Each week Simon Alderwick watches and shares his thoughts on some of the best horror films ever made. This week he looks at Terrified, Psycho and Let The Right One In.

Terrified is an Argentinian horror film released in 2017.  It starts as an impressively messed up haunted house movie, but it doesn’t take too long before half the neighborhood is under the influence of strange interdimensional demons.  The storyline, whilst original and captivating, takes second place to a series of nightmarish set pieces, featuring several effective jump scares, strengthened by disorientating audio and genuinely creepy monsters.

You might be left at the end of this film not quite knowing what you have witnessed as the movie plays out like a bad dream you can’t wake up from but for me this just adds to the intensity of the ride.  After you watch this movie you may want to sleep with the lights on for a few nights at least.

There’s nothing I can say about Psycho that hasn’t been said a hundred times since it was released in 1960 but I only recently watched it for the first time and even by today’s standards it stands head and shoulders above most movies.  It is simply an amazing film, with plenty of scares, a lot of creepiness and a masterfully told story.  Alfred Hitchcock is always one step ahead of the audience, whilst the characters are unaware they are in a horror until it is too late. Well worth a watch as this is undoubtedly one of the greatest horror films of all time.

Let The Right One In is a 2008 Swedish vampire romance with plenty of bite. Beautifully shot, with a classical score, opening to scenes of snow falling, the film soon draws you in with its dysfunctional characters and themes of bullying, isolation, identity, gender, morality and trust.

The two young leads and the excellent story (based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist) take you on a journey that mixes coming of age drama, young love and gothic horror in what must be the best vampire film of the modern era.



Simon Alderwick is a poet and songwriter from the UK. His work is featured or forthcoming in Whatever Keeps The Light On, Re-side and the Squiffy Gnu anthology, among others. Follow him on Twitter @SimonAlderwick.