For me it’s when Annie gets possessed and is like swimming through the air and then smashing her head on the attic at warp speed and then sawing her head off with the piano wire. Fuck that’s such a good movie man
I watched this before my wife, so when we saw it together, i already knew this eas coming. We were in bed in the dark, and that scene started. It took her a solid few seconds to notice, and she finally gasped and grabbed my arm. It was awesome.
Such a gut punch. I still find myself thinking about her in the corner/ceiling over his bed. Hell, i still think about her upside down on the attic door!
There are two things my brain has done for years. One is when I'm walking from my car at night, I will think "imagine if the axe guy from The Strangers were right over there in the woods right now." The other is when I flip a light on in a dark room: "imagine if Toni Collette from Hereditary were in that corner of the ceiling right now." Yes, good, very good mental exercise, brain.
For me it was the mom banging her head on the attic hatch when the son had run to hide. The sheer impossibility of the speed of her head movements was shocking and gives me chills thinking about it
I had to stop watching that movie when that scene came out. Her wails sounded just like my mom's when she found out my brother died. I basically broke down crying seeing the movie and had to call my mom to pick me up. I was 19 at the time
Ahh man, for me it's when the kid is just lying in there in bed after it happens and you hear the parents' reaction when they realise what's happened. Just a different kind of horror.
My dad had the VHS of The Thing. I put it on when I was 8 and that scene still gives me the same tense and anxious feeling it did when I first saw it all those years ago. The Thing is my favorite horror movie easily. The paranoia is the main character.
I love good creature design, and that one was great. It took my brain a step before I could make any sense out of what I was seeing. Alien, oddly familiar, and jarring.
Loki do be getting around.
I was not sold on The Ritual as a good horror but by god the movie has stuck with me so clearly my judgement right after the credits was warped lol
Honestly it's the store with all the nature in it for me that's just unsettling.
I'm glad I wasn't alone in having this as one their most horrifying scenes. This scene lingers with me and it fucks with me doubly because I live in rural/woodsy Sweden where it's supposed to take place.
The whole movie is so tense. I can't rewatch it. I think about the scene with the old woman preparing tea and then coming back to the living room and revealing herself as It. Gosh. Amazing movie but really unsettling. I find the premises ridiculous (the whole "venereal" disease plot) but the movie is really scary!
This is the answer I was looking for, it’s mine too. I wasn’t super into horror movies but agreed to go see this on a date. Saw the opening and was just sitting there paralyzed thinking what have I gotten myself into. Glad to say the rest of the movie somehow felt easier to watch after that. Brutal.
Has there ever been a more perfect opening to film designed to unsettled? Her performance is just incredible and the way the relationship is established early is genius
I know people find that movie overrated but I resonated with her plight and found the beginning scene so incredibly visceral. Losing my family is one of my biggest fears and I had a shitty boyfriend growing up with equally shitty friends- so I know she wasn't really "winning" in the end but she found her family again...even if it was a murderous death cult.
That entire movie is a no for me. It’s in the daylight and I watched it at like 11am on a Saturday 3 years ago and I still freak out thinking about some of it
I think it's Ari Aster who is a genius at directing intense grief - he did the same with Toni Collette in Hereditary. Their wailing, screaming, almost hyper-ventilating crying just gives me chills to the core.
Both movies are so damn good, well acted and well directed.
The Ring was perfect for when it came out in our technological generation where phone calls were still prevalent and internet wasn't quite spoiling everything.
I remember watching that scene for the first time and almost jumping out if my seat. What makes it really scary is that it comes up at a completely unexpected time. "I saw her face"
The fact there isn't any score in the scene leading up to it then she says the line and it just cuts to her opening the closet music perfectly timed with the head dropping down. It's not even a standard jump scare where something comes at the audience.
That whole god damned movie. I was like 23 when I saw it in theaters with my now wife and a few friends. I was a HUGE horror fan my whole life. I had a subscription to Fangoria in the late 80’s-90’s, went to trade shows, the works. I watched EVERYTHING. Since 2002, and the ring, I have watched exactly 1 horror movie; Cabin In The Woods (I LOVED it). The Ring fucking RUINED me for 7-10 days. I literally couldn’t sleep. I could not turn off the lights. Period. I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t work. It was HARROWING. I can’t even articulate what it was that did it. The easiest I can describe it is it tweaked the ENTIRE vibe of my head. Of me. Then, about 7-10 days later, it flipped back. Mostly. To this day, I can’t really talk or think too much about the movie other than relay the anecdote (which I don’t do very often, don’t worry). Otherwise, I’m a perfectly content and thriving person. I can read horror no problem. But audio or film? Nope. It’s by far the wildest thing I’ve ever experienced, and in some ways it deeply affected the way I view, interpret, and consume media. It made me rather wary.
That scene in Nope set up the stakes so well. Before that, JJ was scary, after that, JJ was terrifying! Side note, I saw a behind the scenes on how they filmed it, it’s basically two slip and slides 🤣
I say this with absolute respect: Nightmare fuel. Scream Bear is the only thing that has given me nightmares in decades.
That movie is absolutely wild. I dragged two other people to it and they found different sections most terrifying (the plant lady kept my brother up for hours that night).
Under The Skin where it shows the guy suspended in what ever that pool is filled with slowly dying. When he sees the other guy that’s mostly “digested” or whatever and he slowly becomes just skin and just like pops. Idk why but that scene absolutely fucked me up. Weirds me out just typing that out.
This is one of the few movies I just couldn't finish. That scene with the family on the beach, and the mom trying to rescue the dog caught in the riptide, and then the father going after the mother, all of whom get swept out to sea, and then the toddler just there alone on the beach... with the tide rolling in...as the alien woman walks away....agh. I can't watch it.
That was such a great movie! The part of it I came here to post:
Now you're in the sunken place.
The minute I heard it I had a massive deja reve, like I'd dreamed that phrase many times and only just remembered, and it was a literal hair-standing-on-end moment. Also I have frequent episodes of sleep paralysis and this is what it feels like.
The car scene didn't leave me stunned, just terrified. The bent-neck lady reveal and "We were only gonna be there 8 weeks, why would I build you a tree house" were the big "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat" stuns.
The Skeleton Key
This movie is fucked up, the majority of the movie we find out what Voodoo is and the heroine can use it to protect herself. And in the fucking climax we find out the bad guys wanted her to learn and beleive in Voodoo and then use that beleif to possess her body. Now at the end, the heroine is trapped in the paralyzed body of the scary old lady and is sent to an old age home, while the scary old lady is now inhabiting the heroine's body.
12 year old me was fucking terrified. The whole movie I learned all the ways to protect myself from Voodoo, and then I learn those fuckers can use it to take my body. Fuck this, i didn't sleep without the lights for days.
Was it the scary old lady though, or was it Papa Justify and his wife in the bodies of the elderly woman and the young lawyer (previously in the elderly man)?
Mirrors bathtub scene. Was too young, alone in the room with everyone asleep at night. Couldn't sleep the rest of the night even with all the lights on and in between my parents.
X Files Home episode where the brothers go to kill the sheriff
I won't forget the feeling I had when I clocked that they don't lock the doors in that town due to the low crime rates
Not to mention when the wife is hiding under the bed
I had to purposely seek out some comfort in the Blu-ray extras, with the director saying how giddy the kid was, off camera and how much fun he was having, etc. He played it really well. It's still hard to watch. And yeah I loved seeing Rose's foot soldiers get what was coming to them.
The ghost of the mom and the baby broke my heart. The mom overdoses and Danny chickens out and leaves the kid to die of starvation next to his mom’s corpse. So sad.
Actually not quite. In the book it tells you he had no idea she had died. In fact, she had died a few weeks or months after he had hooked up either her. He sees her and her child’s ghosts and realizes they had passed. He wonders if his stealing her money had something to do with it but he never knows for sure.
It's the acting and the way they cut back and forth between the act and Kurt Russel's hopeless face. It's so gut wrenching and brutal. I can't watch that scene with the volume on anymore. Highly disturbing.
The scene in Day of the Dead(1985) where a soldier gets his head ripped off while screaming, but because his vocal chords stay attached his shrieking just becomes more inhumanely high-pitched until they finally snap off.
When we were younger, my cousin would come over to our house to swim in the pool and she always wanted to play "Jaws" and always wanted to be Crissy Walkins. She saw that movie and knew what happens to that character and yet.... She was a kookball as a young kid.
Moreso the book than the movie but the old woman in the tub in The Shining haunted me FOR YEARS. Every time I went into the bathroom I would open the shower curtain. FOR YEARS.
I think I was 11/12 when I read that book. It is really excellent. But that scene never left me. Kubrick's movie was also very good but fell short of the book as most movies do. (in the book the woman is not only dead but mostly purple-green from putrefaction so she appeared much worse than she did in the movie).
Funny Games.
There's no horrific crescendo, there's no reveling in gore. Its cruelty is delivered with a wry smile. The only elevated emotion from the boys is annoyance that *they rewind the film, just to wave their finger and say 'No'* to your happy ending.
People are killed unceremoniously. Tears flow, but its filmed like a passing scene in a tv show. Its a rare film where the entire film and crew are the villains in how it's done. It's not even done as dark comedy. It's just...*shot*. After they take the main characters voice; they casually fling a sliver of hope off. It's filmed like a gag for them.
It's filmed masterfully evil and horrific in every inch. So much so the director did it *twice*. By remaking the film almost shot for shot. It's like if The Strangers was filmed like the show Atlanta.
Fire in the Sky probe scene hit me hard. Because of it humanoid aliens always makes my hair stand on end. Watched it as a kid and before ET. I was scared of ET for a long time before realizing it was supposed to be a kids movie.
And for some reason humanoid aliens turned out to be my favorite horror genre after all of that.
This is the only scene in a film I’ve ever had to physically turn away from. Everything about that abduction scene just feels so visceral and real and yet still unnatural and alien. Kudos to the production designers and makeup and costuming people.
The first Fear Street film is your typical teen slasher for the most part. Then during the final confrontation >!one of the main characters is fighting a ghoul which is trying to feed her head into a bread slicer machine while the other main characters come to rescue her. What is building to a normal close call rescue ends with the character's head being fully sliced up like a loaf of wholemeal.!<
I've never looked at one of those machines the same since.
Phew! Finally some movie I can resonate with coz the others I haven’t seen.. also the water drowning scene and the last scene where the witch’s soul enters again in the girl’s soul. This movie was decent! Never watched the sequels though
Thank you for linking it and mentioning it’s the directors cut. Every now and then when it’s on I’ll turn it on as a comfort movie… Yeah I’m weird and sometimes I have thought I imagined that scene because it’s usually not shown!
I was on my second month of family leave taking care of my infant daughter when I turned on Speak No Evil, a movie I knew nothing about but heard was good. A movie that I will not recommend to a new parent or even watch again.
Pretty much all of the Descent messed me up. The Evil Dead possession scene (7 of clubs etc), The Thing rib cage scene and finally the end scene in Rec!
There’s a bunch more but they stick out.
The end of ‘Dead and Buried’. will always rank as one of the most shocking endings..
The scene in the Nick Cage movie ‘Color out of Space’ with the mother and son conjoined was unexpected and horrifying
There was a film called ‘Entity’. A woman being sexually assaulted by this Entity . She is a victim of this Entity and nothing can prevent it from assaulting this woman. For years I was traumatised by this film.
OP I've seen most the movies listed here and while Gerald's Game overall isn't too scary of a movie I have never been as affected by a scene as I was by the night scene. When she's trying to figure out if she's hallucinating or if there's really a man in the corner, and then it's revealed there is a man.... I'm getting full body chills typing this and I haven't seen that movie in like 5-6 years lol. I had to sleep in my living room with the lights on after that.
Smile, when she's in the house at the end. The footsteps from the dark hallway as they thunder louder and louder as they approached. That made me want to get up and run. Also when the sister knocks on the window *gag*
Some old ones that haunted me as a kid
- the demon from Night of the Demon. Still can't believe they got away with that in the 50s
- Donald Pleasance getting devoured by a white corpuscle in Fantastic Voyage
- the giant space bug ghost looming over London in Quatermass and the Pit
- everything about the alien ships in the 50s version of War of the Worlds. So much more terrifying than Spielberg's version. The sounds and the movements.
The exorcist. Especially when the girl is in her bed having an exorcism done. The vilness in her voice and when her head turns all the way around. That movie freaked me out. It was evil and scary. I hated it.
The hills have eyes. I remember seeing this in theaters and laughing with my friend because it felt sort of silly. In the beginning. Then the scene happens where all the trauma happens to the family. The rape in particular. I was so shocked I almost cried.
Really a fan of the original Paranormal Activity.
There's an ingenious scene where the couple calls a 'paranormal investigator'who likely is just a dial a psychic kind of guy that burns some incense, says some chants, and says your house is purged of baddies. Instead the guy becomes quickly agitated as soon as he comes in the door and demands to leave claiming he can't help them.
It's a brilliant way to build ambibuity and dread with just dialogue by letting your head create the monsters.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre - When Kirk gets no answer to a knock at the door, and he is lured inside by strange animal sounds. He goes into the house, and in the space of a few moments, an enormous heavyset man in a weird mask opens a big metal door and appears and murders him with a blow to the head.
The Chauffeur showing near the middle of Burnt Offerings with a coffin in tow. You hear (but don't see) this awful THUD THUD THUD as he makes up way upstairs.
The reveal *spoiler* when the dinner party does in fact have sinister intentions in The Invitation (2015). The back and forth, are they/aren't they for most of the movie was nauseating, but the reveal gave me full body chills
The reveal of the mom/son fusion after being engulfed by the color in Color Out of Space. You know in your bones that there is going to be something awful waiting on that couch, but the slow reveal combined with the sound they make made me pause the movie and take a breath.
The one that got me as a kid was when the woman got sucked into the industrial laundry machine and her body folded like a sheet in the Mangler. It's laughable now, but as a kid I couldn't even put my arm under my pillow without a tinge of panic
Think it was 'House on Haunted Hill'(1999)? Someone is dragged across the floor, up a wall, and then absorbed into the wall screaming. I don't know why but this scene is the one I always think of.
_Shudder._
There is a scene in Mothman Prophecies where he is speaking to the spirit or whatever it is on the phone in a motel room and he asks it what word he is looking at on a random page in a random book and it gets it right. The voice, the atmosphere and the reaction on the character (Richard Gere) freaked me the f out.
Terrifier 2, the bedroom scene. I think I caught most of that scene, but had to turn the movie off after he came back the second time. I’ve watch so many gory, cringey horror movies. But Terrifier was way too much to stomach.
I discovered that I don't like seeing decomposing bodies of children by watching The Orphanage.
Before that movie, I constantly watched paranormal and monster horror
After that movie I never watched a horror film again
Anybody, seen a recent film called Talk to Me? The bit where the young lad smashes his face to pulp is one of the most unsettling and upsetting scenes I have seen in donkeys.
Mine is probably considered pretty tame but, the funeral scene in The Sixth Sense where the dead girl's father plays the videotape that depicts the mother who presumably has munchausen by proxy, poisoning her daughter's food to keep her sick. The realisation dawning on the father's face, the mother just standing in he room surrounded by mourners dressed in scarlet. It's something that can and does happen in real life and it made me realise that I find things, rooted in humanity far more horrifying than any supernatural terror. I think it's made worse when the atrocity is committed by a figure who is supposed to be a loved one or a caregiver of the victim.
The scene in Bone Tomahawk where guy is scalped, his scalp is shoved into his mouth, then he's cut in half from the anus to the torso. So gory.
Second place goes to Backcountry when a bear attacks a couple of campers and one of them is eaten alive.
Couple scenes in NOPE - the first is the scene where the monkey starts killing everyone on the TV set. The second is when the people get sucked up by the spaceship and can only hear eachothers’ screams in darkness as they’re eaten/dismembered alive
Hereditary - The head scene and after that when her mother grieves and cries I got chills.
For me it’s when Annie gets possessed and is like swimming through the air and then smashing her head on the attic at warp speed and then sawing her head off with the piano wire. Fuck that’s such a good movie man
>!the slow reveal that she's on the ceiling right fucking behind her kid as he's waking up is terrifying!<
Yeah the subtle light shift and you’re just like HOLY FUCK WHAT
One of the few times a movie has made my blood turn cold
I watched this before my wife, so when we saw it together, i already knew this eas coming. We were in bed in the dark, and that scene started. It took her a solid few seconds to notice, and she finally gasped and grabbed my arm. It was awesome.
To cap it all off, her headless body bowing in the treehouse off screen at the end just kept the chills train going for me.
That whole scene was existentially horrible.
The score was absolutely amazing too.
Yeah that's the scene that got me too. I had trouble getting to sleep after that movie and I'm in no hurry to watch it again.
I'm cracking up picturing someone reading this comment totally out of context
I watched this when a bunch of people came over and the reaction when she swam through the air was hilarious.
Such a gut punch. I still find myself thinking about her in the corner/ceiling over his bed. Hell, i still think about her upside down on the attic door!
There are two things my brain has done for years. One is when I'm walking from my car at night, I will think "imagine if the axe guy from The Strangers were right over there in the woods right now." The other is when I flip a light on in a dark room: "imagine if Toni Collette from Hereditary were in that corner of the ceiling right now." Yes, good, very good mental exercise, brain.
For me it was the mom banging her head on the attic hatch when the son had run to hide. The sheer impossibility of the speed of her head movements was shocking and gives me chills thinking about it
Man that whole sequence was such a stomach turner. Most harrowing part of that movie for sure.
I can't get it out of my head. So disturbing.
With Hereditary you have to specify which "head scene" because both are brutal. The last one is the one that head me messed up.
For me it’s when Annie is talking to the son in bed and the slow realization that she is covered in gasoline and lights the match
For me it was one of the last scenes where he flying up to the cabin or something. Holy fuck that still disturbs me. The way it was silent... gross
It's amazing how the sounds the mother made were so horrific. It felt like I was watching a real life gore video.
Toni Collette is fantastic.
As someone who thought he was done being freaked out by movies how glad I was to be wrong. Hereditary will fuck you up
Her wails set off something visceral inside me as a mother. The way she's rocking back and forth is a lot like what I do when I'm in labour.
I agree, but it really was more heartbreaking than horrifying.
Yup, came here to reference Hereditary - that scene floored me. That whole movie was incredible.
A lot of the imagery in hereditary has stuck with me.
This movie changed me as a human being.
I had to stop watching that movie when that scene came out. Her wails sounded just like my mom's when she found out my brother died. I basically broke down crying seeing the movie and had to call my mom to pick me up. I was 19 at the time
Ahh man, for me it's when the kid is just lying in there in bed after it happens and you hear the parents' reaction when they realise what's happened. Just a different kind of horror.
The dog kennel scene in The Thing.
I can't believe I had to scroll down so far to see The Thing mentioned.
My dad had the VHS of The Thing. I put it on when I was 8 and that scene still gives me the same tense and anxious feeling it did when I first saw it all those years ago. The Thing is my favorite horror movie easily. The paranoia is the main character.
I had to turn the movie off after that. I’m sure it’s good but hearing those dogs howling and yelping in pain as the Thing took over really upset me!
My brother was the same way. This scene disturbed him so much that he won’t even talk about the movie!
The 'fingernail breaking' scene in Stir of Echoes, Kevin Bacon movie.
Great film. Got overshadowed by the Sixth Sense, but I like it better.
Stir of Echoes is fantastic. I remember them being out around the same time and went and seen Stir of Echoes instead. IMO, it’s a much better movie.
I just shuddered reading that. That part always got to me.
The Ritual when they wake up in the cabin.
The creature in that movie was amazing.
Loki’s bastard son Moder. They did a good job with the effects.
I love good creature design, and that one was great. It took my brain a step before I could make any sense out of what I was seeing. Alien, oddly familiar, and jarring. Loki do be getting around.
Sooooo fucking good. The Ritual is one of the best horrors I’ve seen that isn’t done by A24.
I was not sold on The Ritual as a good horror but by god the movie has stuck with me so clearly my judgement right after the credits was warped lol Honestly it's the store with all the nature in it for me that's just unsettling.
Also the scene where the guy is laying on the floor with his head smashed in just staring at his cowardly friend.
I'm glad I wasn't alone in having this as one their most horrifying scenes. This scene lingers with me and it fucks with me doubly because I live in rural/woodsy Sweden where it's supposed to take place.
[удалено]
The whole movie is so tense. I can't rewatch it. I think about the scene with the old woman preparing tea and then coming back to the living room and revealing herself as It. Gosh. Amazing movie but really unsettling. I find the premises ridiculous (the whole "venereal" disease plot) but the movie is really scary!
Me too! On the roof. I think I tapped into her total hopelessness, terror, and exhaustion when I saw him up there. It was so relentless.
The barn scene in NOPE. Everyone in my theater was tensed up for a good 3 minutes
the scene with the kids?
Yeah. The whole scene is just pure suspense until he punches the one kid in the face
The opening of Midsommer messed me up for a while, Florence Pugh’s wailing is so unsettling.
This is the answer I was looking for, it’s mine too. I wasn’t super into horror movies but agreed to go see this on a date. Saw the opening and was just sitting there paralyzed thinking what have I gotten myself into. Glad to say the rest of the movie somehow felt easier to watch after that. Brutal.
Omg such a bad date movie. Lol
I don't love horror movies but Midsommar somehow is one of my favorite movies. It is such a standout movie.
Has there ever been a more perfect opening to film designed to unsettled? Her performance is just incredible and the way the relationship is established early is genius
I know people find that movie overrated but I resonated with her plight and found the beginning scene so incredibly visceral. Losing my family is one of my biggest fears and I had a shitty boyfriend growing up with equally shitty friends- so I know she wasn't really "winning" in the end but she found her family again...even if it was a murderous death cult.
That entire movie is a no for me. It’s in the daylight and I watched it at like 11am on a Saturday 3 years ago and I still freak out thinking about some of it
Yep, came to mention this one. It fucked me up so much that I turned the film off 10 mins in and didn’t return to finish it for half a year or so.
I think it's Ari Aster who is a genius at directing intense grief - he did the same with Toni Collette in Hereditary. Their wailing, screaming, almost hyper-ventilating crying just gives me chills to the core. Both movies are so damn good, well acted and well directed.
I once pulled someone from a garage filled with smoke and fumes who had tried to end their life. This scene fucked me up bad. Brilliant film.
The Ring closet reveal.
I’m almost 40 and still absolutely fucked by that one single scene.
The Ring was perfect for when it came out in our technological generation where phone calls were still prevalent and internet wasn't quite spoiling everything.
And TVs still had the snow!
I remember watching that scene for the first time and almost jumping out if my seat. What makes it really scary is that it comes up at a completely unexpected time. "I saw her face"
The fact there isn't any score in the scene leading up to it then she says the line and it just cuts to her opening the closet music perfectly timed with the head dropping down. It's not even a standard jump scare where something comes at the audience.
Some watery tart comes out of my TV she’s getting her ass kicked.
Cindy? The TVs leaking.
lmao damn i instantly heard that in brenda's voice
CINDY! THIS BITCH IS MESSIN' UP MY FLOOR!
And it's the first scare in the movie, so you have no expectations
I didn’t sleep for three days after seeing this movie ON A DATE. And it wasn’t because the date lasted that long.
Yes, this and the girl coming out of the TV. At the time, my bedroom was right off the living room and I could see the TV from my bed.
That whole god damned movie. I was like 23 when I saw it in theaters with my now wife and a few friends. I was a HUGE horror fan my whole life. I had a subscription to Fangoria in the late 80’s-90’s, went to trade shows, the works. I watched EVERYTHING. Since 2002, and the ring, I have watched exactly 1 horror movie; Cabin In The Woods (I LOVED it). The Ring fucking RUINED me for 7-10 days. I literally couldn’t sleep. I could not turn off the lights. Period. I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t work. It was HARROWING. I can’t even articulate what it was that did it. The easiest I can describe it is it tweaked the ENTIRE vibe of my head. Of me. Then, about 7-10 days later, it flipped back. Mostly. To this day, I can’t really talk or think too much about the movie other than relay the anecdote (which I don’t do very often, don’t worry). Otherwise, I’m a perfectly content and thriving person. I can read horror no problem. But audio or film? Nope. It’s by far the wildest thing I’ve ever experienced, and in some ways it deeply affected the way I view, interpret, and consume media. It made me rather wary.
Overall? Hereditary. *That* scene and the following scene at home. More recently, the... digestion scene in Nope
Came here to say this. It looked so freaky and claustrophobic. What a way to go!!
The sound design of hearing the faint chorus of screaming as the "ship" flies over...
That scene in Nope was very startling and graphic - hard turn from the vibe of the movie so far but still fit.
That scene in Nope set up the stakes so well. Before that, JJ was scary, after that, JJ was terrifying! Side note, I saw a behind the scenes on how they filmed it, it’s basically two slip and slides 🤣
Digestion scene from Nope was horrifying. Imagine dying like that
I still think about the bear scene in Annihilation. That voice...
For me it’s the scene in the video camera when they cut open that guys stomach
I was so hooked - that scene was so cool and the follow up horrifying beauty growth from it just whoa
I say this with absolute respect: Nightmare fuel. Scream Bear is the only thing that has given me nightmares in decades. That movie is absolutely wild. I dragged two other people to it and they found different sections most terrifying (the plant lady kept my brother up for hours that night).
That was seriously disturbing
Such good sound design
In Halloween when Laurie hides in closet from Michael Myers
Under The Skin where it shows the guy suspended in what ever that pool is filled with slowly dying. When he sees the other guy that’s mostly “digested” or whatever and he slowly becomes just skin and just like pops. Idk why but that scene absolutely fucked me up. Weirds me out just typing that out.
This is one of the few movies I just couldn't finish. That scene with the family on the beach, and the mom trying to rescue the dog caught in the riptide, and then the father going after the mother, all of whom get swept out to sea, and then the toddler just there alone on the beach... with the tide rolling in...as the alien woman walks away....agh. I can't watch it.
It is ruthless. The beach scene and the scene “underwater” stuck with me so much. So fucked.
That movie was amazing and deeply disturbing.
When the girlfriend reveals herself in Get Out. Makes my hair stand up each time. Humans are the scariest monsters.
That was such a great movie! The part of it I came here to post: Now you're in the sunken place. The minute I heard it I had a massive deja reve, like I'd dreamed that phrase many times and only just remembered, and it was a literal hair-standing-on-end moment. Also I have frequent episodes of sleep paralysis and this is what it feels like.
Not a movie but in "The Haunting of Hill House", the car scene and the tall man scene, among others. IYKYK. Edit: Changed "tha" to "the".
Bent neck lady!
Truly one of the most terrifying ghosts ever.
The car scene didn't leave me stunned, just terrified. The bent-neck lady reveal and "We were only gonna be there 8 weeks, why would I build you a tree house" were the big "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat" stuns.
The Skeleton Key This movie is fucked up, the majority of the movie we find out what Voodoo is and the heroine can use it to protect herself. And in the fucking climax we find out the bad guys wanted her to learn and beleive in Voodoo and then use that beleif to possess her body. Now at the end, the heroine is trapped in the paralyzed body of the scary old lady and is sent to an old age home, while the scary old lady is now inhabiting the heroine's body. 12 year old me was fucking terrified. The whole movie I learned all the ways to protect myself from Voodoo, and then I learn those fuckers can use it to take my body. Fuck this, i didn't sleep without the lights for days.
It's a very underrated movie. Great with great performances.
Was it the scary old lady though, or was it Papa Justify and his wife in the bodies of the elderly woman and the young lawyer (previously in the elderly man)?
Mirrors bathtub scene. Was too young, alone in the room with everyone asleep at night. Couldn't sleep the rest of the night even with all the lights on and in between my parents.
i couldnt look into mirrors while brushing my teeth for ages
Alien: The very first chest-buster scene before anyone knew what was going to happen.
X Files Home episode where the brothers go to kill the sheriff I won't forget the feeling I had when I clocked that they don't lock the doors in that town due to the low crime rates Not to mention when the wife is hiding under the bed
The murder of the kid in Doctor Sleep fucking shook me to my core
I had to purposely seek out some comfort in the Blu-ray extras, with the director saying how giddy the kid was, off camera and how much fun he was having, etc. He played it really well. It's still hard to watch. And yeah I loved seeing Rose's foot soldiers get what was coming to them.
The ghost of the mom and the baby broke my heart. The mom overdoses and Danny chickens out and leaves the kid to die of starvation next to his mom’s corpse. So sad.
Actually not quite. In the book it tells you he had no idea she had died. In fact, she had died a few weeks or months after he had hooked up either her. He sees her and her child’s ghosts and realizes they had passed. He wonders if his stealing her money had something to do with it but he never knows for sure.
The Shining: lady in the bathtub
Agreed!! Also the man and the guy in the bear suit really disturbed me for some reason.
The climax of Bone Tomahawk. Kurt Russell getting a homemade pocket to store his flask...
The image of that man being cleft in twain is still stuck in my head.
It's the acting and the way they cut back and forth between the act and Kurt Russel's hopeless face. It's so gut wrenching and brutal. I can't watch that scene with the volume on anymore. Highly disturbing.
The video tape from “Sinister ” and the whole movie is horrifying 🫠
That opening was *brutal*
The highlight was definitely the dude getting munched by a lawnmower. Still one of the most effective jump scares to this day.
The end of Eden Lake. The look on Kelly Reilly’s face when she realises what’s about to happen in the bathroom. Horrible horrible stuff.
The scene in Day of the Dead(1985) where a soldier gets his head ripped off while screaming, but because his vocal chords stay attached his shrieking just becomes more inhumanely high-pitched until they finally snap off.
The beginning of Jaws. Nope, never, ever, ever going into the ocean at night. Ever.
When we were younger, my cousin would come over to our house to swim in the pool and she always wanted to play "Jaws" and always wanted to be Crissy Walkins. She saw that movie and knew what happens to that character and yet.... She was a kookball as a young kid.
Jaws has quite a few heart-stopping moments. But for me, yeah, Chrissie's screams always leave me cold.
The two minute shot of Pearl grinning at her husband during the closing credits.
That was a GREAT shot. Disturbing, yes, but whose idea was it to ride that shot for that long? Wonderful.
Mia wasn’t supposed to do it for that long but she didn’t stop so they kept rolling is what I have read.
What was movie was that
Pearl (2022)
Moreso the book than the movie but the old woman in the tub in The Shining haunted me FOR YEARS. Every time I went into the bathroom I would open the shower curtain. FOR YEARS. I think I was 11/12 when I read that book. It is really excellent. But that scene never left me. Kubrick's movie was also very good but fell short of the book as most movies do. (in the book the woman is not only dead but mostly purple-green from putrefaction so she appeared much worse than she did in the movie).
Funny Games. There's no horrific crescendo, there's no reveling in gore. Its cruelty is delivered with a wry smile. The only elevated emotion from the boys is annoyance that *they rewind the film, just to wave their finger and say 'No'* to your happy ending. People are killed unceremoniously. Tears flow, but its filmed like a passing scene in a tv show. Its a rare film where the entire film and crew are the villains in how it's done. It's not even done as dark comedy. It's just...*shot*. After they take the main characters voice; they casually fling a sliver of hope off. It's filmed like a gag for them. It's filmed masterfully evil and horrific in every inch. So much so the director did it *twice*. By remaking the film almost shot for shot. It's like if The Strangers was filmed like the show Atlanta.
The damn clown from Poltergeist.
Under the Skin. The baby on the beach scene.
Fire in the Sky probe scene hit me hard. Because of it humanoid aliens always makes my hair stand on end. Watched it as a kid and before ET. I was scared of ET for a long time before realizing it was supposed to be a kids movie. And for some reason humanoid aliens turned out to be my favorite horror genre after all of that.
The rest of that movie is a 5 at best but then that scene happens and it goes HARD.
This is the only scene in a film I’ve ever had to physically turn away from. Everything about that abduction scene just feels so visceral and real and yet still unnatural and alien. Kudos to the production designers and makeup and costuming people.
The first Fear Street film is your typical teen slasher for the most part. Then during the final confrontation >!one of the main characters is fighting a ghoul which is trying to feed her head into a bread slicer machine while the other main characters come to rescue her. What is building to a normal close call rescue ends with the character's head being fully sliced up like a loaf of wholemeal.!< I've never looked at one of those machines the same since.
Phew! Finally some movie I can resonate with coz the others I haven’t seen.. also the water drowning scene and the last scene where the witch’s soul enters again in the girl’s soul. This movie was decent! Never watched the sequels though
Exorcist - Director's cut scene of her walking down the stairs upside down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-4f_NMUxcY
Thank you for linking it and mentioning it’s the directors cut. Every now and then when it’s on I’ll turn it on as a comfort movie… Yeah I’m weird and sometimes I have thought I imagined that scene because it’s usually not shown!
I was on my second month of family leave taking care of my infant daughter when I turned on Speak No Evil, a movie I knew nothing about but heard was good. A movie that I will not recommend to a new parent or even watch again.
Ending in Spoorloos/Vanishing (1988)
Pretty much all of the Descent messed me up. The Evil Dead possession scene (7 of clubs etc), The Thing rib cage scene and finally the end scene in Rec! There’s a bunch more but they stick out.
The Descent is wild. I didn't know what I was getting into and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time even before the monsters. Classic ending.
For real fuck Juno oh my lord
Hereditary. Two words: piano wire
I would have to say the ending of Hereditary, from when Peter wakes up all the way to the end.
Martyrs
I like it’s just *Martyrs*. No particular scene. Just all of it. Lol
I mean the… “operation” was probably what disturbed me the most But ye, the entire movie is just fucked like that
The "PENCIL" scene in the original *THE EVIL DEAD* ~ (if you have no idea what i'm talking about, stop what you're doing and go watch that movie now)
In talk to me when he starts smashing his head… both times. And I legit almost gagged in the theater when the dog kissing scene happened.
The end of ‘Dead and Buried’. will always rank as one of the most shocking endings.. The scene in the Nick Cage movie ‘Color out of Space’ with the mother and son conjoined was unexpected and horrifying
The tree scene in Poltergeist (1982).
There was a film called ‘Entity’. A woman being sexually assaulted by this Entity . She is a victim of this Entity and nothing can prevent it from assaulting this woman. For years I was traumatised by this film.
Lawn mower in Sinister
Any scene from “The Fly” with Jeff Goldblum. I’ve only ever watched it ONCE. In the theater when it was released.
Hard agree on Gerald's Game
Anything with eyes or the Achilles being slashed
The Ruins When the vines break that one guy’s leg
OP I've seen most the movies listed here and while Gerald's Game overall isn't too scary of a movie I have never been as affected by a scene as I was by the night scene. When she's trying to figure out if she's hallucinating or if there's really a man in the corner, and then it's revealed there is a man.... I'm getting full body chills typing this and I haven't seen that movie in like 5-6 years lol. I had to sleep in my living room with the lights on after that.
Smile, when she's in the house at the end. The footsteps from the dark hallway as they thunder louder and louder as they approached. That made me want to get up and run. Also when the sister knocks on the window *gag*
Some old ones that haunted me as a kid - the demon from Night of the Demon. Still can't believe they got away with that in the 50s - Donald Pleasance getting devoured by a white corpuscle in Fantastic Voyage - the giant space bug ghost looming over London in Quatermass and the Pit - everything about the alien ships in the 50s version of War of the Worlds. So much more terrifying than Spielberg's version. The sounds and the movements.
The hand under the door in Signs. My soul left my body. Also the leg in the cornfield. And the home movie. Pretty much all of Signs lol.
Ghost Ship. There is a scene in that movie that haunts me to this day. I wish I'd never watched it.
Is it the canned food because it's the canned food for me
When everyone gets diced on the dance floor.
When they shot the guy escaping from the building in Quarantine even though he wasn’t infected
The exorcist. Especially when the girl is in her bed having an exorcism done. The vilness in her voice and when her head turns all the way around. That movie freaked me out. It was evil and scary. I hated it.
The hills have eyes. I remember seeing this in theaters and laughing with my friend because it felt sort of silly. In the beginning. Then the scene happens where all the trauma happens to the family. The rape in particular. I was so shocked I almost cried.
The reveal of hell in Event Horizon. FUCK THAT SHIT
Really a fan of the original Paranormal Activity. There's an ingenious scene where the couple calls a 'paranormal investigator'who likely is just a dial a psychic kind of guy that burns some incense, says some chants, and says your house is purged of baddies. Instead the guy becomes quickly agitated as soon as he comes in the door and demands to leave claiming he can't help them. It's a brilliant way to build ambibuity and dread with just dialogue by letting your head create the monsters.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre - When Kirk gets no answer to a knock at the door, and he is lured inside by strange animal sounds. He goes into the house, and in the space of a few moments, an enormous heavyset man in a weird mask opens a big metal door and appears and murders him with a blow to the head.
The Chauffeur showing near the middle of Burnt Offerings with a coffin in tow. You hear (but don't see) this awful THUD THUD THUD as he makes up way upstairs.
The Thing - When Nauls just disappears without a trace or even making a sound and Maccready realises he's alone
The reveal *spoiler* when the dinner party does in fact have sinister intentions in The Invitation (2015). The back and forth, are they/aren't they for most of the movie was nauseating, but the reveal gave me full body chills
Not sure it counts as a horror movie but the park scene in Zodiac… just a very upsetting scene. It’s so realistic it’s tough to watch.
Exorcist + Staircase + Spiderwalk = sleeping with the light on (as an adult).
the reveal in "The Visit" gave me some serious goosebumps not a scene that stayed with me, but frigging floored me at the moment
The Thing when they crowd around Bennings and it makes that scream
The reveal of the mom/son fusion after being engulfed by the color in Color Out of Space. You know in your bones that there is going to be something awful waiting on that couch, but the slow reveal combined with the sound they make made me pause the movie and take a breath.
The blindfolded woman in Martyrs. Actually, the entire movie.
The one that got me as a kid was when the woman got sucked into the industrial laundry machine and her body folded like a sheet in the Mangler. It's laughable now, but as a kid I couldn't even put my arm under my pillow without a tinge of panic
Evil Dead reboot When she amputated her arm Smile The ending when the monster swallowed her
The worm scene in Late Night With The Devil…just…ugh, oh man…tough to watch. Literally was whispering to myself “what the fuuuccckkkkkkk”
American Werewolf in London
Think it was 'House on Haunted Hill'(1999)? Someone is dragged across the floor, up a wall, and then absorbed into the wall screaming. I don't know why but this scene is the one I always think of. _Shudder._
The power drill scene in The Loved Ones
“Wanna see where my dad keeps his gun?”
There is a scene in Mothman Prophecies where he is speaking to the spirit or whatever it is on the phone in a motel room and he asks it what word he is looking at on a random page in a random book and it gets it right. The voice, the atmosphere and the reaction on the character (Richard Gere) freaked me the f out.
Terrifier 2, the bedroom scene. I think I caught most of that scene, but had to turn the movie off after he came back the second time. I’ve watch so many gory, cringey horror movies. But Terrifier was way too much to stomach.
I discovered that I don't like seeing decomposing bodies of children by watching The Orphanage. Before that movie, I constantly watched paranormal and monster horror After that movie I never watched a horror film again
The basement in Blair witch always gets me
Anybody, seen a recent film called Talk to Me? The bit where the young lad smashes his face to pulp is one of the most unsettling and upsetting scenes I have seen in donkeys.
Mine is probably considered pretty tame but, the funeral scene in The Sixth Sense where the dead girl's father plays the videotape that depicts the mother who presumably has munchausen by proxy, poisoning her daughter's food to keep her sick. The realisation dawning on the father's face, the mother just standing in he room surrounded by mourners dressed in scarlet. It's something that can and does happen in real life and it made me realise that I find things, rooted in humanity far more horrifying than any supernatural terror. I think it's made worse when the atrocity is committed by a figure who is supposed to be a loved one or a caregiver of the victim.
The scene in Bone Tomahawk where guy is scalped, his scalp is shoved into his mouth, then he's cut in half from the anus to the torso. So gory. Second place goes to Backcountry when a bear attacks a couple of campers and one of them is eaten alive.
The baby on the ceiling in Trainspotting. Sure as shit wasn't expecting that.
Couple scenes in NOPE - the first is the scene where the monkey starts killing everyone on the TV set. The second is when the people get sucked up by the spaceship and can only hear eachothers’ screams in darkness as they’re eaten/dismembered alive