New movie V/H/S 2 has its sights set on scaring the bejeezus out of you. So we asked the directors, including Britain's own Gareth Evans, to critique other masters of the form, like that ad where the kid forgets to put his seatbelt on

The Grim Reaper stalks the reservoirs of Britain, hoping to lure an errant child to his death. A northern lad rescues a football from an electricity pylon before meeting a crispy end. Two friends caper along a train line as the rails begin to hum. A schoolboy sits moodily behind his mother, not bothering with his seatbelt. Even the threat posed by freshly polished floors was deemed enough to warrant a scare-ad by the Central Office of Information, the arm of the Cabinet Office that, until its austerity-driven closure last year, spent hundreds of millions of taxpayers' pounds (including a budget of £531m in 2009/10) trying to convince us we could die horribly, anywhere, at any time.

These government-sanctioned horror-compacts would suddenly appear between Home And Away and Blockbusters, their innocuous, innocent beginnings – boys flirting with girls as they walked home from school, one last pint before a quick drive home – building ominously towards violent tragedy.

It's tempting to imagine the COI offices somewhere deep in the bowls of Whitehall, its staff moonlighting as wannabe horror directors, sadistically plotting another nightmare scenario. Their infomercials certainly seemed to steal a few tricks from Hollywood genre movies in order to shock the British public into behaving themselves, though arguably the relationship was reciprocal; some of the stuff the COI came up with was genuinely innovative and unsettling, influencing the naturalistic set-ups of latter-day horror directors.

The Guardian showed five classic scare ads to some big players in the global horror game and asked: are the UK civil service the unlikely overlords of shock? Ahead of their new anthology film V/H/S/2, Gareth Evans (director, The Raid), Eduardo Sánchez (director, The Blair Witch Project), Jason Eisener (director, Hobo With A Shotgun), Gregg Hale (producer, Lovely Molly) and Simon Barrett (screenwriter, A Horrible Way to Die) offer their verdicts.

BOYS RETRIEVING A FOOTBALL FROM AN ELECTRICITY SUBSTATION, 1989



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This classic shocker, replete with mullets and Puffa jackets, shows a teenage boy breaking into a power station to retrieve a football for his younger brother.

Gareth Evans "That's nasty. The older kid had it coming, but that poor little bugger deserved better. They went all-out with the electrical sparks on that one."

Simon Barrett "You think it's made its point, but no – they're not done yet. The second kid goes up, and it happens again! I kind of expected it to just keep happening until everyone in the neighborhood was up there in a pile."

Gregg Hale "Love that synth soundtrack. They obviously dug John Carpenter."

Eduardo Sánchez "Yeah, they're pulling their whole style from Carpenter's The Thing here. The dumb kid's hair is pretty cool."

Jason Eisener "A terrifying film. I've actually seen a kid get electrocuted – he fell off a ladder and it blew part of his hand off. It sucks bigtime."

CAREFREE TEENAGERS USE THEIR MOBILE PHONES NEAR A BUSY ROAD, 2006



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Riffing on the handheld, found-footage trend ushered in by The Blair Witch Project, this 2006 advert from the THINK! campaign shows a group of hormone-fuelled schoolkids filming each other on their mobiles before one runs into the road without carefully looking both ways.

GE "That's really well done. I forgot how well these ads are made. They're actually very slick, very cinematic."

ES "Seems like the kind of commercial I would direct. They're so clearly mimicking the horror films of their time here." JE "There's a great illusion of reality. It quickly gets such a horrifying image into your head. Some feature films don't have that kind of impact."

GH "Some of the older ads are very obviously horror-influenced, and everything you're seeing suggests something scary and bad. What's clever here is that they hide the horror until the moment of impact."

SB "Whenever I see anyone walk into a road in a film, I expect them to get hit by a car. At this point I'd be surprised if I saw someone crossing the street in a film and make it to the other side."

KIDS CAPERING ALONG A RAILWAY LINE, 2006



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From an Australian campaign to improve train safety, this hard-hitting advert has a distinct Stand By Me quality.

GE "This is horrible. I like the ghost effect at the end, and I never saw that second train coming either."

ES "I love the narrator's calm tone over the screams. Makes it all the more eerie."

GH "The weird sci-fi death doesn't really work for me. I don't like the way they just fade away after being hit. I want to see them go splat!"

JE "This one sums it up: 'Always be on guard, kids! Learn to fear everything.'"

SB "Another fumbled football luring kids to their deaths. Perhaps there should be a public information advert about controlling footballs."

THE GRIM REAPER STALKS CHILDREN PLAYING NEAR A JUNK-FILLED LAKE, 1973



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This classic film is the undisputed champion of public-service scare ads, featuring a chilling voiceover from the not-very-aptly-named Donald Pleasence in the role of the Grim Reaper: "I am the spirit of dark and lonely water, ready to trap the unwary, the show-off, the fool."

GE "That's creepy shit. It's like Evil Dead. That voice, the gliding camera – totally horrible."

ES "It's the happy ending that gets me – hard luck, Spirit of Death! But as he warns us, menacingly, he'll be back."

JE "Yeah, I love the way the Grim Reaper is so heartbroken because the kids managed to save their friend from drowning, so he vows to come back and finish the job! I can remember looking out of the window and worrying about that."

GH "Who the hell would go swimming in places like that in the first place? It looks freezing!"

SB "I'm a little unclear as to what this is warning against. Water? Swimming? At least we can say the ad is clearly anti-drowning. I think we can all more or less agree with that."

SCHOOLBOY IN THE BACK FORGETS TO PUT HIS SEATBELT ON, 2009



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A relative newcomer on the public-service ad scene but making a name for itself with a shocking climax, this road safety warning uses a tailgating white van as a cheeky MacGuffin. But the real danger lies a lot closer to home.

GE "I remember this. The woman's death is so brutal. I can still hear the daughter's scream."

ES "What a great use of misdirection. I just didn't expect her to die that way."

GH "Yeah, that definitely packs a wallop. I didn't even know what happened at first. What a horribly effective jump-scare at the end."

SB "Very clever for the young; the idea you could kill someone other than yourself by not wearing a seatbelt is a decent way to get at people who value their own lives intermittently."

JE "It reminds me of the mentality of exploitation films of the 70s. They had no money, no stars, so how did they get noticed? By creating exploitative images that demanded the audience's attention."

V/H/S/2 is in cinemas from 14 Oct