Exploding heads, mutant aliens and bursting chests: horror’s greatest special effects – ranked!

From the beheading in The Omen to the attic scene in The Birds, here’s a countdown of the genre’s most iconic moments – in glorious, old-school pre-CGI style

20. Ring (1998)

Towards the end of the 20th century, when film-makers’ overreliance on CGI was increasingly making special effects less special, it took the old-school practical approach of Japanese film-maker Hideo Nakata to make one’s hair stand on end. Just when you think the cursed VHS tape has claimed its last victim, Sadako’s vengeful ghost emerges from the well, comes closer … and climbs out of the television screen.

19. The Phantom Carriage (1921)

The Swedish director Victor Sjöström makes extensive use of double exposure – all done in-camera because optical printing had yet to be developed – to depict Death’s soul-collecting carriage in this folk-horror classic.