Student life can be terrifying – and we're not just talking about the hangovers. According to the movies, university campuses run red with blood (particularly in America, for some reason).

Henry Northmore bolts screaming from five of the best cult student horror films.

Black Christmas (1974)

Perhaps best to save this one for December, but many consider Black Christmas to be the first modern slasher movie (it predates Halloween by four years). An unseen killer lurks in a sorority house, picking off the occupants one by one before they head home for the holidays. The perfect antidote to all the usual festive cheer. Avoid the inferior 2006 remake.

Pieces (1982)

There's a killer on campus and he's using a chainsaw to make his own human jigsaw puzzle. Gory, sloppy and packed with laughs both intentional and unintentional. So bad and truly bonkers that it borders on genius. The climax in particular is just pure nutzoid deranged madness.

Vamp (1986)

Three hapless students aim to hire a stripper for their upcoming frat party. Unfortunately for them, they end up in a strip club populated by vampires (with Grace Jones playing the lead bloodsucker, Queen Katrina) in this gloriously camp 80s horror comedy.

Scream 2 (1997)

The second instalment of Wes Craven's meta-horror phenomenon finds Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) at college and being stalked by a copycat killer resurrecting the Ghostface guise. A deconstruction of slasher cinema which parodies the concept of sequels.

The House of the Devil (2009)

College kid Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) thinks she's just going to be babysitting for the night but ends up deep in a world of psychotic killers and satanic worship in writer / director Ti West's pitch-perfect homage to 70s / 80s genre movies.