Britain's biggest fears revealed

The fancy dress parade at Halloween never fails to impress. From killer clown to ‘warts and all’ witches, superheroes to dead celebrities, your local ‘trick or treaters’ are no doubt concocting their latest gruesome outfit already - inevitably involving a bed sheet, a pair of scissors and a whole heap of tomato ketchup.

But if you really want to scare this Halloween then here are some costume ideas that will guarantee to have the British public recoiling in fear.

Research found that Britons' biggest fear is of spiders. Despite the size difference and our ability to stamp on them with ease these eight legged enemies cause two fifths of us to leap onto the nearest chair in fright; next scariest is heights, with 35 per cent of us admitting we'd struggle to hold our nerve when faced with a drop; while 21 per cent would get stage fright at the thought of public speaking.

Irrational or not, many Brits have a genuine fear of the paranormal and the supernatural. Almost a quarter of us get scared by the prospects of aliens ‘out there’ and two out of five are afraid of ghosts, spirits and poltergeists which might explain the two million Brits who sleep with the light on.

Yet despite being a nation that can be easily scared, many of us relish the feeling of fright. More than 80 per cent of British people admit to enjoying a good horror movie and almost a quarter would happily sit down with a scary video game.

If you really want an outfit with the fear factor this Halloween, click on the image to find out what the British public are most afraid of.

Click here or on the image to uncover Britain's biggest fears

This research was carried out by Opinion Matters ahead of EA’s launch of the new Wii fright-fest Dead Space™ Extraction.