Scariest scenes from movies.

In Tea with Mussolini when the black shirts got hold of Judi Dench's dog.

The T Rex and the kids in the kitchen in Jurassic Park.

Exorcist III (a very underrated film) served up some classics:

Zodiac (2007) is the only film that has scared me this millennium.

no,it aint your long lost dead daughter's ghost--DONT LOOK NOW ENDING

Love that the arrow hides her face ^

The Flying Monkees from The Wizard of Oz. That scene had me at the edge of my seat as a child.

This thread can't exist without this oldie but goody from "The Exorcist."

WARNING: disturbing.

R7 That video is actually a tranny sending its SJWs out into the world. Truly terrifying.

The scene with the hobo behind the diner in Mulholland Drive. For some reason it truly upset me the first time I saw the movie.

R10

Yes! I was just about to link a youtube clip of the complete scene where the guy starts off in the diner talking about his nightmare and ends with the scary thing behind the wall.... couldn't find it though.

Lynch taps deep into your psyche. Scenes in Lost Highway also gives me dread.

That closet scene in Halloween always gets me, and made me never look at wire hangers the same way again!

How odd, R12!

I love OP for starting off with the best! But that clip cuts off just before the creepiest part. When I saw HALLOWEEN in it's first theatrical release the screams were off the charts at what happened at the beginning of this clip---

I know it's weird but it has to be the tiger scene in Red Dragon.

The Robert Blake and Bill Pullman scene from David Lynch's Lost Highway always creeped me out.

This scene from "Insidious" scared the hell out of me when I first saw it at the theater. I don't know why there's a "3" in the title, since this is from the first film.

Kid and clown in Poltergeist (the original)

Trilogy of Terror - the story with Karen Black and that damn gruesome-toothed doll. Scared the shit out of me as a child when that doll chased her around her home. (Bitch let the gold chain drop off and ...)

The woman being hung on a hook in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Jennifer Jason Leigh's death in the Hitcher.

Run!

Anything and everything in "Killer Clowns From Outer Space."

Another unsettling goody from Zodiac. (This film delivered the chills!)

The laundry room scene from Halloween. Yeah, she doesn't get killed but the part at :33 when you see Michael Myers through the glass outside always freaks me out.

Good choice, R24.

I'm still in therapy from this.

The killing scene from "Don't Look Now."

This scene from "The Omen" certainly scared me as a child.. Disturbing, still, to say the least.

I like this scene from The Awakening where Rebecca Hall finds a dollhouse with characters and events from the movie portrayed inside:

The bedroom scene from the original Thai version of Shutter.

Ash's sister, Cheryl, possessed in [bold]The Evil Dead[/bold]

There are half a dozen truly creepy scenes in Nosferatu

Alien - Tom Skerritt is walking around the ship communicating back and forth with Sigourney Weaver by radio. He's reporting on what looks like acid burns, turns a corner and the thing is reaching for him.

Gets me every time.

Wait until Dark....Audrey Hepburn & Alan Arkin.

If you've seen the movie, you know the scene I mean.

People levitated off their seats.

For me, it's when Clarice Starling ventured into Buffalo Bill's lair, blind in the dark while Buffalo Bill was armed with night vision goggles.

Day of the Dead was the first splatter film I saw when I was a teen. Overall I hate the nihilism and the absolute hopelessness of the zombie genre so I can't really say I'm too scared about them the way I am by other horror since you get so numb about everything after a while. In any case in Day of the Dead there's a scene where the female protagonist is lying down on a bed while talking normally to someone. She starts to get up and suddenly her stomach opens and her guts fall out to the floor. Then she wakes up and realizes it was only a dream. It was a shocking scene, very effective.

But a close second is the climax of ALIEN, when Ripley thinks she has escaped the monster in the shuttlecraft.

It came after a harrowing sequence of trying to escape her mother ship during its countdown to self destruct; alone and on-the-run from the ALIEN. This movie might be the most prolonged, relentless terror I've ever seen in motion pictures.

From 2:04:00 in the link:

Another contender is the scene in ALIENS where the aliens attack Ripley and the marines from the ceiling.

What makes it such a master work of suspense AND shock is the motion trackers the marines were using that showed aliens in the room with them. But they didn't show where!

R26, that's truly harrowing.

Won't be able to sleep tonight.

I was severely traumatized by the "sloth" scene in SE7EN.

I'll never forget that, or the unrelenting tension and bleak tone of that film!

Of course film critics and historians will insist we include the most iconic horror scene of all time:

This isn't scary now but when I was a kid this scene scared me so badly I had nightmares all night of the man with pecked out eyes in front of my bed lying against the wall.

The flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz scared me too.

The scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that scares me to this day is not the girl hanging from the hook. It's the way Leatherface suddenly appeared from behind that sliding door, bashed that young man upside the head, and his body convulsons.

The Cell - may be more memorable than really scary

Another one that scared the crap out of me when I was a kid -- from 36:00 on, especially where the lady has her arms out and is saying, "The baby...the baby." This TV movie scared my mother too. I think we were easily frightened.

Thanks to whoever included all of the Zodiac scenes.. It is the only intelligent horror film in the last 20 years

I know the end of Carrie is what gets to most people, but for me the scariest thing is watching Carrie's rage overtake her and she transforms into that evil THING that she's tried so hard to suppress and all signs of the innocent, insecure and harmless girl are GONE. The look on her face and in her eyes is scary as hell to me. Really creeps me out. Sissy Spacek did a hell of a job in this scene.

That Kathy Bates nude scene in "About Schmidt".

I beat you,R27--go take a look NOW! R5

R26 IS THE WINNER---I was in therapy for this as well!

Quit trying to make the Lucille Ball gag "happen." You're now a nuisance.

I'm a straight woman R51--seek some therapy yourself

Bump

my pussy was a scary scene when it first came out.

Nobody asked you, Cheryl (R54).

R33, I think you're referring to this scene in Alien, and it's an excellent choice. Excellent acting on Veronica Cartwright's behalf (as Lambert).

Zodiac and the Lake Berryessa scene.

R34 beat me to it. The very first thought that came to mind was Alan Arkin's character, assumed to be dead, leaping out of the dark to clutch poor, frail, and BLIND Audry Hepburn's character by the ankle. Like an animal in a trap, she was! Run Susie, run!!!!!

Then when it was over, that shit-stain husband of hers insisting that she come to him, instead of him to her - y'know, to teach her to be self-sufficient. FUCK YOU SAM! Boo! Hiss!

Zodiac is a smart, well-acted and fascinating movie that could be true.

But it didn't scare me.

I'm sorry that scene in r1, while kinda scary, is incredibly lame. First, a closet door that locks from the inside? Why? In case you are in the process of being murdered? And then Michael Meyers struggling to pull those puny doors open? My 2 yo nephew could crash through those doors without trying. And then MM being taken down by wire fucking hanger? Really? Lame-o. How scawy is he? NOT!

OK fair enough, R59, R60 --- what scenes, from which movies, are scary?

Zodiac is scary, if for nothing else, the fact that all of the scenes included in this thread, actually happened in real life to real victims. Nothing scarier or more chilling than that!

I listed my scariest at r35, r37, r38 and r40.

I disagree with R60. I saw Halloween at the theatre upon its original release, and everybody in that theatre would disagree that that scene is lame and not scary. The audience was jumping out of their seat, screaming.

Implausible? Yes. But most of the movie, and most horror films include unlikely scenarios.

The Babadook has a number of scary scenes but the TV scene is my favourite.

The ending of "Ringu" (The Ring is also good but Ringu is the original.)

The very last scene in Raising Cain.

That's it, r56. The editing and acting build the suspense so well.

The lightening storm during Open Water. I laugh at 99% of horror movies, but I started shaking watching this.

r65, you really think babadook had scary scenes in it? omg. it was an extremely lame movie.

R70 I thought it was fantastic psychological horror - mother and son trapped in that house.

Different strokes for different folks. The Exorcist and The Omen didn't scare me at all.

One more from The Babadook.

R64 I didn't say it wasn't scary. I really like the movie and acknowledge it's rightful place as a classic of the genre. I haven't seen it in many years and was surprised at how stupid that sequence is, however. Micheal Fucking Meyers was taken down by a wire hanger.

He didn't get taken down by a wire hanger. He got stabbed in the eye, dropped the knife, and Laurie stabbed him with the butcher knife. Really not more improbable than anything from these terrible 21st century horror flicks (Insidious, Babadouk, Conjuring) which use cheesy ghost apparitions to deliver scares.

I'm on a phone, but Wait until Dark or See No Evil had a scene with a maniac hunting a blind woman through dolls and plastic sheeting.

I should've chosen that one too R66. It's VERY creepy.

The scene in The Blair Witch Project when the girl is apologizing on video to her mother for getting herself killed right before she is slaughtered- truly heartbreaking and terrifying all at the same time. The fact that half the audience believed it was really a documentary only adds to the terror. I just about lost it at the end when the victim was standind in the corner the same way the legend described the fate of all the victims. I know a lot of people hated the movie, but I feel 30 years from now it will be seen as the masterpiece it set out to be.

r76, I think most of the haters were young folks who couldn't appreciate the artistry of what made not only old school horror great but even some present day horror films, particularly the psychological horror, where as what isn't shown can be more terrifying than what is. That was the power of the Blair Witch Project, along with that documentary style realness. I love that film.

R73 please don't take my tongue in cheek criticism of the film too seriously. We can disagree. Like I said, I think it's overall a good-to-great film and classic. The music is the best part.

This thread must include this incredibly iconic scene. But there's probably 15 or 20 more from this movie that are just as scary, including the one posted upthread.

Now this thread is being derailed by a troll who couldn't stand the fact that his precious ZODIAC got criticized.

How does that ignore feature work again?

"You're going to need a bigger boat"

Session 9 is chilling.

Ah, yeah R80. Marked me forever.

Thank you for not posting pics!

Scene from John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) where they test everyone's blood to find the shapeshifting alien.

The scene goes from painful suspense to WTF, especially when that head creature spider thing skitters around...

Oops, the skittery head thing was in another scene. Obviously traumatized in general ...

I don't think anyone posted this yet but to me one of the best scary scenes using sound alone. George C Scott is awesome in this film.

The scene in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me when Laura Palmer finds Bob in her bedroom.

The graphic depictions of mindless violence in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE scare me. I have to look away.

We had to peel my sister off the ceiling after the Large Marge scene!

R76 and R77, my sentiments exactly. I think Blair Witch Project is one of the scariest movies ever made and it STILL makes me nervous to this day whenever I watch it.

R85, The Changeling is excellent and underrated.

R79's taste in horror stinks almost as bad as her pink, swampy vagina.

The scene from Se7en where John Doe turns himself in. Knowing whose blood he's drenched in makes this scene extremely creepy in retrospect

Here's the actual audience reaction to Halloween from 1979.

The phone call scene in the original Black Christmas. I have never heard anything so disturbing in my life. The way all the women are standing there looking at the phone still freaks me out to this day. Things based on real life horrors are always the most frightening.

Mario Bava's Three Faces of Fear. The sketch called Drop of Water. When the nurse comes back in her room.

Oh hell yeah, R94!

The final scene of Full Circle (The Haunting of Julia). I also like the scene at 1:20. I think the elderly actress is Cathleen Nesbitt. She's acting up a storm. Evil never dies.

"Don't Go to Sleep" is a 1982 made for TV movie staring Valerie Harper...but there are some surprisingly good scares in it. I find the ending terrifying.

Though the twist is pretty common knowledge at this point, I still wring some enjoyment from the climactic scene of the original "When a Stranger Calls". Carol Kane's wide-eyed oddity helps her really sell it unlike Camilla Belle's non-acting in the remake, and you sympathize with her despite her being possibly the worst babysitter ever. In this scene, Carol has just called the police after getting a series of increasingly weird and stalkery phone calls throughout the night, and they tell her they will attempt to trace the call if she can keep the caller on the line long enough. The scene crescendoes pretty naturally, with her trying to play ball with the stalker, until the moment the curtain's pulled back and she realizes she's in a little more trouble than she realized.

From one of my favorite horror films of the 2000s, "The Descent": one year after a tragic car accident kills the rest of a woman's family, her friends take her on a cave exploration spelunking trip. After an unexpected cave-in, the women find themselves in an unmapped system. The first half of the movie is about the psychological state of the women and the group dynamic as they begin to splinter and fight, before this scene in which the situation goes over the top and they find out they're not alone.

The scene starts at 1:06

And from the same movie as [R99], a good psychological transformation scene where one of the women accepts it's time to fight back. Nothing like meeting a group of blind, cave-dwelling sub-humans to teach you to accept your inner Rambo.

R83 - "The Thing" is my favorite horror movie of them all, and here's a nice little ditty sung in the style of Sinatra inspired by a lot of the scariest scenes in the film. Some levity in between all the chills.

Classic. I also liked the 2011 THING prequel, r101.

I was so terrified by the THING video game that I couldn't finish the campaign. Ditto the 2010 ALIENS VS. PREDATOR game.

OT but the cop at the end of r98 is HOT

I like seeing a scary movie alone with maybe a few people in the theater but they're rows behind me, out of sight. I saw Scream that way and had no prior knowledge of plot or anything to spoil it. The opening with Drew was fantastic, her wig a bit of a distraction though. I was prepubes when Halloween came out, at that age I could still just let a movie put me under. I remember me and my older sister in that little downtown theater just pretty much shitting our pants over and over. Hate that I didn't get to see The Exorcist that way.

[quote]I think most of the haters were young folks who couldn't appreciate the artistry of what made not only old school horror great but even some present day horror films, particularly the psychological horror, where as what isn't shown can be more terrifying than what is. That was the power of the Blair Witch Project, along with that documentary style realness. I love that film.

I honestly think one big reason for the hate was that a lot of people decided they were going to make fun of the movie as a defense mechanism, in order to keep themselves from being terrified by it. I've always felt that, if you can suspend disbelief of the idea that those kids would keep the cameras running even when really bad things were happening, like when they were running through the woods at night in horror, it's one of the scariest movies ever.

Well, the problem with the whole "found footage" genre is that it's cheap and easy to do. One man's "Not showing what's terrifying" is another man's "cheap ripoff."

I liked BLAIR WITCH but I hate the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise because it's just recycling BLAIR WITCH ad nauseam without having to deliver great production values.

For R107. The first couple of Paranormal Activity were okay, but the series really started to go downhill soon after.

Yeah, you can only repeat the same film every year before it gets old. I'm always bored by PARANORMAL ACTIVITIES because nobody dies until the last shot of the movie.

When Alan Arkin leaps across the screen and grabs Audrey's ankle- See Wait Until Fark some time without interruption. And the shower scene in Psycho- genius

r110, wait until fark? wtf! i saw wait until dark once. it was ok for an old thriller.

Ah, Anthony Perkins straing at us at the end of Psycho kept me from sleeping when I saw it as a kid.

The muders, I could deal with, although it was stressful. The shower scene is very effective and well done, but not über scary. But then, when the prisoner reportedly asks for a blanket because he is cold, they give it to him and the cackling voice of the old mother answers "thank you", then I started to feel uncomfortable and the scene that follows, well, I reeaaally dislike it.

YES, r112! Psycho might be the only movie made before the 1970s that scared me.

The Norma Bates reveal + Norman's takedown scene also freaked me out.

How scary is Let's Scare Jessica To Death movie? Doesn't it have water scenes? Those are scary.

Jeff Bridges revealing to Keifer Sutherland what happened to his wife in The Vanishing.

Saw the movie once, never again. I hate it.

R115, "Jessica" is a slow build but I found it scary and the lead actress is great.

Regan and the crucifix and the cunting daughter scene--which I have never seen in its entirety. When it started I made it about 30 seconds through, then went running up the aisle to spend the rest of the film in the lobby, with two older women. I was 15, needless to say I took endless loads of shit about this for a least a couple years after.

And the worst part is the showing was at one of those 70mm theaters with a sound system so good I could hear everything that happened in the film after I left from the lobby

The first murder in [italic]Suspiria:[/italic]

Wait Until Dark is best viewed (if watching on TV) in the dark. Particularly the last half.

The scene by the lake in "The Innocents," with Miss Jessel in the rushes.

The all torture scenes in the film Audition:

[quote]Jeff Bridges revealing to Keifer Sutherland what happened to his wife in The Vanishing. Saw the movie once, never again. I hate it.

Do yourself a favor and skip the Dutch original. It's much, much worse.

Mickey Roarke in the elevator as it's descending to hell during the closing credits of Angel Heart.

The Hollywood Reporter's picks for the scariest horror films of all time. Lots of my favorites included, but not Blair Witch, which SHOULD'VE been.

From that list, r125, I need to see THE BROOD, THE VANISHING and the original OMEN and RINGU.

The mother feeding her daughter poison in The Sixth Sense.

The Delbert Grady scene in The Shining.

The plane crash scene in Fearless.

[quote]From that list, [R125], I need to see THE BROOD, THE VANISHING and the original OMEN and RINGU.

I don't know anything about The Brood, but Ringu, The Omen and The Vanishing are classics, IMO. Ringu scares me so much.

[quote]The Delbert Grady scene in The Shining.

Grady scares me more than Jack, he is true evil.

Clarice going through Buffalo Bill's house in The Silence of the Lambs terrified me the first time I saw it.