The House With Laughing Windows (1976)
The Horror House: There are actually two horror houses in this movie: the titular house, now an abandoned, crumbling shack, and the remote villa art expert Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) is forced to move into while he’s working to restore a painting by the legendary artist of death, Buono Legnani (Tonino Corazzari). Both houses are peeling, plastered with horrible artwork, and hiding horrible secrets.
Who Lives There: No-one lives in the house with laughing windows; Stefano lives in the creepy villa with his elderly, decrepit landlady.
Scariest Room: It’s not the rooms, as such - it’s the decor.
How To Survive It: Give up on art and find a new career. Some paintings weren’t meant to be restored, and some houses weren’t meant to be visited.
The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1960)
The Horror House: The House of Usher is a gothic mansion that gets extra creepy points for being located in the middle of a swamp. The Usher bloodline is, purportedly, cursed, and when Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey) suddenly falls down dead, it looks like that curse is fulfilling itself.
Who Lives There: Madeline, her brother Roderick (Vincent Price), and their butler Bristol (Harry Ellerbe).
Scariest Room: The underground crypt. Both because its complicated layout makes it easy to get lost, and because it’s full of dead people.
How To Survive It: Make your excuses and leave the Ushers to their curse as soon as possible.
The Others (2001)
The Horror House: Another one of those sprawling isolated houses everyone lives in, in the movies, this particular haunted house is on Jersey. After the Second World War, Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman) moves her daylight-averse kids there to await news of her soldier husband.
Who Lives There: That’s not as straightforward a question as it seems, but let’s say the Stewarts, a group of creepy servants, and possibly a few other people, too.
Scariest Room: The whole house, kept in darkness to avoid hurting the children, is brilliantly eerie.
How To Survive It: Get out – if you can.
The House That Dripped Blood (1971)
The Horror House: If the walls of this house could talk, they’d keep you up all night with stories of all the terrible things that have happened there. Every single person who moves in gets into trouble of one kind of another – and most of them don’t live long enough to move out again.
Who Lives There: A whole succession of different people: writer Charles Hillyer (Denholm Elliot) and his wife (Joanna Dunham); waxwork obsessive Philip Grayson (Peter Cushing); strict father John Reid (Christopher Lee) and horror actor Paul Henderson (Jon Pertwee).
Scariest Room: The whole house is kind of a disaster, but the basement seems to be particularly dangerous.
How To Survive It: Don’t move in. Or, if it’s too late for that – move back out again.
The Silent House (2010)
The Horror House: The rundown, isolated house in this movie is smaller and less imposing-looking than most of the other rundown, isolated houses on this list, but you’d definitely close its RightMove tab. Especially because its walls are plastered with evidence of past child abuse.
Who Lives There: Laura (Florencia Colucci) and her dad (Gustavo Alonso).
Scariest Room: With the windows boarded up, it’s too dark to really tell the rooms apart, but the bedroom seems particularly horrible.
How To Survive It: That very much depends on who you are.
Dont Go In The House (1980)
The Horror House: The Kohler family home isn’t a happy one, as Mrs Kohler (Ruth Dardick) abuses her young son by burning him when he misbehaves. When she dies, Donny (Dam Grimaldi) takes out his pain on any woman he can lure back to the house – with a flamethrower.
Who Lives There: Donny Kohler.
Scariest Room: Mrs Kohler’s bedroom, where Donny keeps the charred corpses of the women he’s murdered.
How To Survive It: The title says it all, really.
The House Of The Devil (2009)
The Horror House: Babysitting’s always a hazardous occupation in a horror movie – even when there’s no baby involved. The house of the title is a remote and forbidding mansion, where cash-strapped college student Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) agrees to spend the night watching over an old woman.
Who Lives There: Mr Ulman (Tom Noonan) and his elderly mother (Mary Woronov).
Scariest Room: The basement, with its satanic decor.
How To Survive It: It’s tricky, but avoid eating or drinking anything, and run away as soon as possible. Alternatively, try being the kind of person cultists want to impregnate with the spawn of Satan; then they won’t let you die.
The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
The Horror House: An unassuming looking building, the home of serial killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) has hidden depths – literally. Deep beneath the house, there’s a room where Bill keeps women he’s trapped, starving them before killing them and removing their skin. Yuck.
Who Lives There: Jame Gumb, aka Buffalo Bill.
Scariest Room: The basement, with its dry well prison, is pretty grim.
How To Survive It: Use the lotion, and hope an FBI agent comes to the rescue.
13 Ghosts (1960)
The Horror House: The deceased Dr Zorba’s mansion comes fully furnished and decorated, but it also comes with a catch. Dr Zorba (Roy Jenson) was an occultist who brought his work home with him. There might be hidden treasure in the house, but the new owners will need to survive a supernatural onslaught if they want to find it.
Who Lives There: Cyrus (Donald Woods) and Hilda Zorba (Rosemary DeCamp), their children Medea (Jo Morrow) and Buck (Charles Herbert), and their mysterious new housekeeper, Elaine (Margaret Hamilton).
Scariest Room: The kitchen – it’s haunted by the ghost of a murderous chef who probably shouldn’t be given access to sharp objects.
How To Survive It: Generally being a nice person seems to be enough. That, and steering clear of the booby trapped four-poster.
House (1977)
The Horror House: A cheerfully decorated house in rural Japan, this house should’ve been the perfect place for Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) and her friends to spend their summer break. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the house is cursed. This one likes to devour unmarried girls.
Who Lives There: Gorgeous’s aunt (Yko Minamida)
Scariest Room: It’s not the rooms that are scary so much as the individual pieces of furniture – the mirror, piano, and even lampshade are forces to be reckoned with.
How To Survive It: It’s hard to say. Once you’re inside, there might not be a way out.
