Not unlike sport publications, fantasy leagues and role playing games, the Almanac of Terror mixes and aggregates different statistics, facts, ratings and opinions. Most of the lists included in this book are sorted from best to worst according to their overall score. Some lists are sorted by pertinence.

This almanac covers franchises and public domain horror movies only. The current selection ensures that each movie can be logically related and compared to another or grouped by similarity. Movies are classified, and sorted according to inherent properties.

Our classification method uses genres, subgenres, ambiances and antagonists. Our different ratings are as follows: stars, story, creativity, action, quality and rewatchability. We sometimes use the "creepiness" factor when populating certain lists.