Everyone loves a scary movie - everyone. Admittedly some of you may not have realised it yet but, trust us, you'll see the light eventually. Just remember: don't go into the light...
Horror and thriller movies have become as much a part of Halloween as ghosts, witches, pumpkins, fancy dress and trick-or-treat. They go together like bread and butter, salt and vinegar, blood and gore, stalk and slash. Well, you get the picture.
Haunted history
The marriage of Halloween and celluloid creepiness is not surprising when we consider how long the medium has been around. In fact, the movie widely believed to be the first in the horror genre was made in 1896 by French director Georges Méliès. Le Manoir du diable (released in the USA as The Haunted Castle and in the UK as The Devil's Castle) ran for just three minutes. Despite its brevity, the film presaged several tropes that would become familiar to audiences, notably the transformation of a human into a bat.
The first films of Edgar Allan Poe's famous tales of the macabre were made in the 1900s and the first movie version of Frankenstein was made in 1910. Other well known tales of the weird and the supernatural were also adapted: film versions of Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were just two among many that appeared in that decade.
In 1920, the broodingly atmospheric The Cabinet of Dr Caligari was released to wide acclaim. Two years later, Max Schreck appeared in Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, now usually known as simply Nosferatu. This unauthorised adaptation of Stoker's seminal vampire tale was a genuine horror film; a century later, Schrek's interpretation of the undead Count Orlok is genuinely scary. Nosferatu, perhaps more than any movie that had so far appeared, set the template and the standard for a whole genre.
Small wonder then that a famous scene from Nosferatu was the inspiration for our own 2014 YouTube Halloween feature.
Perilous private plate fun
Our Halloween post last year featured some of our favourite creepy cars and trucks from the film and TV, and of course, their sinister number plates. This year we thought we'd bring you something a little more challenging.
Below we have compiled 20 collections of the most evil number plates currently available from Regtransfers. Each numbered group references a well known movie or TV show by representing key words or characters from the work in question. Your task is to identify as many of those horrific horror flicks as you can.
Have fun. Happy Halloween!
The guess-the-movie quiz
1
- D3 MON
- PP21 EST
- 666 BED
- C12 OSS
- VOM 11T
2
- OV21 OOK
- HO73 ELS
- S157 ERS
- JOH 11Y
3
- MON 273R
- PLA 113T
- F4 CEE
- WE14 VER
4
- SH20 WER
- NOR 114N
- 84 TES
- MOT 3L
- XM07 HER
5
- MC21 AEL
- MYE 12S
- M44 SKK
6
- WAT 33R
- BOA 77S
- GR02 EAT
- GWH 17E
7
- MOO 12S
- WO11 FFS
- NUR 55E
8
- ASH 4
- FO22 EST
- THE 800K
- C444 RDS
9
- DR23 AMS
- F22 DDY
- KRU 96R
- SCA 12S
- F4 CEE
- S721 PES
10
- MAX 1S
- VAM 912E
- SCH 236K
- BA11 LDY
- STA 122S
- SH18 DOW
11
- V10 EOS
- CAM 312A
- FO22 EST
- W17 CHY
12
- H30 REN
- C21 OWS
- G11 LLS
- PEC 6K
13
- BOR 111S
- K421 OFF
- MON 273R
14
- CHR 115S
- 5 LEE
- VAM 912E
- CLO 4K
- FAN 6G
- S770 KER
15
- CHR 115S
- 5 LEE
- R177 UAL
- BUR 2N
- BR17 YTT
- EKL 411D
16
- 98 WEL
- CR02 AWL
- V10 EOS
- TV 1
- SC22 EEN
17
- M44 SKK
- S612 EAM
- SLA 5H
18
- FLY 111G
- SPH 312E
- FUN 324L
- A411 ENS
- DWA 112F
19
- C111 OWN
- SP11 DER
- SEW 3R
20
- J14 SON
- M44 SKK
- CRY 578L
- LAK 33S
- SLA 5H
Answers
- The Exorcist
- The Shining
- Alien
- Psycho
- Halloween
- Jaws
- An American Werewolf in London
- Evil Dead
- A Nightmare on Elm Street
- Nosferatu
- The Blair Witch Project
- The Birds
- Frankenstein
- Dracula
- The Wicker Man
- The Ring
- Scream
- Phantasm
- It
- Friday the 13th