THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985)

Set mostly in a medical supply house owned by Clu Gulager and run by James Karen, this classic 80s horror favourite details the events of a night when experimental nerve gas pioneered by the military escapes and brings the dead back to life.

Once they’re up and about they acquire a lusty appetite for human brains, and these living dead can’t be stopped by a blow to the head: like Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead they have to be literally chopped to pieces -and even then the pieces keep twitching. Legendary scream queen Linnea Quigley -who joins us this year -is a highlight as a death-obsessed punk who wanders half naked among the gravestones and fantasises about being bitten to death by old men!

ELVIRA’S HAUNTED HILLS (2001)

Our guest Sam Irvin directs his good pal Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) in ‘a feature film so terrifying, you will die...laughing.” It’s set in mid-19th century France where our well-endowed heroine is a can-can performer caught in the middle of a mysterious family curse. Enroute to Paris by stagecoach, Elvira and her maidservant Zou Zou (Mary Jo Smith) arrive at a spooky old haunted castle, where the crazed inhabitant Lord Vladimire Hellsubus (Rocky Horror star Richard O’Brien channelling Vincent Price, to whom the film is dedicated) is searching for the spirit of his lost love.