There’s nothing quite like a good old classic horror film to get the pulse racing on Halloween.

As a bit of an authority on the subject himself — having watched thousands of titles down through the years — local movie buff Mal MacDonald knows this better than most.

The fact is that horror flicks have been a staple of film-goers since the advent of “moving pictures” 130 years ago, with the German silent classic 'Nosferatu' – based loosely on Bram Stoker’s 'Dracula' – released way back in 1922, setting the tone for a century of scares since.

“Let’s just say, with horror, it’s not just ‘good’ movies, it’s the ‘bad’ movies as well that have been popular over the years,” Mal said.

“You’ve heard of the term ‘schlock’ have you? There’s been plenty of that, as well as classics, and people still love them,” he added.

The enduring appeal of the genre, he believes, is that it’s great fun to see seemingly-average people in very abnormal situations, try and navigate scary scenarios and creepy consequences, that none of us would ever want to be in ourselves in a million years.

“It’s a thing about being scared, but not in danger yourself,” Mal explained. “It’s about investing in the character, and wondering how they are ever going to survive.”

From his niche Orange store Reel Memories, he catalogues the sometimes impressive, occasionally embarrassing, efforts over the years in the dread game.

“There’s a bit of a revival for a lot of these old movies... parents have seen them on television or streaming and watched, them with their kids.

“Streaming services are good, but people still like to have the CD with the cover notes and a physical copy of the movie.”

From the early Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, and Bela Lugosi classics – 'The Phantom of the Opera', 'Frankenstein', 'The Wolf Man', 'The Mummy' – to B-grade classics from the 1950s on, horror films have been a steadfast diet for viewers over the decades.

“People love them; ‘Creature from The Black Lagoon’, ‘The Blob’, and all those Vincent Price classics, ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’, ‘House of Wax', ‘The Raven’, then the Hammer Horror films of the 1960s and 1970s with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

“Then you have a genre of Italian horror classics such as ‘Zombie Holocaust’, ‘Last Man on Earth’, then through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, with the advent of the ‘slasher’ films’ – ‘Prom Night’, ‘Friday the 13th’, and ‘Dressed to Kill’ with Angie Dickenson,” Mal listed off.

Put on the spot, he lists (in no particular order) his top horror films as including: 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon', '20 Million Miles to Earth', 'A Nightmare on Elm Street', and the original Vincent Price version of 'The Fly'.

“Hollywood great Joan Crawford even starred in a few at the end of her career, such as ‘Strait Jacket’ and a terrible film ‘Trog’ with the catchy theme song 'Popcorn', movies like that,” Mal revealed.

“They were real schlock horrors, but people loved them, they just love being scared!”