Reviews by Kyle Ellis

Played by: Eihi Shiina

Film(s): [Link removed - login to see]

She's a serial seducer and torturer who keeps her victims in sacks. Remember, words create lies but pain can be trusted. Kiri kiri kiri...

Played by: Wesley Snipes

Film(s): [Link removed - login to see], [Link removed - login to see], [Link removed - login to see]

Unusually violent for a Marvel property, Blade avoids the moral ambiguities of the similarly trigger-happy Punisher by only slaughtering vampires. He's also cooler than Steve McQueen at the South Pole.

Played by: Roddy McDowall

Film(s): [Link removed - login to see]

Roddy McDowall's prissy, hammy horror show host, forced to discover his faith and become the thing he's pretended to be for thirty years when he's confronted with real vampires, is a delight. Miles away from David Tennant's vulgar creation in the murky remake, McDowall's turn is a reminder of a more innocent time in horror.

Played by: Roy Scheider

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One of the wonders of Jaws is that its three heroes seem like ordinary guys, played by men who didn't wander straight out of modelling school and onto a movie set. When Roy Scheider's Martin Brody takes his shirt off, there's no rippling six-pack underneath. Brody is an ordinary guy catapulted into extraordinary circumstances, and Scheider makes him rich, relatable, human; the perfect man, then, to dispose of a villain that's everything but. Smile, you sonofabitch.

Played by: Michael Ironside

Film(s): Scanners (1981)

Michael Ironside's cocksure scanner will blow your mind. Sometimes literally, on live TV.

Played by: Tony Todd

Film(s): [Link removed - login to see]

Tony Todd's hook-handed legend has, unusually for a franchise fiend, layers of emotional depth and something of a tragic sheen. We know what happens if you say his name five times into a mirror, but what happens if you type it? Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Can... actually, let's leave it there.

Played by: Florence Pugh

Film(s): Midsommar (2019)

Listen, just don’t dump a girl when she’s dealing with the death of her entire family. Ari Aster makes the scariest break-up movie you’ve ever seen, in which Florence Pugh proves she wears both a frown and a flower crown like nobody else. Dani is looking forward to fun frolics in the Swedish countryside as much as anyone would – but what she finds there, and how she deals with it, reveals something so much more sinister than your usual summer holiday. It might be all sunshine and rainbows, actually – but there’s still a lot to fear when it comes to this particular May Queen too.

Played by: Angus Scrimm

Film(s): [Link removed - login to see]

Angus Scrimm, in a suit that's too tight for him to accentuate his slender frame, squints and scowls for all he's worth as the iconic bad guy of Don Coscarelli's completely (and we mean this with love) bonkers franchise. An inter-dimensional alien being who poses as an undertaker while he prepares to wage war with his army of psycho dwarves and flying balls (stop sniggering), The Tall Man is just one of many (maybe even millions) - which makes him that much harder to stop.

Played by: Lon Chaney Jr.

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Sorry Benicio. There's only room enough for one Wolf Man on this list and that goes to Chaney Jr., whose quiet, tormented dignity makes his monster Universal.

Played by: Doug Jones

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Nightmarish craziness from the mind of Del Toro, The Pale Man carries his eyeballs in his hands. Bizarrely, it's still all the better to see you with.