Choose your top 20
British horror television top 50
Take part in our British horror television top 50. Choose your 20 favourite television programmes, episodes, films or series. Full details and submission rules below…
Ghosts from the past, ghosts from the future: Haunted landscapes in British 1970s Television
David Evans-Powell explores haunted landscapes in 1970s British television and discovers not a warning to the curious, but instead perhaps a warning to the unvigilant...
Ancient Terrors – or the Terror of Ancientness? Archaeophobia in British Film and TV
Francis Young explores whether the distant past, in and of itself, can be a source of horror, leading to a distinct fear of the past: archaeophobia...
The Horror Documentaries of Mark Gatiss
J.D. Collins dissects what makes Mark Gatiss's BBC Horror documentaries so entertaining, and also how elements can be seen in his work...
One Of Your Sons: Penda’s Fen (1974)
Author K B Morris examines the 1974's BBC Play for Today, David Rudkin's Penda's Fen, and its exploration of the notion of Englishness...
Horror in the Britcom: The League of Gentlemen Christmas Special (2000)
In a special festive edition of Horror in the Britcom, A.J. Black explores the singularly hilarious and disturbing portmanteau, The League of Gentlemen Christmas Special...
West Country Tales (1982)
Jon Dear peers westward toward two episodes from 1982-83's supernatural anthology series, West Country Tales...
Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: Contemplating Roddy McDowall, the Panic of the Inevitable in The Cemetery and the Choices We Make
In this personal piece by Jamie Evans, he explores Roddy McDowall in 1969's Night Gallery, interprets the actor's performance and the writing of Rod Serling..
Time travel and The Box of Delights (1984)
Robert Edgar celebrates the enduring warmth and weirdness of the BBC's 1984 Christmas children's series, The Box of Delights...
Horror in the Britcom – One Foot in the Grave: Victor Meldrew’s New Nightmare
A.J. Black explores the macabre lurking within the BBC comedy, One Foot in the Grave, in his series on horror in the Britcom...
A Beguiling Bleakness: Casting the Runes (1979)
Following his final film for the BBC's A Ghost Stories for Christmas series, Lawrence Gordon Clark went freelance and landed at ITV where he turned his considerable talents toward directing…
Fear Of Fulchester: The Horrors of TV’s Crown Court
Ivan Kirby looks back at ITV drama, Crown Court, a perennial of 1970s/80s daytime television programming that - in pursuit of justice - often featured horror-inflected episodes...
Green Belt Gothic: Dead of Night (1972)
David Evans-Powell takes a look at the 1972 anthology series Dead of Night and its particular delight in terrorising the middle-class...
The Horror of the Intimate Camera: The Woman in Black (1989)
Why does The Woman In Black (1989) continue to cast a terrifying ghostly shadow over viewers more than 30 years after its first broadcast?
All Things Bright and Beautiful: How The Mad Death (1982) ravaged TV
Andrew Screen explores the BBC's chilling rabies outbreak serial, 1983's The Mad Death...
Completely Forked! Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible (2001)
Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible, an affectionate pastiche of 70s horror anthologies enjoyed a single series in 2001. Andrew Screen rifles through the episodes...
Karloff On Television: The ‘Other’ Thriller
A decade before Brian Clemens' Thriller, NBC in the US broadcast an identically-titled anthology show of its very own, introduced British horror legend, Boris Karloff. Jane Nightshade takes us back…
It went through the wall!: Quatermass and the Pit (1958)
Jon Dear, writer and co-host of the Nigel Kneale podcast, Bergcast, takes a detailed look at the classic 1958 BBC television production of Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit...
Nigel Kneale’s Beasts (1976)
Andrew Screen, author of the forthcoming The Book of Beasts, explores a 'touchstone of folk horror and hauntology', the seminal 1976 series Beasts by Nigel Kneale…
The Vault Of Horror – A Dr. Terror Retrospective: Part One
Graham Le Neve Painter reopens The Vault of Horror with the creative team behind BBC horror host Dr. Terror; entering the mouldering tomb via a two-part retrospective on the 1992…
Creeping through the countryside
At once sublime and horrifying, the English countryside is increasingly the backdrop in horror that explores a growing unease about our place in the world. Melissa Elborn digs deeper into…
Do you want the killer, or will anybody do?: Jack the Ripper (1988)
1988's Jack the Ripper was the very definition of event television and recently returned to public attention via re-broadcast on Talking Pictures TV. Dean Newman takes a scalpel to ITV's…
Whitechapel: Horror in the Dark Heart of London
Jamie Evans ventures into darkest London for the 'pulpy, luridly compelling' ITV series, Whitechapel...
A Nationwide Séance: The Unremitting Terror of Ghostwatch (1992)
Graham Williamson heads back to Halloween 1992 for the BBC's broadcast of Ghostwatch and examines how Stephen Volk's ghost story still endures despite only a single airing in almost 30…
‘There’s a dreadful strength in the land’: Nigel Kneale’s Murrain (1975)
K B Morris essays the conflict between reason and superstition in Nigel Kneale's Murrain (1975), and the recurring theme of female suffering and trauma at the hands of men in…
A Monstrous Birth: Revisiting Chimera (1991)
Revisiting Stephen Gallagher's Chimera, an early 90s TV mini-series exploring the perilous consequences when scientific advancement meets government corruption...
Hell Hath Fury: The ‘horror illuminatum’ of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004)
Exploring the potential influences and ways in which genre and horror fiction are used and referenced in the classic comedy/meta series, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace...
Bernard Cribbins: The Lost Interview
A never before published interview with the late Bernard Cribbins, originally conducted almost 30 years ago by Adam Jezard, in which the actor discusses his work in the genres of…
Threads (1984): The Night Britain Didn’t Sleep
Dean Newman explores the BBC's horrifying 1984 nuclear attack drama, Threads...
Ghosts In Time: revisiting Moondial (1988)
Time-travel or ghost story? Robert Taylor takes a look at Moondial, a classic children’s drama that puts the resilience of children, in the face of adversity, at its heart...
The Vault Of Horror – A Dr. Terror Retrospective: Part Two
Graham Le Neve Painter once again draws back the curtain on the BBC's The Vault of Horror with the creative team behind Dr Terror...
Public Information Films: Dark & Lonely Waters
The nightmare fuel of a generation of schoolchildren. Public Information Films of the 70s and 80s were mini horrors and warnings to the curious...
Hammer House of Horror (1980): a personal reflection
Jason Brawn reflects on, Hammer House of Horror, one of the most important British television horror programmes of his childhood...
‘To be adored is something I recommend’: A Tom Baker Career
Graham Williamson looks at the career of the great Tom Baker, including his tenure as the Doctor...
Stingless Stories: Scorpion Tales (1978)
Scorpion Tales occupies a lower tier in the pantheon of great British horror television of the 1970s, but did it deserve more than a single series? Andrew Screen investigates the…
Inspiring Rewilding (2023)
As the folk horror anthology Rewilding lands on Prime Video, its director Ric Rawlins discusses ten of its key inspirations – from Moomins to M.R James…
Better Dead Than Bored: Urban Gothic
Andrew Screen encounters Channel Five's early Millennium low-budget horror anthology, Urban Gothic...
Keckwick and the Land of Sea and Fret: The Woman in Black (1989)
Robert Taylor explores the role of Keckwick and the landscape of The Woman in Black (1989) in a time when regional networks created event television....
Horror in the Britcom: Alan Partridge’s Nor(folk) Horror
Author A.J. Black returns with the latest in his Horror in the Britcom series. This time, he explores the (Nor)folk horror lurking in and around Steve Coogan's hilariously appalling Alan…
The Forgotten Terrors of The Frighteners (1972)
Long-neglected anthology series, The Frighteners (1972), utilised cultural concerns of the period in telling its pitch-black horror tales. Andrew Screen takes a closer look at the series' 13 episode run...
Horror in the Britcom: Only Fools and Fridays
A.J. Black's series looking at horror in British comedy discovers the 'not-so-hidden' horrors in one of Britain's most beloved sitcoms, Only Fools and Horses...
Local Gothicism: The Everyday Horrors of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith
Sophia Adamowicz explores the distinctive blend of the macabre and the mundane in the work of The League of Gentlemen’s long-standing writing and acting partners...
The enduring terror of Alternative 3 (1977)
Graham Williamson revisits 1977's fictional hoax, Alternative 3. 'One of the most intoxicatingly, terrifyingly paranoid programmes ever broadcast on British television...'
White Men Are Cracking Up: Siren Spirits (1994)
Andrew Screen explores the little-seen 1994 BBC horror anthology, Siren Spirits, which explored family and race-relations in contemporary society.
Hammer on Television: Journey To The Unknown (1968)
Hammer's forgotten horror anthology series, 1968's Journey to the Unknown, was broadcast over a decade before their House of Horror. But how does it stack up?
Ghosts (1995)
Jon Dear revisits 1995's Ghosts, the short-lived BBC anthology show set in modern Britain...
Dread, Desolation and Urban Isolation: Shadows of Fear
Andrew Screen tackles Thames Television's early 70s anthology, Shadows of Fear, which eschewed the supernatural for more psychological horrors...
Don’t Go Mia: Horror Elements in 2Point4 Children
J.D. Collins resurrects 90s sitcom 2point4 Children, from the realm of cosy sitcom blandness, to explore its supernatural undercurrents and brooding production values.
‘Always on, always suffering’: Replication, Repetition and Recursion in Black Mirror
Sophia Adamowicz discusses how technology is used to simulate the horrors of hell in Charlie Brooker’s television drama, Black Mirror...
Horror Imagery in I May Destroy You (2020)
Graham Williamson explores Michaela Coel's I May Destroy You, the hit BBC series, and finds ‘a recurrent thread of horror imagery around the edges of the show’...
Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends: Weird ’90s
Graham Williamson discusses Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, a staple of 90s television weirdness (and even weirder subjects)...
Working Class Horror: Govan Ghost Story (1989)
Duncan Gates examines the angry progressivism of the ghostly tale and explores BBC Play One's 1989 effort, Govan Ghost Story...
‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ Revisiting Mark Gatiss’ Crooked House (2008)
Mark Anthony Ayling revisits Mark Gatiss's 2008 horror anthology, Crooked House, and the ordinary - and extraordinary - fears contained within...
Charlie Brooker’s Dead Set (2008)
Brontë Schiltz essays Charlie Brooker's Channel 4 zombie outbreak series, Dead Set, which exposes the very real horror at the heart of reality television programming...
‘Like Birds Caught in Bushes’: Robin Redbreast (1970)
K B Morris explores the conflict between fate and free will in John Bowen's 1970 folk horror television play, Robin Redbreast...
Stigma (1977)
1977 marked a departure for the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas with an original contemporary-set tale written specifically for the series. David Evans-Powell explores Stigma...
The Ash Tree (1975)
Graham Williamson essays The Ash Tree, the 1975 episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas, adapted by David Rudkin, writer of Penda's Fen...
A View From A Hill (2005)
Screenwriter Simon Allen offers a uniquely personal perspective on the work of M.R. James and interviews Luke Watson, director of the 2005 revival episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas, A View From a Hill...
The Stalls of Barchester (1971)
Richard Higson discusses why, of all the films in the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series, The Stalls of Barchester is the episode he keeps returning to...
Martin’s Close (2019)
Peta Stamper's companion piece to Graham Williamson's essay on the BBC's A Ghost Stories for Christmas episode explores M.R. James' as a story and place of visitations, retribution and doubt...
The Ghost Story for Christmas and the Christmas Ghost Story
Dr. Derek Johnston introduces Horrified's retrospective with some thoughts on the ghost story for Christmas and the Christmas ghost Story...
Lost Hearts (1973)
Sarah Coomer, whose A Ghost Story for Christmas-inspired illustrations feature in this retrospective, discusses the 1973 episode, Lost Hearts...
The Signalman (1976)
Following several M.R. James adaptations, Lawrence Gordon Clark turned to Charles Dickens for the sixth A Ghost Story for Christmas episode. Johnny Restall explores Dickens' classic haunted tale, The Signalman...
Lost Hearts (1973)
One of the more controversial episodes in the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series. Ellis Reed makes a personal exploration into 1973's Lost Hearts...
Whistle and I’ll Come To You (1968)
Graham Williamson examines Whistle and I'll Come to You, the unofficial first instalment in the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series...
The Tractate Middoth (2013)
Mark Gatiss took up the mantle of producing the first BBC A Ghost Story for Christmas for three years with an adaptation of M.R. James' The Tractate Middoth. Paul Lewis discusses Gatiss's 2013 effort...
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974)
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas was the first of two A Ghost Story for Christmas episodes to be adapted (or written as an original tale) by celebrated writer, John Bowen. Conrad Kurtz looks back at the 1974 episode...
The Dead Room (2018)
Jon Dear looks at the 2018 episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas - this time eschewing the traditional M.R. James adaptation in favour of an original story, The Dead Room, written and directed by Mark Gatiss...
A Warning to the Curious (1972)
Perhaps the best remembered of the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series, Daniel McGachey explains why A Warning to the Curious still retains its ability to unsettle...
Martin’s Close (2019)
Mark Gatiss returned to M.R. James for 2019's A Ghost Story for Christmas, adapting the writer's 1911 tale, Martin's Close. Graham Williamson explores the episode...
The Stalls of Barchester (1971)
The first official episode of the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series was an adaptation of the M.R. James' story, The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral. Lee Broughton explores the film in detail...
The Ice House (1978)
With Lawrence Gordon Clark having absconded to ITV, Derek Lister took the reins for what became the final film in the original run of the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas. Jon Dear explores The Ice House...
The Signalman (1976)
Paul Childs explores The Signalman, the 1976 episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas adapted from Charles Dicken's tale, and ponders the inescapability of fate...
Whistle and I’ll Come To You (2010)
The decision to re-adapt Whistle and I'll Come to You for 2010's A Ghost Story for Christmas divided fans of the series and M.R. James' original story. Jon Dear explores Andy de Emmony's effort...
Stigma (1977)
1977's A Ghost Story for Christmas marked the final film in the series to be directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. Stigma also heralded a change in style, as Adrian Pennington's essay discusses...
Number 13 (2006)
Relocating M.R. James' original story from Denmark to England, the BBC followed up the previous year's A View From a Hill with Number 13. Graham Williamson explores Pier Wilkie's 2006 adaptation...