CHECK IN AT YOUR PERIL: Hotels from hell

As the fifth season of the grisly American Horror Story, set in a hotel, continues (10pm, Fox), we take a look at some of the movie establishments you might want to avoid...

In 1980 shocker The Shining, it’s the remote Overlook Hotel that has more than its fair share of supernatural visitors. Jack Nicholson (1) ramps up the madness as the out-of-season caretaker who succumbs to something sinister in its never-ending corridors.

The Dolphin is the setting for 2007 chiller 1408, where it is the haunted hotel room of the title that is off limits to all but the most intrepid of guests – something professional debunker John Cusack views as a challenge. More fool him… And there’s a similar theme in 2011’s The Innkeepers. Here, The Yankee Pedlar is the supposedly haunted hotel about to close its doors for the last time. For some, that’s a veritable invitation to bust some myths – but are they really myths? In 1960 classic Psycho, it is Norman Bates, the owner of the Bates Motel, that you really need to watch. Anthony Perkins is the disturbed Bates; Janet Leigh is the unsuspecting guest checking in, never to leave. Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale are the couple taking refuge at the seedy Pinewood Motel in 2007 stalk-and-slasher Vacancy – and, like Leigh, they realise that they are the impromptu entertainment for the proprietor and his pals. But it’s not always the owners you need to watch... In 1990 kids’ film The Witches, a boy realises that his fellow guests at The Excelsior are not of this world – and they’re after him... Anjelica Huston (2) is the Grand High Witch who wants to rid the world of children.

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