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Most Terrifying Moments in Film

violet_crown

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In horror, thrillers and elsewhere there are those moments in movies that scare you shitless, and continue to disturb you well after the credits roll. Which is the most memorable for you, and why? And for you more introspective types, I'd love to hear about great fridge horror moments as well.

(Note: There aren't tags for it on this site, so if spoilers bother you this isn't the right thread.)


For me it was the last scene in The Ring. I saw it when I was 13 or 14 while it was still in theaters, and I remember literally crawling up the back of my chair when Samara came out of the television. I don't know what it was about that movie, but I still couldn't watch it for years afterwards because it freaked me out so bad.

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7fFCJ5ek6A"]Fuck that shit[/YOUTUBE]
 

JocktheMotie

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I'm not a huge horror movie fan, but oddly The Ring is the last movie that legitimately scared the shit out of me, when the first girl that died was shown briefly in the closet and head flopped down. The head flop did me in.

I am, however, a huge survival horror fan and Condemned: Criminal Origins stands out as a pants-shitter. I only let myself play at night with surround sound, and after that moment in the department store with the mannequins I couldn't play for days.
 

ZPowers

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The bag in Audition springs to mind, a couple scenes in Irreversible too. For slashers, Black Christmas (1974) has those creepy phone calls as a highlight, and the first kill in Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was pretty memorable.
 

Viridian

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I don't like horror movies in general, so I don't remember many scary scenes, but there are a few that scared me quite a lot:

1) The hallucination scene from Requiem for a Dream;
2) The rabbit from Donnie Darko, especially when the title character begins stabbing the air in his house;
3) The ark being opened in Raiders of the Lost Ark;
4) The staircase murder from Psycho, as well as the revelation of Momma Bates;
5) The entirety of Black Swan. Madre de Dios, what the hell was that? :shocking:
 

Patches

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For me it was the last scene in The Ring. I saw it when I was 13 or 14 while it was still in theaters, and I remember literally crawling up the back of my chair when Samara came out of the television. I don't know what it was about that movie, but I still couldn't watch it for years afterwards because it freaked me out so bad.

DUDE. Oh man. I watched this movie for the first time in my living room at like 3am in the morning. Unbeknownst to me, my brother had army-crawled behind the couch I was sitting on. When Samara started coming out of the TV, and I was visibly freaked out, he reached up behind me and grabbed the back of my neck and dug his nails in.

I -screamed- like I was being murdered. My folks came running out of their bedroom, my step-dad had a baseball bat, because he thought someone had broken into the house or something.

Scared the shit out of me.
 

Totenkindly

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I'm not a huge horror movie fan, but oddly The Ring is the last movie that legitimately scared the shit out of me, when the first girl that died was shown briefly in the closet and head flopped down. The head flop did me in.

The head flop, then when she came out of the TV, but the worst for me was when Noah tried to run and suddenly she "blipped" across the stage right into him. I about fell off the sofa the same time he fell over.

(Worse, I'm watching this alone after midnight. And at the end of the DVD, it's programmed to ring a phone in stereo sound. It literally sounded like my phone was ringing in the kitchen, I was just like, "I am NOT answering that!")

What helped was that the entire movie's tone (the visual/coloring, the pacing, the sound, the secondary characters especially Brian Cox), well, it was all unsettling.

... another movie that came out about the same time was The Grudge remake with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Some really creepy moments there too, just really awful ones. (The little boy ghost hissing; the female ghost coming out of the dark and from under the covers; the female ghost slithering down the steps... ugh.) And of course I was watching it after midnight by myself in a pitch-black room.

DUDE. Oh man. I watched this movie for the first time in my living room at like 3am in the morning. Unbeknownst to me, my brother had army-crawled behind the couch I was sitting on. When Samara started coming out of the TV, and I was visibly freaked out, he reached up behind me and grabbed the back of my neck and dug his nails in.

I -screamed- like I was being murdered. My folks came running out of their bedroom, my step-dad had a baseball bat, because he thought someone had broken into the house or something.

Scared the shit out of me.

Oh, that's rich.

Your brother should be flogged.

viridian said:
2) The rabbit from Donnie Darko, especially when the title character begins stabbing the air in his house;

Yeah, that was eerie as hell.

Again, it's about tone -- the movie itself was kind of dream-like and unsettling, with a sense of impending doom. So small scenes like that really popped out. I thought the scene in the movie theater where he asks Frank why he's wearing the rabbit suit, and Frank replies, "Why are you wearing that man suit?" was creepy too, along with the music. Just so much there.

5) The entirety of Black Swan. Madre de Dios, what the hell was that?

ROFL! Yeah. It was really a mind-trip. Definitely creepy, though. Especially when you start mixing creepiness with sex. It throws everything on edge, like mixing sweet with sour.

As a weird one, "Drag Me to Hell" by Sam Raimi, despite the camp factor, actually was really creepy, starting with the original scene with the boy getting dragged into the fiery pits (another "WTH WAS THAT????" moment). And then later, when all the stuff is happening around her (her house is being destroyed by the spirit, etc.) While the other movies were more about building suspense, this movie was so over the top unexpectedly, that's what was getting to me.
 

violet_crown

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The rape scene in Irreversible.

I don't think I'll ever see that movie. Just the idea of it makes my stomach turn.

As a kid this scene momentarily put me into hysterics: the toy clown scene in Poltergeist is still pretty creepy (btw was the mom suposed to have been masterbating in the tub prior?).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdUkPu_rXo0

Things that scared the shit out of us as kids could be a thread unto itself. One of my first film-related memories was walking in on my mom watching The Piano right as the husband cuts off his wife finger. I was absolutely hysterical after. I don't think it had ever occurred to me that someone could do something so awful to another person. In retrospect, the scene is pretty mild in comparison to some of the torture porn that's out there nowadays, and I'm pretty sure I didnt get the emotional gravity of the scene in context. Anyways.

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLJQwpIrt2c"]Run, Paquin, Run![/YOUTUBE]

DUDE. Oh man. I watched this movie for the first time in my living room at like 3am in the morning. Unbeknownst to me, my brother had army-crawled behind the couch I was sitting on. When Samara started coming out of the TV, and I was visibly freaked out, he reached up behind me and grabbed the back of my neck and dug his nails in.

I -screamed- like I was being murdered. My folks came running out of their bedroom, my step-dad had a baseball bat, because he thought someone had broken into the house or something.

Scared the shit out of me.

Mean, but kinda funny. You get him back for it after?
 

violet_crown

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... another movie that came out about the same time was The Grudge remake with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Some really creepy moments there too, just really awful ones. (The little boy ghost hissing; the female ghost coming out of the dark and from under the covers; the female ghost slithering down the steps... ugh.) And of course I was watching it after midnight by myself in a pitch-black room.

I remember seeing this and being sort of offended, frankly. I was like "What the hell is this? Everyone knows the covers are safe. They can't do this. THE COVERS ARE SAFE, DAMMIT!" :ng_mad:
 

Totenkindly

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Before the media was saturated with Blair Witch, I actually thought some of the scenes were creepy.

The main reason is because I grew up right near where it was filmed, to the point where I think I even recognized one of the roads filmed in the begining of the movie.

With that type of desolate rocky wooded terrain, where those old abandoned houses exist... well, I've actually walked through woods like that, and I've actually been IN abandoned houses like that that some people claim are haunted. (A friend and I actually went in one, one night, around dusk, on purpose to see if there were any ghosts.)

I know what it feels like to be in those places and have my mind play tricks on me and feel extremely jumpy and unsettled and like something's watching me.

I remember seeing this and being sort of offended, frankly. I was like "What the hell is this? Everyone knows the covers are safe. They can't do this. THE COVERS ARE SAFE, DAMMIT!" :ng_mad:

Well, for me, that was creepy. They cheated -- she had freebie safety!

I mean, if you're not safe under the covers, you're not safe on the toilet or anyplace else, anywhere. Ever. ANything can getcha. Anywhere.
 

MacGuffin

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The end of The Silence of the Lambs with the night vision goggles. I saw it in a theater with my cousin. During that scene half the audience was screaming, just SCREAMING with fear. Awesome.

The Exorcist III is an okay movie (the studio hacked it up and forced reshoots, it was written/directed by the author of the original Exorcist). There is one scene, however, that still stands out in my mind even if I can't remember hardly anything about the rest of the movie. A long, nearly silent, scene takes place in a hospital hallway and adjoining rooms. It frightened me so badly I changed the channel. Almost no one I know has seen this movie, but at least others on the internet remember that scene: imdb.com thread.
I saw it at it's UK premier. I have never seen an audience react with such shock. I mean hardened horror fans were screaming and everyone jumped out of their seats. what a sequence.
Wish I had seen it in the movie theater.
 

violet_crown

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A long, nearly silent, scene takes place in a hospital hallway and adjoining rooms. It frightened me so badly I changed the channel. Almost no one I know has seen this movie, but at least others on the internet remember that scene: imdb.com thread.
Wish I had seen it in the movie theater.

I think there's something incredibly potent about horror films that really capitalize on silence. I remember reading somewhere that the most terrifying parts of Paranormal Activity weren't when the actual action was happening, but from the dread you felt when the time counter on the video would start to slow down.
 
F

FigerPuppet

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This was the first movie I thought of:
[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd9PWvrkbO0&feature=related"]28 Weeks Later[/YOUTUBE]

The Kiss of Death-scene is also very good.

Also have to agree with people on the silent sequences in Paranormal Activity.
 
G

Ginkgo

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This was the first movie I thought of:
[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd9PWvrkbO0&feature=related"]28 Weeks Later[/YOUTUBE]

The Kiss of Death-scene is also very good.

Also have to agree with people on the silent sequences in Paranormal Activity.

*black woman scream*
 

Nicodemus

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I am usually strangely immune to film-induced horrors. I do remember, though, that when I saw 'Watership Down' as a child, it gave me a sublime feeling of terror.
 

Orangey

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That scene from Mulholland Drive where that creepy ass bag lady shows up out of nowhere. Also, the entirety of Eraserhead.

That one scene from Silence of the Lambs, where there's a long shot of Lecter's cage in the building with the skin of the cops hanging there...that's pretty terrifying, though not in a scream-out-loud kind of way.
 

Within

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The rape scene in Irreversible.

They showed that on Swedish television, I had to sit through it in the waiting room at the local health clinic accompanied by a couple of senior citizens. I have to hand it to them, they were some stone face oldies.
 
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