Objets d'aaaaarrrgh

Trees! Sometimes they walk and talk, like the ents out of The Lord of the Rings. And sometimes they rape, like the one in The Evil Dead. This one is just a humble beech outside Dorking - even so, you can't quite trust it Photograph: Getty

Wigs! Is there anything more creepy than the hairpiece? Gabal is a Korean film about a wig that - wouldn't you know it? - was made from 'the hair of a cadaver' and is therefore 'possessed by a fiend'. Don't put on the wig! Photograph: PR

Milk! OK, so the glass of milk that Cary Grant carries up the stairs in Suspicion turns out to be all right in the end. So why the unearthly glow? On balance, it's best to stick to scotch Photograph: Kobal

Television! The little girl in 1982's Poltergeist was spooked and eventually abducted by the phantoms inside her idiot box. Today we are served with a diet of Ready Steady Cook and Strictly Come Dancing. A case of devil and deep blue sea Photograph: Kobal

Mirrors! The looking glass first went bad in the portmanteau British horror film Dead of Night, and it's been a tricky and unreliable object ever since. This year's Mirrors had hapless Kiefer Sutherland harassed by all manner of reflected terrors Photograph: PR

Dummies! By which we mean the ventriloquist's variety (at least until some South Korean director makes a film about a cursed pacifier that sucks the life from its baby owner). Here, for example, is a wheedling, tedious, over-acting little squit from the 1970s movie Magic. And look - he's got a dummy on his knee Photograph: Kobal

Puzzles! Don't be fooled: puzzles are not just unimaginative Christmas gifts from distant aunts who barely know you. They are unimaginative Christmas gifts from distant aunts who hate you and wish you dead and quite possibly want to wear your bones for a necklace. Here is one from Hellraiser (a puzzle that is, not an aunt) Photograph: Kobal

Trees! We can't warn you enough about the trees. The Guardian is a very bad film about a very bad baby-sitter. This sitter is really a druid and she plans to take nice, middle-class children and sacrifice them to a demented god of rustling leaves and and gnarled old roots. Have you guessed what it is yet? Photograph: Kobal

Vacuum cleaners! One comes alive in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and starts chasing a little kid around his house. This one seems to be playing a more subservient role ... for now Photograph: Getty

Cars! Christine is the star of a duff 1980s horror flick about a 1958 Plymouth that roars off on a hit-and-run tour of small-town America. The twist is that there's no one at the wheel. So steer clear of cars - particularly old ones Photograph: Kobal

Dolls! This, ostensibly, is a cosy, greeting-card image of a little girl tucked up in bed with her cherished toy. And yet, barely seconds later, this very same toy began spouting the filthiest expletives known to man. Then its head span through 360 degrees, and its plastic claws tugged out the child's intestines and proceeded to play them like a banjo. Avoid dolls Photograph: Kobal

Balloons! Look at this one, bobbing through that capacious home up in Amityville, perhaps leaking poison gas as it goes. Perhaps speaking in a squeaky, helium-high little voice. Don't try to pop it - it's full of napalm Photograph: Kobal

The video tape! Admittedly, these horrors are pretty rare these days. But there was a time, not so long ago, when they infested houses like asbestos; cluttering up cupboards and hiding evil curses in amid the grainy recordings of daytime soaps and late-night movies. This particular VHS once starred in Ringu and now sits on the shelf, biding its time Photograph: Guardian

Phones! Don't answer the phone, be they red phones, blue phones, old phones or new phones. One Missed Call redialed an old Takashi Miike number and went on to die a horrible death at the box office. This fellow used the phone a lot in his line of work - and just look what happened to him Photograph: AP

Computers! Like the power-crazed lunatic from 2001: A Space Odyssey, for example. Or like the humble home PC or desktop assistant ... Like the one you're sitting at ... The one you're touching right this second Photograph: Kobal