In this twilight period of Halloween and the Day of the Dead, and with Bonfire Night imminent, the scary and the weird invade our streets and people gather to watch horror revenge tales at home or the cinema. Revenge in fiction can be shocking, but it often embeds a moral message. There is heroic revenge, a staple of the American movie world, in which the determined hero or anti-hero acts against an evil protagonist (the law being ineffective or absent). And there is righteous revenge, as in tales of women who exact bloody retribution on abusing men, a denouement that can bring cheers from an audience. Oppressors and bullies, goes the sentiment, often deserve what they get.