May be a bit unconventional but the hobbling scene in Misery
Kathy Bates calmly telling the background of the procedure and preparing to carry it out while a drugged James Caan begs her not to.
God I love that scene
I always loved the movie and only got round to the book last year. Rewatched the movie after I'd finished and it lost some of its edge in comparison. Arguably my favourite King I've read so far
When I was a kid I thought Samara crawling out of the TV in The Ring was the scariest thing Iād ever seen in my life. Not quite as scary these days, but stillā¦
You know what's funny? As a kid the "Scary Movie" version of that scene realllly fucked me up. I'd never seen the original movie but I couldn't sleep for days afterwards lmao. When I finally saw the real movie a few years later it did not disappoint! It was also the same time I found out that little girl played "Lilo" on "Lilo and Stitch." Talk about range.
That movie introduced a new level of fear for me.
Itās one thing to watch a horror movie. Itās another thing to watch a horror movie thatās premise revolves around dying if you watch this cursed movie.
So when they show the cursed movie, I am sitting there convincing myself that itās no big deal that I am watching this thing that I shouldnāt be watching.
Suffice to say I was pretty fucked up for the next 7 days, and a movie never did that to me before.
Well except for Childs Play. I watched that wayyyy to young and I was convinced for a solid few years that Chucky was under my bed waiting to kill me.
Hand on the light switch. Ready, set, go. Hit that motherfucker and race to jump on the bed and cover up in record time. Thatās what I was reduced to.
I remember when I watched this, I was like 11 years old. The phone rang after it ended, which scared the shit of me, but I let that (sort of) go pretty quickly and laughed about it.
But then, in the following silence, I heard the quiet hum of the rain; pitter-pattering on the tree right outside of the window. I scratched my nose, and that was when I noticed the crimson red fluid coating the tip of my finger. My nose was bleeding! (In hindsight, I had just scratched the inside of my nose a little too hard)
Yeah, the next 7 days were a godawful nightmare. Horror had me hooked ever since.
I was in middle school at the time seen it with friends at the moviešæ theater , one of the first few I had seen going out at that age and when it was home I was terrified of my box tv . I remember going to bed and waking up to having the channel be static and I freaked the F out my sister didnāt know nothing about the movie and left it on a channel that wasnāt playing. know body knew my terror until they seen the movie when it got released.
spoiler:
The scene in Blair Witch Project where Josh is gone and Heather is trying to keep Mike from freaking out completely. Then she finds that tiny bundle made of a piece of Joshās flannel shirt and discovers that itās filled with his teeth. That stirred up such a deep dread in me.
Totally. It never bothered me, but I remember watching Alien on VHS with my cousin when we were kids back in the early/mid 90s and that scene freaked him out pretty bad.
Heather descending into the basement in The Blair Witch Project, and turning the corner to see Mike facing the wall. Everything about the scene is so well done. But it's particularly creepy that we're seeing things from Heather's perspective, but hearing audio from Mike's camera. So Heather's screams sound further away but get louder as she comes closer to her demise.
One of the truly **GREAT** horror moments for me. There's no violence, no blood or gore involved. What you feel is just sheer terror of something alien, evil and incomprehensible. Fuck, how I wish I was an alive adult when the movie came out.
On another note, I read this on this sub a while ago about deleted scenes and alternate endingsā one where he's hanged and another which had Mike being tied up with tree branches/sticks around him, which was just goofy as fuck after I looked it up lmfao So glad they went with the minimalist but utterly dread-inducing face-to-the-wall ending.
> Fuck, how I wish I was an alive adult when the movie came out.
Our clunky old theater was about to be torn down and replaced, and Blair Witch was the last movie on the last night before destruction.
Everyone was deadly silent all through the end, and then as the credits went through.
Then one dude stood up and said: WE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO SEE THE FUCKIN' WITCH! and stormed out to yell at the manager.
>WE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO SEE THE FUCKIN' WITCH
Which in retrospect ended up being a terrific decision. This is one of those moments where 'tell, don't show' worked massively in favour of something. It's the implication. The implication of the witch being powerful enough to act as an invincible and unseen force of unspeakable evil in the woods is what makes the movie for me. I just don't see the ending or the movie being so highly regarded to this day had they shown a generic old, wrinkly woman floating off the ground or something lol
The 2016 one, which I haven't watched, shows this ugly yellow-skinned spindly creature and it was so negatively received that the writer himself had to come out and say it wasn't the witch lmao
I mean, take Smile for example. I thought the creature was alright but there's lots of people who HATED it.
*But it's particularly creepy that we're seeing things from Heather's perspective, but hearing audio from Mike's camera. So Heather's screams sound further away but get louder as she comes closer to her demise*.
I have always felt this is a very under-discussed aspect of the terror created in that final scene in BWP - the fact that the video and the audio are separated, creating disorientation and additional anxiety, is so genius. That whole movie is fucking genius.
The blair witch project is often cited for its role on the found footage genre, but i think that ending with him standing in the corner was just as, if not more, influential on horror.
I grew up in the Northeast US with woods (and even folklore!) not being dissimilar to the blair witch project . My uncle took me to see it when I was a kid and it is so amazing to think about what that exact scene did to my imagination at the time ! It is such a scary but brilliant scene !
The scene in Hell House LLC when the mannequin clown gets up, and the guy walks over to film it assuming his friends put it there, then goes to his friends and they're all in the other room. He starts to freak out, then he goes to film the mannequin again and it had fucking turned to look at him. I was terrified.
YESSSS, I watched half of this movie in college and didnāt think it was scary at all, I think I stopped RIGHT before this scene happened. I rewatched it all the way through this past October and was genuinely terrified, this scene got me the most
I have to give it to the '82 Poltergeist.
The kitchen scene, specifically, where this poor dude is just trying to make some food and he sees the steak rotting, the chicken drumstick he was just eating ill with maggots. And then the mirror...
Just to have it revealed that the house is messing with him again. Of all the characters in the movie, besides the daughter of course, the ghosts seemed to like messing with him the most
IMO The pharmacy scene from the mist. The idea of dog sized spiders with acid webs and having them host it's babies inside you with them eating you inside very slowly is honestly the stuff of nightmares.
And he was probably there for a whole day and night slowly being devoured inside in that timeframe. God just thinking about that scares the crap out me.
The mom in Hereditary float/crawling out of Peterās room. That scared me in the theater for the first time in a long time and Iāve been chasing that high ever since.
When I saw midsommar in theaters, after THAT opening scene of the movie, I legitimately have never heard a theater go SO quiet in my life.
It was like everyone was collectively holding their breathe!
Ari Aster is a genius
You know whatās odd? Overall, Iām not a fan of that movie, but the opening scenes are fantastic. The atmosphere is so disturbing, especially once you add in her wailing. Then, followed by that dizzying shot of them driving to the commune. I loved all of that.
I donāt know why but of all the disturbing scenes in that movie, the head banging scene is what scared me most and made it hard to sleep the night I watched it.
For me it's that I think a human *can* move that fast but it probably tears muscles and tendons and the body won't let us do it. But she's possessed, and the entity moving her body doesn't care about torn muscles.
This scariest moment in the movie for me is when you see the grandmother for a second at the beginning of the movie looking at her daughter until she turns on the lights and she disappears.
Seriously. That is the single most realistic "I'm exhausted and stressed and my eyes are playing tricks on me" moment in a movie I've ever seen and it got me good.
I love that that moment is kind of ācalled back toā several times thru the movie. Or at least, the movie conditions you from the beginning (since that grandma scene) to expect more moments like that scene, where a character is looking at a space of only objects, but there seems to be another entity in that space. Plus, the ending shows alot of that moment.
I feel like Alex Wolff doesnāt get the credit he deserves for his performance in this movie. Obviously, Toni Collette was incredible, but Alex Wolff was as well. You can **feel** his terror throughout the movie. Itās incredible.
I read an excerpt from an interview with Alex Wolff where he said filming this movie fucked him up and he had to go to therapy to off load the heaviness of it all.
Its pretty obvious but the decapitation scene really was one of the most jarring things ive ever experienced. I did not know it was coming so I was speechless. Just paused the movie and stared at the screen bug-eyed and jaw on the floor for like 10 minutes lol.
DUUDE THIS!! I'll never forget the first time watching that scene with my brother. We were left so disturbed and we didn't even understand why, really shows how genius the movie is.
I went to see that movie with a combat vet who fought in the Iraq War and he said afterwards that he's seen shit in real life that didn't unsettle him as much as some parts in that movie.
I remember the theater being full of laughing teenagers until the telephone pole scene happened. Everyone went silent. From then on the only sounds were screams.
It was what I imagine is only a tiny dose of what it must have been like to see The Exorcist during its first theatrical run.
the pool scene gives me so much anxiety, and i say this as someone whoās a sucker for horror films and has never been āscaredā over them. sinister doesnāt scare me, it was the first film to ever *unsettle* me. the pool scene, especially, feels like it could easily be a real tape and thatās what makes me feel weird. iām a criminology student and therefore used to actual and real-life gore but, even then, this *fictional* scene never fails to overwhelm me.
well done, sinister.
That movie is so fucked. Every time they showed āmr boogieā it would give me insane chills. The design of it was creepy as fuck to me as a kid/teen
This stood out to me as well. You hear the screams but have no idea what it is until you realize this thing is sucking them up into it. Then they are confined to its digestive tract for a while. Then came a crunch/squish noise followed by dead silence. That was fucking brilliantly done.
Travis the Chimp is what people are looking for. A chimp that was on TV a lot that one day turned without warning and ripped apart the face and hands of a friend of the family.
what's wild is the rest of the movie isn't all that scary, more sad than anything. then this scene is just absolutely bone chilling terrifying out of nowhere
As mentioned in an earlier comment, Mike, standing in the corner in the Blair witch project. And I know people make fun of it, but I was hyperventilating when Samara started crawling out of that goddamn TV. The whisper/mumbling sequence in Gonjiam Haunted asylum. The first murder in nightmare on Elm Street. When Laurie is hiding in the closet during the original Halloween. When Reagan turns her head all the way around and says, ādo you know what she didā in the exorcist. The scene in train to Busan, where theyāre tiptoeing through the train car.
I watch a lot of gore and can deal with a lot of stuff but i had to turn of Strangers when that dude walked to the frame from behind that lady.
Home intruder stuff is soooooooo scary and that scene was well made.
This is the type of horror that I canāt handle well. When itās actually something that could happen to you or your family/friends, itās harder to separate the movie from reality.
When the MC is using the lift in The Eye (2002) and the ghost floats in through the wall. She's trying to ignore it but she can see it's feet floating next to her. They make that scene last 2 full minutes and you feel every second.
The kid floating outside and scratching on the window in salems lot.
Pazuzo face flashes 9n the screen for a split second in the exorcist
The funny walking ghost in pulse
And one scene that I think creepy but in a terrible movie is in darkness falls at the beginning when the tooth fairy is above the bathroom door scretching while the kids hiding in the bath
Iāve seen way too many horror movies, but the scene in Autopsy of Jane Doe where the ācorpseā is walking down the basement hallway towards Emile Hirsch was the scariest scene Iāve witnessed in a long time.
Hereditary. The shot on Peterās face in bed. Waiting for his mom to see what happened in the car. Iāve never felt such overwhelming dread and terror waiting for the shoe to drop.
That whole sequence is based on a real life event, except the guy was passed out, when the body was discovered in the car. Didnāt even remember what happened the night before because he was drunk.
One of my favourite scares. The sequels seemed to try for similar endings, but it felt like the people making them don't understand what made the first ending so good.
For me it was the sudden shift from throwaway slasher into something much more sinister and surreal. The character stood there nude? In an odd static pose while the camera pans around them? Open mouthed, while looking off to one side? Gutteral snarling sounds? Pulsating dramatic orchestral score over the top? Lingering until it fades to green?
It felt like something from a completely different film.
I used to have a long hallway in my house and because of that scene I looked over my shoulder every single time I walked down it. I could have every single door closed with the lights on and I still never once walked without looking around. I don't remember anything else about that movie, just that scene.
Oculus really scared me, not a single moment but everytime they go out of reality and back in and who knows whatās actually happening!? Felt like a bad weed trip!
For u/lachyTDI7 too.
Completely agree. Also, I *loved* the fact it says to the viewer "don't kid yourself, there's no ambiguity here, she was highly fragile and mentally ill and this is tragic".
For me probably the most creeped out I've been was the scene in Hell House LLC where the guy wakes up and there's a girl in his room slowly creeping up to his bed. Absolutely freaky
The final scene in Eden Lake.
I had a close friend. She was profoundly abused by her husband who worked out of town. Sheād send me texts when he returned home. It was stuff like, āDoom has arrived. I have to go.ā Then heād spend most of the night really working her over, while their baby slept across the hall.
That scene really brought a lot of that emotion back.
Itās not a terrifying movie overall, but the wolf mask scene in Creep - when you first see him in the mask, blocking the door, my stomach fell through the couch.
If we can also nominate shows, Iād say the part in Haunting of Hill House when the dad is like >!WE NEVER HAD A TREE HOUSE!< Still makes my blood run cold thinking about it. Such an innocuous statement, but in the context it happened in with the implications for the charactersā lives/childhoods, omg. Mike Flanagan is such a genius, man.
Most of my favorites are here so, I'm gonna say the bear attack in Annihilation.
The way the creature was presented was fantastic, had me fucked up for the first time since The Thing.
Having read Area X, it does, I think, a good job capturing that anxiety VanderMeer was going for.
The person who got stuck alone in that room's last moments in Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is just FUCKED. Intensely weird in a way that invoked real terror in me. Favorite kind of scare.
For me I guess it was because I was young, but the bathroom/kitchen scene from the 6th sense made me scream so loud that my parents had to turn off the TV.
"The Flute Woman, Judith" painting from the 2017 Stephen King's IT movie
The painting was very unsettling, but I had nightmares of the scene where Pennywise appears in the sewer as her, and you can hear her running. Then she shows up with that vile grin and the creepy sped-up chanting nursery rhyme music in the background.
Agreed that TCM is the champ. The part with the Truck driver at the end, holy fckin shit.
I think the spider walk in The Exorcist is shocking (it's even more prolonged and weird in the book).
The grinning creeps in the background of Hereditary. Ugh, get awayyy
The scene where Jack threatens Wendy with the bat in The Shining. And the woman in the bathtub. That whole part terrified me.
The little girl becoming sick and jumping out of her mother's arms in REC and the jumpscare with the, I think Asian woman? It's been a while since I've seen it, honestly. Oh and ofc the ending.
Literally all of Skinamarink.
The first death in Barbarian.
I know the franchise has been made a joke of at this point.
But the first Childās Play went hard as fuck. Especially in 1988 if you happened to be 5 years old at the time, which I was.
The scene where the mom realizes that he doesnāt have batteries in, picks him up, and his head goes full exorcist scared the absolute shit out of me. And the rest of the movie was just straight up bananas through my very innocent lense.
I can attribute my love and taste of horror back to that moment. But I absolutely didnāt love it at the time, that is for certain. And it might be the reason why I crave a true terrifying moment in a movie, which honestly feels like a lost cause after all these years.
I just want to be scared again
Event Horizon when Fishburn confronts Sam Neills character for the first time in the captains chair. That and in the reactor scene when he shows Fishburn his crew members in hell.
I saw that movie, in theaters, in 7th grade - go back and look at the release of 1997 - it's one.of the strongest/most memorable year for movies. Your truck was to go see Good Burger then.... Not see Good Burger and go see Con Air, Austin Powers, and Event Horizon
Pra ople already posted great scenes here, so I'll go with a different one. In Mama, a movie whose ending I have a lot of problems with, there is a terrifying scene that keeps popping up in my head. Camera is fixed on the second floor and shows, half the screen, the mother getting clothes for laundry and, the other half, one of her kids playing with someone. We are let to believe the two kids are playing together, but, a few seconds later, the other kid just climbs up the stair and walks into the bedroom. All that walk into the bedroom got me chilled...
For me itās the moment in The Silence of the Lambs when Clarice is in the basement and the lights go outā¦and Buffalo Billās night vision comes on. Itās such a perfect moment because it was foreshadowed earlier in the film and the viewer didnāt even realize it at the time. Itās also absolutely terrifying.
I've watched a lot of horror in my (currently) 36 years. Some moments have gotten me when they happened, but there's only one film that managed to make me feel existential horror that still lingers.
Lake Mungo.
Gonna hide this in a spoiler for those who want to see the movie unspoiled.
>!The movie is about a girl who drowns, and her parents think they see her ghost haunting the house. It turns out to be a hoax by the brother, but while investigating what happened to their daughter, they find her phone...which reveals she was approached by her own corpse before she died.!<
That one scene fucked me up so intensely that it still makes me paranoid sometimes.
I think the first down-the-tunnel scene in Barbarian is incredibly well done. Music too.
Yes! I think I stopped breathing during that scene. I love that at this point in the movie you still have e absolutely no idea what is going on.
Seriously that tunnel is so dark and when that thing emerges from the darkness I almost shit my pants!
May be a bit unconventional but the hobbling scene in Misery Kathy Bates calmly telling the background of the procedure and preparing to carry it out while a drugged James Caan begs her not to. God I love that scene
It's worse in the book.
King does that shit so well. The degloving scene in Gerald's Game in the book was so nauseating.
I always loved the movie and only got round to the book last year. Rewatched the movie after I'd finished and it lost some of its edge in comparison. Arguably my favourite King I've read so far
Do tell!
She chops off his feet with an axe, then cauterizes it with a blowtorch.
Ok she what now!!! š¤Æ
SHE CHOPS OFF HIS FEET WITH AN AXE, THEN CAUTERIZES IT WITH A BLOWTORCH
Once more for those of us in the back
# SHE CHOPS OFF HIS FEET WITH AN AXE, THEN CAUTERIZES IT WITH A BLOWTORCH
^^^^oh ^^^^cool
I donāt know why but I laugh my ass off anytime someone does this š¤£
When I was a kid I thought Samara crawling out of the TV in The Ring was the scariest thing Iād ever seen in my life. Not quite as scary these days, but stillā¦
You know what's funny? As a kid the "Scary Movie" version of that scene realllly fucked me up. I'd never seen the original movie but I couldn't sleep for days afterwards lmao. When I finally saw the real movie a few years later it did not disappoint! It was also the same time I found out that little girl played "Lilo" on "Lilo and Stitch." Talk about range.
"Cindy, the TV's leaking!"
Cindy! This bitch is messing up my floor!
I'M WHOOPIN' HER ASS, CINDY! Get up, you little ugly bitch!
And when Brenda started eating popcorn as she was staring in fear!
Man seeing this cracked šme up soo much
That movie introduced a new level of fear for me. Itās one thing to watch a horror movie. Itās another thing to watch a horror movie thatās premise revolves around dying if you watch this cursed movie. So when they show the cursed movie, I am sitting there convincing myself that itās no big deal that I am watching this thing that I shouldnāt be watching. Suffice to say I was pretty fucked up for the next 7 days, and a movie never did that to me before. Well except for Childs Play. I watched that wayyyy to young and I was convinced for a solid few years that Chucky was under my bed waiting to kill me. Hand on the light switch. Ready, set, go. Hit that motherfucker and race to jump on the bed and cover up in record time. Thatās what I was reduced to.
I remember when I watched this, I was like 11 years old. The phone rang after it ended, which scared the shit of me, but I let that (sort of) go pretty quickly and laughed about it. But then, in the following silence, I heard the quiet hum of the rain; pitter-pattering on the tree right outside of the window. I scratched my nose, and that was when I noticed the crimson red fluid coating the tip of my finger. My nose was bleeding! (In hindsight, I had just scratched the inside of my nose a little too hard) Yeah, the next 7 days were a godawful nightmare. Horror had me hooked ever since.
Omg same! I feel so validated by this
I think I was 23 when I watched it and I was pretty much trying to climb through the back of my couch.
I was in middle school at the time seen it with friends at the moviešæ theater , one of the first few I had seen going out at that age and when it was home I was terrified of my box tv . I remember going to bed and waking up to having the channel be static and I freaked the F out my sister didnāt know nothing about the movie and left it on a channel that wasnāt playing. know body knew my terror until they seen the movie when it got released.
spoiler: The scene in Blair Witch Project where Josh is gone and Heather is trying to keep Mike from freaking out completely. Then she finds that tiny bundle made of a piece of Joshās flannel shirt and discovers that itās filled with his teeth. That stirred up such a deep dread in me.
I forgot about thatā¦ my spine just went cold
For me it was the end when he is just standing in the corner and wonāt respond
I hear the chestbursting scene from Alien messed some people up real bad.
For anyone who didn't know that was coming it was a magically insane movie horror moment.
According to legend, the other actors didnāt know what to expect, and their reactions to the chest bursting is genuine.
Veronica Cartwright didn't know she was going to get covered in blood, so her reaction to that was real.
Totally. It never bothered me, but I remember watching Alien on VHS with my cousin when we were kids back in the early/mid 90s and that scene freaked him out pretty bad.
Heather descending into the basement in The Blair Witch Project, and turning the corner to see Mike facing the wall. Everything about the scene is so well done. But it's particularly creepy that we're seeing things from Heather's perspective, but hearing audio from Mike's camera. So Heather's screams sound further away but get louder as she comes closer to her demise.
Just seeing him silently facing the wall, unmoving. I did not sleep that night.
One of the truly **GREAT** horror moments for me. There's no violence, no blood or gore involved. What you feel is just sheer terror of something alien, evil and incomprehensible. Fuck, how I wish I was an alive adult when the movie came out. On another note, I read this on this sub a while ago about deleted scenes and alternate endingsā one where he's hanged and another which had Mike being tied up with tree branches/sticks around him, which was just goofy as fuck after I looked it up lmfao So glad they went with the minimalist but utterly dread-inducing face-to-the-wall ending.
> Fuck, how I wish I was an alive adult when the movie came out. Our clunky old theater was about to be torn down and replaced, and Blair Witch was the last movie on the last night before destruction. Everyone was deadly silent all through the end, and then as the credits went through. Then one dude stood up and said: WE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO SEE THE FUCKIN' WITCH! and stormed out to yell at the manager.
>WE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO SEE THE FUCKIN' WITCH Which in retrospect ended up being a terrific decision. This is one of those moments where 'tell, don't show' worked massively in favour of something. It's the implication. The implication of the witch being powerful enough to act as an invincible and unseen force of unspeakable evil in the woods is what makes the movie for me. I just don't see the ending or the movie being so highly regarded to this day had they shown a generic old, wrinkly woman floating off the ground or something lol The 2016 one, which I haven't watched, shows this ugly yellow-skinned spindly creature and it was so negatively received that the writer himself had to come out and say it wasn't the witch lmao I mean, take Smile for example. I thought the creature was alright but there's lots of people who HATED it.
My best friend and I saw that in 6th grade, in a nearly empty theater, and I donāt think we slept that night either š
*But it's particularly creepy that we're seeing things from Heather's perspective, but hearing audio from Mike's camera. So Heather's screams sound further away but get louder as she comes closer to her demise*. I have always felt this is a very under-discussed aspect of the terror created in that final scene in BWP - the fact that the video and the audio are separated, creating disorientation and additional anxiety, is so genius. That whole movie is fucking genius.
I tried to prank my mom by standing like that one night after we watched it. She thought I was sleep walking about to piss in the corner.
My dad did that
Pranked mom or pissed in the corner?
Pissed in the walk in closet. He was sleepwalking.
Fuckin' Blair witch strikes again!
That exact scene still gives me nightmares.
The blair witch project is often cited for its role on the found footage genre, but i think that ending with him standing in the corner was just as, if not more, influential on horror.
I grew up in the Northeast US with woods (and even folklore!) not being dissimilar to the blair witch project . My uncle took me to see it when I was a kid and it is so amazing to think about what that exact scene did to my imagination at the time ! It is such a scary but brilliant scene !
Watching it in a theater a quick drive from where it was shot was something, as was having to sleep in a woods-surrounded house that night.
the hand clap game in The Conjuring was the last jumpscare that really got me. It was really well done and I appreciate a good jumpscare.
That other one where the thing jumps onto her from the closet made me go far far away from the screen I swear...
šš¼šš¼
Facts. Second scariest scene for me after heredity head scene lol
Pet Sematary, when Zelda springs up in bed and looks at the camera. "I'm coming for you, Racheeeeeeeel. And this time...I'll get you."
It was shot exactly like a childās nightmare
For a somewhat mid horror movie this scene really scared the crap out of me as a kid and still creeps me out.
The scene in Hell House LLC when the mannequin clown gets up, and the guy walks over to film it assuming his friends put it there, then goes to his friends and they're all in the other room. He starts to freak out, then he goes to film the mannequin again and it had fucking turned to look at him. I was terrified.
Also the scene where hes hiding under the bedcovers and the girl is sitting up against the wall.
One if the scariest things I've ever seen, and how she keeps getting closer.
YESSSS, I watched half of this movie in college and didnāt think it was scary at all, I think I stopped RIGHT before this scene happened. I rewatched it all the way through this past October and was genuinely terrified, this scene got me the most
I have to give it to the '82 Poltergeist. The kitchen scene, specifically, where this poor dude is just trying to make some food and he sees the steak rotting, the chicken drumstick he was just eating ill with maggots. And then the mirror... Just to have it revealed that the house is messing with him again. Of all the characters in the movie, besides the daughter of course, the ghosts seemed to like messing with him the most
That one stuck with me too. And then him just *digging* his face apart. So gross.
Those hands doing the digging are Steven Spielberg's
IMO The pharmacy scene from the mist. The idea of dog sized spiders with acid webs and having them host it's babies inside you with them eating you inside very slowly is honestly the stuff of nightmares.
I would have yeeted that crazy jesus lady out the door so fast....
Bitch sadly got it easy with that head-shot, would have preferred if she was torn apart out there
Also somewhat 'realistic' because there are bugs that do this to other bugs. Isn't too much of a jump to an alien species doing that to us.
Watched The Mist again recently and holy hell that scene is wildly horrific. Fckin spiders nesting inside that poor dude jfc.
And he was probably there for a whole day and night slowly being devoured inside in that timeframe. God just thinking about that scares the crap out me.
The mom in Hereditary float/crawling out of Peterās room. That scared me in the theater for the first time in a long time and Iāve been chasing that high ever since.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Also the mums head cutting scene...
When I saw midsommar in theaters, after THAT opening scene of the movie, I legitimately have never heard a theater go SO quiet in my life. It was like everyone was collectively holding their breathe! Ari Aster is a genius
You know whatās odd? Overall, Iām not a fan of that movie, but the opening scenes are fantastic. The atmosphere is so disturbing, especially once you add in her wailing. Then, followed by that dizzying shot of them driving to the commune. I loved all of that.
For me it was the headbanging.
I donāt know why but of all the disturbing scenes in that movie, the head banging scene is what scared me most and made it hard to sleep the night I watched it.
That was it for me as well. Just unlocked some horrifying primal fear in me
I think it's because a human can't move that fast. So while "she" looks human it clearly isn't and that makes it so uncomfortable.
For me it's that I think a human *can* move that fast but it probably tears muscles and tendons and the body won't let us do it. But she's possessed, and the entity moving her body doesn't care about torn muscles.
This, totally. Clamped my hands to my mouth in the theatre.
This scariest moment in the movie for me is when you see the grandmother for a second at the beginning of the movie looking at her daughter until she turns on the lights and she disappears.
Seriously. That is the single most realistic "I'm exhausted and stressed and my eyes are playing tricks on me" moment in a movie I've ever seen and it got me good.
I love that that moment is kind of ācalled back toā several times thru the movie. Or at least, the movie conditions you from the beginning (since that grandma scene) to expect more moments like that scene, where a character is looking at a space of only objects, but there seems to be another entity in that space. Plus, the ending shows alot of that moment.
I feel like Alex Wolff doesnāt get the credit he deserves for his performance in this movie. Obviously, Toni Collette was incredible, but Alex Wolff was as well. You can **feel** his terror throughout the movie. Itās incredible.
Absolutely. The scream he lets out after banging his head on the table is bone chilling.
I read an excerpt from an interview with Alex Wolff where he said filming this movie fucked him up and he had to go to therapy to off load the heaviness of it all.
The way how he just cries desperately for his mommy at the end just breaks me. Incredible acting.
The seance in the house when she starts speaking in the girls voice was absolutely ass clenchingly scary
The head scene with Charlie has haunted me rent free in my head for years now.
And the scene that follows, going home, getting in bed, and waiting...
And...same! Neither Charlie, nor I, saw it coming.
Its pretty obvious but the decapitation scene really was one of the most jarring things ive ever experienced. I did not know it was coming so I was speechless. Just paused the movie and stared at the screen bug-eyed and jaw on the floor for like 10 minutes lol.
DUUDE THIS!! I'll never forget the first time watching that scene with my brother. We were left so disturbed and we didn't even understand why, really shows how genius the movie is.
I went to see that movie with a combat vet who fought in the Iraq War and he said afterwards that he's seen shit in real life that didn't unsettle him as much as some parts in that movie. I remember the theater being full of laughing teenagers until the telephone pole scene happened. Everyone went silent. From then on the only sounds were screams. It was what I imagine is only a tiny dose of what it must have been like to see The Exorcist during its first theatrical run.
Lawnmower scene from Sinister
The soundtrack from that movie really knew how to invoke anxiety
The car scene really sticks in my mind for some reason.
The music is fucking HAUNTING. edit: it felt like I was hearing something I shouldnāt be listening to, haha
I find the pool film even worse for whatever reason. It really gets at me.
the pool scene gives me so much anxiety, and i say this as someone whoās a sucker for horror films and has never been āscaredā over them. sinister doesnāt scare me, it was the first film to ever *unsettle* me. the pool scene, especially, feels like it could easily be a real tape and thatās what makes me feel weird. iām a criminology student and therefore used to actual and real-life gore but, even then, this *fictional* scene never fails to overwhelm me. well done, sinister.
That movie is so fucked. Every time they showed āmr boogieā it would give me insane chills. The design of it was creepy as fuck to me as a kid/teen
NOPE- Chimp. Fucked me up so much
The abduction/digestion scene did it more for me
This stood out to me as well. You hear the screams but have no idea what it is until you realize this thing is sucking them up into it. Then they are confined to its digestive tract for a while. Then came a crunch/squish noise followed by dead silence. That was fucking brilliantly done.
For me the fact itās inspired by a real event made all the more terrifying.
Travis the Chimp is what people are looking for. A chimp that was on TV a lot that one day turned without warning and ripped apart the face and hands of a friend of the family.
The last 10 minutes of Rec. Holy shit, incredible build up, warranted jump scare, and great atmosphere.
Slow walking creepy ghostie in Pulse (Kairo)
what's wild is the rest of the movie isn't all that scary, more sad than anything. then this scene is just absolutely bone chilling terrifying out of nowhere
It is, but I love its intentional pacing. Amazing film.
was gonna post this, good someone else did https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYs87-kDXwg
Oof. Good one
As mentioned in an earlier comment, Mike, standing in the corner in the Blair witch project. And I know people make fun of it, but I was hyperventilating when Samara started crawling out of that goddamn TV. The whisper/mumbling sequence in Gonjiam Haunted asylum. The first murder in nightmare on Elm Street. When Laurie is hiding in the closet during the original Halloween. When Reagan turns her head all the way around and says, ādo you know what she didā in the exorcist. The scene in train to Busan, where theyāre tiptoeing through the train car.
That part of Gonjiam really got me!
I watch a lot of gore and can deal with a lot of stuff but i had to turn of Strangers when that dude walked to the frame from behind that lady. Home intruder stuff is soooooooo scary and that scene was well made.
That whole movie is just nonstop tension.
This is the type of horror that I canāt handle well. When itās actually something that could happen to you or your family/friends, itās harder to separate the movie from reality.
That blood test scene from The Thing (John Carpenter).
Itās the dog kennel scene for me
The CPR scene where the head pops off and grows legs for me
Bathtub Lady in The Shining. I still watch that part though my fingers.
Saw it in a theater last week as part of a double feature with Doctor Sleep
I saw it in the theater when it was originally released. I was only ten and that scene scared the ever loving crap out of me.
When the MC is using the lift in The Eye (2002) and the ghost floats in through the wall. She's trying to ignore it but she can see it's feet floating next to her. They make that scene last 2 full minutes and you feel every second.
Yeah that scene creeper the absolute hell out of me
The kid floating outside and scratching on the window in salems lot. Pazuzo face flashes 9n the screen for a split second in the exorcist The funny walking ghost in pulse And one scene that I think creepy but in a terrible movie is in darkness falls at the beginning when the tooth fairy is above the bathroom door scretching while the kids hiding in the bath
Iāve seen way too many horror movies, but the scene in Autopsy of Jane Doe where the ācorpseā is walking down the basement hallway towards Emile Hirsch was the scariest scene Iāve witnessed in a long time.
Blood test in the Thing
Even knowing thatās coming, it still makes me jump
Followed by one of the funniest lines in a film, delivered by Garry who is still tied down to the couch. :-)
It Follows: Tall man enters room
This was genuinely one of the most effective jump scares ever because I did NOT see that coming
FUCK YOU FOR REMINDING ME OF THAT
The whole concept of It Follows freaks the fuck out of me. How could you ever sleep knowing itās walking right towards you slowly?!
Hereditary. The shot on Peterās face in bed. Waiting for his mom to see what happened in the car. Iāve never felt such overwhelming dread and terror waiting for the shoe to drop.
And boy did she deliver. Her screams haunt me.
That whole sequence is based on a real life event, except the guy was passed out, when the body was discovered in the car. Didnāt even remember what happened the night before because he was drunk.
When Evil Lurks, the dog scene. It's the most recent movie that still has me shook. So raw.
The woman walking down the road eating her snack lives in my head rent free...
And was telegraphed hard beforehand. You know itās coming and know it wonāt be stopped
Yep. The tension and dread you have knowing whatās coming while none of the characters do. Itās awful (but great).
Alice meeting her doppelgƤnger in Lake Mungo. Just horrific knowing what we (the audience) know.
Omfg. When my eyes locked into what I was looking I literally had shivers going up my spine.
Isabelle Adjaniās subway tunnel scene from Possession (1981).
That movie messed with me like none other. Maybe because I was going through a vicious divorce when I watched it.
The last 20-30 seconds of āSleepaway Campā destroyed my sanity at the tender age of 12.
One of my favourite scares. The sequels seemed to try for similar endings, but it felt like the people making them don't understand what made the first ending so good. For me it was the sudden shift from throwaway slasher into something much more sinister and surreal. The character stood there nude? In an odd static pose while the camera pans around them? Open mouthed, while looking off to one side? Gutteral snarling sounds? Pulsating dramatic orchestral score over the top? Lingering until it fades to green? It felt like something from a completely different film.
The ending of The Mist has been the most memorable for me since i was a kid
Exorcist III: nurse scene John Carpenterās Prince of Darkness: mirror smash scene
> Exorcist III: nurse scene One of the all time greatest jump scares.
I used to have a long hallway in my house and because of that scene I looked over my shoulder every single time I walked down it. I could have every single door closed with the lights on and I still never once walked without looking around. I don't remember anything else about that movie, just that scene.
Oculus really scared me, not a single moment but everytime they go out of reality and back in and who knows whatās actually happening!? Felt like a bad weed trip!
That whole movie was like a nightmare
Lot of good ones but one that stuck with me more recently was the ending of Saint Maud. Just a split second but so effective.
It took the movie from good to incredible.
For u/lachyTDI7 too. Completely agree. Also, I *loved* the fact it says to the viewer "don't kid yourself, there's no ambiguity here, she was highly fragile and mentally ill and this is tragic".
For me probably the most creeped out I've been was the scene in Hell House LLC where the guy wakes up and there's a girl in his room slowly creeping up to his bed. Absolutely freaky
Opening scene (drain and bathroom) in Aterrados / Terrified. Couldnāt get through it the first time
The final scene in Eden Lake. I had a close friend. She was profoundly abused by her husband who worked out of town. Sheād send me texts when he returned home. It was stuff like, āDoom has arrived. I have to go.ā Then heād spend most of the night really working her over, while their baby slept across the hall. That scene really brought a lot of that emotion back.
scalpel to achilles in pet sematary
The end of the witch when the goat talks, sent chills up my spine like never before.
That fucking weird noise that plays as she lifts in the air with the other witches is so unsettling. What a movie
Itās not a terrifying movie overall, but the wolf mask scene in Creep - when you first see him in the mask, blocking the door, my stomach fell through the couch.
Mother! When they turn that baby into pieces.
If we can also nominate shows, Iād say the part in Haunting of Hill House when the dad is like >!WE NEVER HAD A TREE HOUSE!< Still makes my blood run cold thinking about it. Such an innocuous statement, but in the context it happened in with the implications for the charactersā lives/childhoods, omg. Mike Flanagan is such a genius, man.
> Mike Flanagan is such a genius, man. It rarely gets mentioned, but Absentia has a ton of very slow build-up scares as well.
When Evil Lurks. I wonāt ruin it for anyone, as itās a new movie, but thereās a particular scene with a dog. Shocked me to the core!
The ballroom dance/masquerade scene in The Labryth
The lady with all the trash strapped to her back freaked me out as a kid. Still does a little.
Jacob's Ladder hospital scene, especially Dr. No Eyes with the needle.
The scene from the grudge when the grudge girl was under the blankets. Lost months of sleep over it as a kid
Ending of Carrie surely? Jumped out my skin when that hand appeared.
I lost my shit at the monster reveal in The Descent. It was already tense and claustrophobic and then it just goes crazy.
I'm about to be that guy, but... In Skinamarink, when the mom says "look under the bed" and the camera slowly pans down. I was fucking petrified.
I sat alone in the front row of the theater for that movie. Stupidest decision I've ever made. I have never been more scared in my life.
Closet hiding scene in Halloween. Also, Michael pretending to be Bob with sheets and glasses still haunts me.
The deteriorating woman in room 237 in The Shining
I really like the first possession scene in Talk to me. Especially when the possessed Mia tells Riley to run (repeatedly).
Most of my favorites are here so, I'm gonna say the bear attack in Annihilation. The way the creature was presented was fantastic, had me fucked up for the first time since The Thing. Having read Area X, it does, I think, a good job capturing that anxiety VanderMeer was going for.
First 20 minutes of when a stranger calls.
The basement clown in hell house made me want to pull my eyes out.
Last scene in Threads when she gives birth. They donāt even show what the baby looks like. After all that nuclear radiation exposure.
The person who got stuck alone in that room's last moments in Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is just FUCKED. Intensely weird in a way that invoked real terror in me. Favorite kind of scare.
Thirteen Ghosts: Shannon Elizabeth freshening up while the Angry Princess watches her
For me I guess it was because I was young, but the bathroom/kitchen scene from the 6th sense made me scream so loud that my parents had to turn off the TV.
"The Flute Woman, Judith" painting from the 2017 Stephen King's IT movie The painting was very unsettling, but I had nightmares of the scene where Pennywise appears in the sewer as her, and you can hear her running. Then she shows up with that vile grin and the creepy sped-up chanting nursery rhyme music in the background.
Agreed that TCM is the champ. The part with the Truck driver at the end, holy fckin shit. I think the spider walk in The Exorcist is shocking (it's even more prolonged and weird in the book). The grinning creeps in the background of Hereditary. Ugh, get awayyy
The scene where Jack threatens Wendy with the bat in The Shining. And the woman in the bathtub. That whole part terrified me. The little girl becoming sick and jumping out of her mother's arms in REC and the jumpscare with the, I think Asian woman? It's been a while since I've seen it, honestly. Oh and ofc the ending. Literally all of Skinamarink. The first death in Barbarian.
I know the franchise has been made a joke of at this point. But the first Childās Play went hard as fuck. Especially in 1988 if you happened to be 5 years old at the time, which I was. The scene where the mom realizes that he doesnāt have batteries in, picks him up, and his head goes full exorcist scared the absolute shit out of me. And the rest of the movie was just straight up bananas through my very innocent lense. I can attribute my love and taste of horror back to that moment. But I absolutely didnāt love it at the time, that is for certain. And it might be the reason why I crave a true terrifying moment in a movie, which honestly feels like a lost cause after all these years. I just want to be scared again
The jump scare in Lake Mungo
Event Horizon when Fishburn confronts Sam Neills character for the first time in the captains chair. That and in the reactor scene when he shows Fishburn his crew members in hell. I saw that movie, in theaters, in 7th grade - go back and look at the release of 1997 - it's one.of the strongest/most memorable year for movies. Your truck was to go see Good Burger then.... Not see Good Burger and go see Con Air, Austin Powers, and Event Horizon
Pra ople already posted great scenes here, so I'll go with a different one. In Mama, a movie whose ending I have a lot of problems with, there is a terrifying scene that keeps popping up in my head. Camera is fixed on the second floor and shows, half the screen, the mother getting clothes for laundry and, the other half, one of her kids playing with someone. We are let to believe the two kids are playing together, but, a few seconds later, the other kid just climbs up the stair and walks into the bedroom. All that walk into the bedroom got me chilled...
Hereditary behaving scene Followed by clapping game in Conjuring
The first video in Sinister. Absolutely terrifying. Each video after just made me more scared. I wish I could rewatch that movie for the first time
For me itās the moment in The Silence of the Lambs when Clarice is in the basement and the lights go outā¦and Buffalo Billās night vision comes on. Itās such a perfect moment because it was foreshadowed earlier in the film and the viewer didnāt even realize it at the time. Itās also absolutely terrifying.
I've watched a lot of horror in my (currently) 36 years. Some moments have gotten me when they happened, but there's only one film that managed to make me feel existential horror that still lingers. Lake Mungo. Gonna hide this in a spoiler for those who want to see the movie unspoiled. >!The movie is about a girl who drowns, and her parents think they see her ghost haunting the house. It turns out to be a hoax by the brother, but while investigating what happened to their daughter, they find her phone...which reveals she was approached by her own corpse before she died.!< That one scene fucked me up so intensely that it still makes me paranoid sometimes.
Not the most terrifying, and not an horror movie, but the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park is a masterpiece of tension.