads a gang of preteen ghost hunters looking to "catch" a spirit they believe to be haunting the creaky Bardez Villa. Legend has it that, following the unexplained death of a celebrated writer in the house, his typewriter churned out his most famous work, The Ghost of Sultanpur...

The Transfiguration, which recently dropped on Shudder, is part of a wave of movies exploring what "realistic" horror could look like. Milo, the teenage anti-hero of 2016 indie horror  The Transfiguration, judges his impressive collection of vampire VHS via an unusual criteria – is it "realistic"? Martin and Let the Right One In pass; Twilight not so much. Of course, The Transfiguration itself is trying to be a "realistic" vampire movie. Milo is a borderline sociopath who's taken vampire-roleplay to the next level. At regular intervals, he stalks his native Queens and drinks the blood of unfortunate passersby. Milo, then, is not an immortal, undead bloodsucker, just a messed-up teenage mass murderer. Except the film is constantly toying with our expectations, slyly suggesting that Milo's killing spree may have endowed him with supernatural powers. There's that title too, implying Milo is being "transfigured" into somet...

Get Out 's Allison Williams and Dear White People 's Logan Browning star in Netflix's B movie Black Swan about rival cellists. Yet somehow it doesn't quite work. The main problem is a common one for ambitious horror flicks – it tackles dark, very serious themes in a superficial way. Cast your minds back to 2008's Teeth , another film with an interesting subtext that was tonally all over the place. Most people agree Teeth is a black comedy, a body horror twist on a coming of age drama. Yet the plot sees the heroine Dawn repeatedly raped by pretty much every man she meets. 2008's Teeth sees heroine Dawn repeatedly raped... yet it's still a black comedy? True, these men do get their comuppence. Dawn fortunately has a toothed vagina, so it's soon raining severed dicks. But there's something horribly grim about watching repeated scenes of sexual abuse not taken very seriously. The Perfection  needs to treat its characters with mor...