I'm a bit of a newbie to PD I know the basics but I'm having a couple of issues with my latest project. I need to stretch and distort video to get a kind of horror effect. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could create this?

Could you post a link to a video that shows the effect?

Look at gem [pix_movie] or [pix_film] you can specify what frame to show, so you should be able to control the playback speed, which is what I think you are trying to do when you say strech. Also, look at the various shear objects in gem

Also, you may want to check out VVVV at vvvv.org.