4Ever since humans started gathering around the campfire to tell tales, ghost stories have haunted our imagination. Accounts abound of shrouded apparitions in rattling chains and vengeful souls wailing in the night, from Roman manuscripts and Egyptian papyri to Indian traditions and Japanese folklore.

Literary staples for centuries, peaking in Europe with the nineteenth century advent of the Gothic novel, spirits have appeared on film worldwide from the earliest days of cinema, coming back regularly over the following decades to in turn amuse, intrigue and terrorize audiences, from the late 1890s all the way to the contemporary boom of on-screen supernatural horrors.

Like many, award-winning filmmaker Axelle Carolyn (Soulmate, Tales of Halloween - both of which feature spectres) has been obsessed with haunted houses and revenants for as long as she can remember. In this volume, she surveys the last 120 years of the genre and reviews the 200 most memorable titles from across the globe. From timeless classics to recent blockbusters, quirky indies to international sensations, hidden gems to oddities, each of these movies has in some way contributed to the development of the ghost movie as we know it, in all its incarnations and cultural variants.

When hinges creak in doorless chambers, and frightening sounds echo through the halls... Welcome, foolish mortals, to The FrightFest Guide to Ghost Movies.