AFTER a couple of columns ranting about the appalling state of the rail network between Bolton and Manchester, I decided to talk about a different kind of nightmare.

More specifically, which movies give you bad dreams. The subject occurred to me because this week, Hereditary, a film cited/hyped by some critics as one of the scariest ever, opens in cinemas. It reminded me of a recent piece by Guardian film writer Peter Bradshaw, in which he named his top 25 of ‘The Scariest Horror Films Ever’.

Lists like this are always controversial and fraught with danger. One person might curl up in a ball in terror watching Freddy Krueger terrorise sleeping teenagers in the 1984 original A Nightmare on Elm Street. My 20-year-old son laughed himself silly when he saw it not that long ago. In my opinion, there are some spot-on choices that I wholeheartedly agree with.

What is scary is subjective. It has to be. Some people are terrified of spiders, which would make comedy/horror/thriller Arachnophobia probably unbearably frightening for them.

Second, it’s important to establish what we mean by scary.

If you jump out of your skin a dozen times in a movie and feel afraid to watch what might come next, surely that ticks the boxes? Surely that is the perfect example of a scary film, regardless of how critically acclaimed or popular it is?

On top of that, films can be frightening without jump scares or gore. They are the ones that are able to convey a scene of unease or creeping dread that stays with you long after you have finished watching the film.

Among the 25 on the list were ones I entirely agreed with – Halloween, The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby for example. (Hang on, I can already hear some readers screaming out – “Those films aren’t SCARY … for goodness sake get a grip!” Or words to that effect.).

Others included are great films, with scary bits in them – and that is an important distinction. These are classics, but I don’t think they are candidates for the scariest of all time – Night of the Living Dead, The Shining and Psycho.

And last year’s popular Get Out is also named. There is no denying that Get Out is an excellent thriller, as is the admittedly brilliant Silence of the Lambs which is also listed. But I certainly wouldn’t even have classed either of them as horror films.

Two films not included, which would always be in my top 10, are 1963’s The Haunting and Tobe Hooper’s 1974 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The first is black and white, with zero special effects. But the old house is beyond creepy and the way director Robert Wise uses sound effects really ramps up the tension. The second is a notorious forerunner of the 1980s ‘slasher’ movies like Friday the 13th, but is a gruelling, disturbing (and surprisingly gore free) experience.

It remains to been seen whether Hereditary will join my list. So, here is my top 10. Agree or disagree? Let me know – it would be good to see what movies scare you…

1 Halloween (1978). 2 The Haunting (1963). 3 Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). 4 The Wicker Man (1973).5 Don’t Look Now. 6 The Exorcist. 7 Rosemary’s Baby. 8 It Follows. 9 The Babadook. 10 Alien.