Robert 'Freddy Krueger' Englund

Bangshowbiz:

The Exorcist has been named the top horror movie of all-time. The 1973 classic, which starred Linda Blair as a young girl possessed by the devil, was voted number one by HMV.com's online customers in the entertainment store's annual Horror Poll.

Mark Frampton HMV's DVD catalogue manager: "The horror genre was not really taken seriously for a long time, but it's moved on from the slightly camp Hammer stereotypes that many of us remember, and now enjoys the respect it fully deserves. It's become one of our most important genres, and Halloween is now a major calendar event for the business."

The Exorcist topped the first Horror Poll in 2005, but was replaced by Stanley Kubrick's The Shining last year.

The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson as a man who slowly goes mad living in an empty haunted hotel, has fallen back down to second place. Classic slasher movie, Halloween, starring Jamie Lee Curtis, was placed third, while A Nightmare on Elm Street, about monster Freddy Kruger who kills youngsters in their dreams, came fourth. Meanwhile, 1958 Hammer horror classic Dracula starring Christopher Lee was today re-released on DVD to mark the 50th anniversary of the Hammer horror genre.

HMV.com 2007 Annual Horror Poll top 10:

1. The Exorcist (1973) - William Friedkin

2. The Shining (1980) - Stanley Kubrick

3. Halloween (1978) - John Carpenter

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - Wes Craven

5. Ringu - The Ring (Japanese version) (1998) - Hideo Nakata

6. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - Tobe Hooper

7. The Omen (1976) - Richard Donner

8. Stephen King's It (1990) - Tommy Lee Wallace

9. Hellraiser (1987) - Clive Barker

10. Hostel (2005) - Eli Roth