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Why do we all love to be scared so much? From the very beginning of cinema's history directors have been trying to scare the pants off us with a combination of spooky storylines, disarming effects and gruesome acting and, more often than not, succeeding.

From Nosferatu's Count Orlok leering at young women in 1922 to Janet Leigh making an untimely exit at the hands of Psycho's Norman Bates, from Linda Blair's head spinning horror in The Exorcist to the moment an uncredited Drew Barrymore answered the phone in teen death-fest Scream, generations of movie-goers have made the most of the sick and twisted imaginations of writers and actors.

From a very young age we love to be scared and kept in suspense - why do you think babies love to play peek-a-boo so much? The bonus with horror films is that, much as with the thrill of a roller coaster, we might be terrified of Freddie Krueger or Leatherface we know we're safe in our multiplex seat clutching our large popcorn rather too hard.

The jump out of your chair moments and tense chase scenes get our heart rate up and adrenaline pumping round our bodies, giving us the same great feeling as an exhilarating first date, a healthy jog or a big bar of Dairy Milk, so it's really no wonder that film makers are queuing up to take a bite of the winning genre with ever more imaginative, expensive and terrifying films.