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Some of the best folk horror movies of all time base their scares on the slow-burn creepiness of the rural setting. Others are terrifying movies about cults. David Bruckner's 2017 horror film "The Ritual" dabbles in both, and adds in a haunted house aspect with a strange settlement in the middle of a Swedish forest. Then, it becomes something else altogether.

As a group of hikers finds out to their detriment, all the folk horror elements in the movie come courtesy of a single entity: A supernatural beast known as Moder, which is both terrifying to behold and so utterly powerful that it might be able to go toe to toe with just about any other horror movie monster out there. Let's find out more about Moder, the animalistic horror movie god lurking at the center of "The Ritual"...

How do you like your horror? Elevated arthouse or sleazy splatter? Comfortably cliched or disturbingly groundbreaking? Disgustingly gruesome or so subtle you can’t work out why you’re uneasy? Do you limit your consumption of horror films to Halloween but steer clear the rest of the year? Or are you a horror fiend who just can’t get enough of it, whatever the season?

The good news is that the horror genre has been going strong for more than a century, so you’ll never run out of films to scare you. From early silents Le Manoir du diable (1896) and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) to this year’s genuinely gruesome slasher hit Terrifier 3 – which recently knocked Joker: Folie à Deux off the top of the US box office – there has never been any shortage of audiences lining up to be chilled, unsettled or downright freaked out. Just look at this year’s robust box office on Abigail, Immaculate and Longlegs, as well as artier offerings such as The Substance. The future of cinema, it seems, is horror. And not just in terms of profit, but in visual imagination, envelope-pushing and audience enjoyment.

Every genre fan knows Dracula and Frankenstein, King Kong, The Exorcist, Carrie, An American Werewolf in London, The Silence of the Lambs and so on. But behind every gamechanger, there are antecedents and influences, both direct and indirect. And however beloved the canon, there are always less familiar treasures to be unearthed. So here I have traced the evolution of the horror genre in 10 films. For the most part I have avoided the big beasts and instead highlighted some less familiar, but no less significant efforts in the long history of the genre.

If the most recent title in this selection is from 2001, it doesn’t mean 21st-century horror is in decline. On the contrary, the genre is thriving, with film-makers such as Jordan Peele exploring new avenues, more female directors adding their voices to the mix, and subgenres overlapping in surprising new ways. It takes time for trends to coalesce; it wasn’t until 30 years after its release that The Wicker Man (1973), and films with related themes, were given the label “folk horror”. But of one thing you can be sure: the genre is a constantly evolving beast, and horror films will continue to shock, delight and terrify us for many years to come...

• Monsters: Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
• Mad science: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)
• Satanism: The Seventh Victim (1943)
• Dreams and hallucinations: Dead of Night (1945)
• Aliens: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
• Slashers: Peeping Tom (1960)
• Sadeian cinema: Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
• Zombies and gore: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
• Body horror: Videodrome (1983)
• Techno horror and ghosts: Kairo, AKA Pulse (2001)

Nick Frost both writes and stars in the folk horror comedy Get Away – a movie originally going by the name Svalta. The synopsis reads as follows:

"Looking forward to a vacation on the small Swedish island of Svälta, the Smith family is unsettled by the unfriendly mainlanders who advise them to avoid the island at all costs, especially during the Karantan festival. But the 4-member family is in deep need of some time away & stubbornly decides to take the ferry anyway. On the island, the locals are rather rude & unwelcoming, and their behavior suggests that some big event is about to happen. Is it a cult? Is there a sacrifice in the works? Seemingly unbothered by so much discourtesy and drama, the family enjoys a swim in the sea, treks in the woods, and, oh, the silent isolation… which turns out to be a pretty perfect situation for the Smiths, who have special plans of their own."

Get Away will be available to watch on Sky Cinema from the 10th January.

Watch the trailer...

A mysterious radio station that has broadcasted a monotone buzzing sound and the occasional odd voice for decades has left scientists baffled.

The shortwave radio station, found on frequency 4625 kHz, has been running for at least 50 years. It has been appropriately nicknamed 'The Buzzer'.

But rumors as to its origins continue to swirl online today.

One alarming theory is that the sound is a signal which, if ceases, indicates a nuclear attack is imminent. Others say the buzzing sound is a foreign government's attempts to communicate with visiting alien species.

However, the most common theory among experts is that the radio waves come out of Russia, which may be reserving the frequency for an impending emergency...

... A truism of combat is that whoever shoots first wins, and having a drone wait while a human makes a decision can cede the initiative to the enemy. Warfare at its core is a competition—one with dire consequences for the losers. This makes walking away from any advantage difficult.

Experts believe the “man in the loop” is indispensable, now and for the foreseeable future, as a means of avoiding tragedy, says Zach Kallenborn, an expert on killer robots, weapons of mass destruction, and drone swarms with the Schar School of Policy and Government. “Current machine vision systems are prone to making unpredictable and easy mistakes.”

Mistakes could have major implications, such as spiraling a conflict out of control, causing accidental deaths and escalation of violence. “Imagine the autonomous weapon shoots a soldier not party to the conflict. The soldier’s death might draw his or her country into the conflict,” Kallenborn says. Or the autonomous weapon may cause an unintentional level of harm, especially if autonomous nuclear weapons are involved, he adds.

While physical courage may not be necessary to take lives, Kallenborn notes that the human factor retains one last form of courage in the act of killing: moral courage. That humans should have ultimate responsibility for taking a life is an old argument. “During the Civil War folks objected to the use of landmines because it was a dishonorable way of waging war. If you’re going to kill a man, have the decency to pull the trigger yourself.” Removing the human component leaves only the cold logic of an artificial intelligence…and whatever errors may be hidden in that programmed logic.

If autonomous weapons authorized to open fire on humans is an inevitable future, as some armies and experts think it is, will AI ever become as proficient as humans in discerning enemy combatants from innocent bystanders? Will the armies of the future simply accept civilian casualties as the price of a quicker end to the war? These questions remain unanswered for now. And humanity may not have much time to wrestle with these questions before the future arrives by force...

... You may have already seen some of those movies. But if you’re looking for more cinematic scares, here are 10 killer films that may have sneaked past your radar but are worth a scream, ahem, stream, in time for Halloween.

• In a Violent Nature
• MadS
• It’s What’s Inside
• Red Rooms
• Out Come the Wolves
• Caddo Lake
• Daddy’s Head
• What You Wish For
• Infested
• Oddity

It’s scary movie season, a time when many people watch films about zombies, serial killers, werewolves, magic and mysterious monsters who are impossible to kill.

However, as far as I know, there’s only one film that features all of those elements – and you’ve probably never seen it.

Made in 2007, “Trick ‛r Treat” consists of four interconnected horror stories, each about 15 to 20 minutes long, that all take place on a single Halloween night.

While characters from one story sometimes appear in other segments, the unifying force in the film is Sam, a mysterious creature wearing a burlap mask. He takes umbrage whenever a character disrespects a Halloween tradition, whether it’s by scaring away trick-or-treaters or blowing out a jack-o’-lantern before Halloween is over. Each meets a gruesome end.

Horror buffs eventually discovered the film. Today, it’s hailed as a modern classic...

... The belief in ghosts is a funny thing. Despite there being no evidence to support their existence, ghosts have haunted humanity wherever they have settled across the planet. Every age and every culture has its own type of ghost and ghost stories, each shaped by its own peculiar context. And despite the rise of scientific thinking in the 20th and 21st centuries, the belief in unquiet spirits is still very much alive...

This Halloween, comedian and filmmaker Mike Handelman has created a new vision in terror: a family restaurant called Verne Wells Lovecraft! With the help of director Joe Whelski, artists Rocco George and Dylan Mars Greenberg, and musicians hot glue and the gun, this short begins as a commercial for a family dining establishment that soon becomes something far more sinister. If you love Adult Swim’s surrealist brand of comedy, then this is a must-watch.

“Verne Wells Lovecraft was inspired by my time doing spooky improv comedy dinner theater at New York’s Jekyll and Hyde Club. It was an extremely cheesy (but fun) sort of Mel Brooks-ian animatronic experience where the fantasy was the restaurant run by magic, full of public domain characters like Frankenstein, the Mummy, and Wolfman, and of course, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So for this project, I thought of making my own restaurant using a different set of public domain IP.

Because three is better than one, and it felt so weird and specific to the kind of crazy person who’d open a place like this, I went with Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and HP Lovecraft. And rather than Manhattan, which has been done, I put it in nearby Jersey City, for its own weird history and because New Jersey is kind of a joke unto itself (apologies to anyone from there, at least it’s not Long Island).

Verne, Wells, and Lovecraft, besides being in the public domain, come with such rich worlds and established fans, but the one I’m most drawn to is Lovecraft, because what’s funnier than cosmic horror? I’d love for Verne Wells Lovecraft to become a movie or TV show, but for now, I’m just happy I got to make something cool with my friends that incorporates my own weird sense of humor, puppets, Dylan Mars Greenberg’s amazing 3D world-building, and of course, music!”

Horror is the movie genre most positioned to take advantage of the fears and desires in the deepest parts of the human psyche. It’s also the genre that has pushed the boundaries of what can and should be seen on the screen, particularly in recent years. Horror films, particularly those released in the 1980s and afterward, have worked very hard to plumb the hearts and minds of viewers, bringing out those things that many people are afraid to face in their everyday lives and laying it all out on the screen. These films stay in the mind long after the final scene, demonstrating horror’s enduring power...

• 'Bone Tomahawk'
• 'The Wicker Man'
• 'Speak No Evil'
• 'The Witch'
• 'The Fly'
• 'Tusk'
• 'Jeepers Creepers'
• 'In a Violent Nature'
• 'Saint Maud'
• 'Funny Games'
• 'A Serbian Film'
• 'Martyrs'
• 'Cannibal Holocaust'
• 'The Human Centipede'
• 'Hostel'
• 'The First Omen'
• 'Get Out'
• 'Annihilation'
• 'Hereditary'
• 'Midsommar'

Horror movies often thrill audiences with their high-stakes tension, but a unique sense of discomfort comes from a movie where no one makes it out alive. Instead of a great "Final Girl" braving her way through a scary situation, nihilistic endings strip away any hope of survival, leaving viewers with a chilling sense of dread. Horror movies where absolutely everyone dies highlight the genre's darkest, most unforgiving conclusions.

Whether it's through ritualistic sacrifices, supernatural forces, deadly creatures, apocalyptic circumstances, or deadly viral outbreaks, a horror film may present a relentless march toward doom with a story that refuses to let anyone escape death. They don't just frighten with jump scares and gore but also emphasize the inevitability of death by creating movie endings so bleak that they linger even longer. Some horror movies don't let anyone escape, instead reminding audiences that sometimes the greatest terror is the absence of hope...

• The Thing (1982)
• Quarantine (2008)
• Unfriended (2014)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Dead Silence (2007)
• Cabin Fever (2002)
• House Of 1000 Corpses (2003)
• Final Destination 5 (2011)
• Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
• The Cabin In The Woods (2011)