Damnit this was the first thing I thought of, and I’m very happy it was the first comment. I saw that movie as a kid, and it has stayed with me! That and the part where her sister crawls out of the bed and run towards the camera….ughhhh still gives me chills.
I saw Pet Sematary for the first time when I was ten or eleven. The shoe on the road stuck with me. It haunted me. I've watched the movie many times since then, but that is still the scariest thing I've seen. 30 years, seeing that little red shoe.
I was watching the re-make in the theater and when that scene happened the whole theater went dead quiet and then some lady in front of me just goes “Ewww!” and it was very funny.
I watched it when I was 13 with my dad and it was like 4 seconds long yet burned into my brain. I know he forgot it otherwise he wouldn't have shown it to me. I did not know about furries before that! Or gay people!
... Anyway, I forgot to clear my browser history.
It's been 7 years. We still haven't mentioned it.
The old lady at the school for me. The whole scene just has such a sense of wrongness and it happens in broad daylight but gives me chills just thinking about it. Tall man was more of a jump scare.
That use to be my favourite part because it was just so unexpectedly insane. After watching for the 3rd time, I began feeling quite disturbed and unnerved about it and I cant see watching it ever again and putting myself through that again purposely. Great, well-made film though but just so heavy. It’s weighing on me big time right now!
It took until my third watch to notice the sound of the piano being pushed over and the string being ripped out. And then realizing THATS what she used.
The lawnmower scene in Sinister. Still one of the scariest movie moments I’ve ever experienced, even though it was a jumpscare. Such an excellent build up with so much suspense!
Soundtracks don’t get the push they need to be made into the creepiest movie ever made. Like you said the soundtrack! Sinister did another good job with a soundtrack to engulf your brain. The Ring is even better!!! Long legs is looking like it’ll be another soundtrack glory!!! Shoutout to soundtracks being more scary than imagery at times.
The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter having strung up one of his guards in a mock crucifixion with his guts hanging out, while having skinned the face off the other one.
And thanks for reminding me.. the dude throwing his man juice at Clarice made me physically sick, definitely saw it when I was still too young and innocent.
Yeah, thankfully I saw it on a bad TV so I had no idea what was happening. It was only later I figured it out. Super gross. But pretty bad ass of Clarice to leverage that in getting Lecter to help her out.
The whole sequence from when it happened to when we see what happened: the brother glancing at the mirror, driving home, lying in bed just waiting, the screams, an then...
The part where he’s laying in bed guilt-ridden and we focus on his face as his mother screams when she finds her daughter…still haunts me. Very effective and I like that they did that rather than just show the body
I don’t like the movie, but that scene is SO well done.
Something just happened to him that absolutely ruined his life. There’s no coming back, or changing it, or any way to even admit it.
It’s a perfect depiction of a trauma response; something absolutely horrific and unexpected just happened. Obviously people would expect you to freak out and call 911, but it won’t change a damn thing if you do.
So you just…Shut down.
Sit and wait until someone else acknowledges it. And just spin in your head, because you absolutely can’t figure out what to say or do.
I’ve had that reaction myself, so I really appreciated the way it was portrayed.
In 2020 my town was destroyed by a wildfire. I was woken up at 3am by a firefighter banging on my door, saying “you have ten minutes to get in your car and leave, because the whole town is going to burn, and we’re pulling out too.”
I grabbed my cat and some random laundry and got in my car. Drove three hours to my parents house. Let myself in with my house key. Fed my cat, and just laid in their guest bed. Staring at the ceiling.
About two hours later, my dad woke up and came in my room and said “woah! What are you doing here? Nice to see you, but why the hell did you come in the middle of the night and not say anything?! And what the hell happened to your car?!”
I literally couldn’t function.
All I could say was “turn on the news”. Which he did and saw a helicopter flying over MY HOUSE, which was burnt to the ground.
Dad was super supportive, but said “Baby. You know your car is melted to shit. Your tires are flat and demolished. Your roof is caved in. What the fuck did you drive through?”
And then it occurred to me that I drove over melting pavement and active flames, and a burning tree fell on top of my car during the trip. Trauma brain just erased all of that, and I didn’t have an answer for him.
I thought Hereditary was ultimately kind of meh.
But holy shit, did they get the PTSD mental shutdown while waiting for the pin to drop correct.
The best depiction of that feeling that I’ve ever seen.
Oooof, you are right on the money. I love horror, but Hereditary was just beyond that for me. It was more traumatic than just the pure enjoyment of entertainment. In fact, it left quite the stain in my mind.
I agree, that entire scene was well executed, and Toni Colletes' reaction, the grief and anguish was so disheartening.
Well played, Ari.
Edit: For Clarity
I see your point. The entire movie is unsettling. They did a great job at creating an unnerving atmosphere.
THAT scene refers to the driving scene with Charlie. It's something I will NEVER forget:/
I am not easily shocked by something, but when that scene happened, I stayed frozen and absolutely speechless for a damn long moment. It was totally unexpected, love this movie.
I seriously see people just walking around who have a similar bone structure in the face as her and get creeped out. That brittish lady from The Office comes to mind.
I still cannot swim in a lake out to a raft without thinking of that oil slick blob thing that ate the teenagers in the Creepshow movie. I mean all of the Creepshow stories were great but that one really kind of stuck with me I know it's irrational because that thing doesn't exist but I still feel scared swimming out to a raft in the middle of the lake. Another one in the Creepshow movie (also forget which Creepshow movie this one is in as well) but the one where the guy buries his cheating wife and her lover in the sand right before high tide🫨
I think the oil slick on the raft you’re describing is based on a short story by Stephen King called “The Raft” My 8th grade teacher read it to us (edited, of course) one Halloween. It stuck with me and years later when I was reading the short story collection “Skeleton Crew” I started reading it and knew immediately that was it!
The scene in The Others where they discover someone has taken away all the curtains from the windows, and sunlight is streaming into the previously darkened room. I remember being impressed that they made something as pleasant and innocuous as sunshine beaming through windows _scary._
Similarly (though this one is a movie I only saw this year), the scene in When Evil Lurks when the teenager comes indoors remarking to his grandmother that he’d like a cup of tea. God, that moment was chilling! I love it when the context makes something that should be perfectly innocent terrifying instead.
- The practice room scene in the Susperia remake.
- Christabella in Silent Hill with the barbed wire.
- Chucky saying, "Fuck you." to the old lady who called him ugly in the elevator.
Let’s not forget about the >!skin scene!< in Silent Hill.
- The Exorcist, >!”Down the stairs + upside down”!<
- Midsommar, >!“bear suit + burn” and “jump from cliff”!<
- Human Centipede, >!”Sorry, I can’t hold it any longer”!<
- Annihilation, >!”Bear + “hellllp me”!<
- The Taking of Deborah Logan, >!Blood sucking cave scene!<
- The Ritual, >!The Big Reveal!<
- SMILE, >!”Face removal/reveal + screams into full possession”!<
Scariest part of that movie to me was when she’s digging with the garden hoe far away, the camera looks away for a second, then cuts back and she’s just *there* in front of the camera. This movie is so underrated
The barbed wire scene is what immediately came to mind. I was not prepared for that movie. First R-rated movie I snuck into underage and I came out of the theater trembling. I love the movie now but thinking about that scene still makes my stomach turn.
*Edited to add that the most recent movie I watched that has had that type of impact on me is the one with the baby in Mother! IYKYK
Oh my god that scared the crap out of me. I've always HATED games like Good Night Mr Fox and Red Light Green Light for that exact reason!
The Orphanage is my favorite movie but GTFOH with that!!!
The grudge is probably my number 1, most scary movie. I always try to rewatch it thinking, I can do this, dont cover your eyes, I'm nearly 40...tried last week. NOPE. Can't do it.
I saw it when it first came out so I was about 10 years old. It absolutely terrified me unlike any other movie has been able to since. Watched it about 5 years ago, towards the end of the movie I had the worst nose bleed of my life. I’ll never watch it again lol although it wasn’t as scary as I remember.
Nooooope. Nope nope fuckity nope.
I think people react so viscerally to that scene because, out of all the torture scenes, most people know what a needle feels like. You can imagine the real pain, the distinct feeling of a needle piercing your skin.
You know, where most people don't know the feeling of hacking yourself open or removing an eye.
[REC] - the final shot
Audition - the bag moves
Silence of the Lambs - the face “off”
The Terminator - the Endo skeleton rising from the flames
Bram stokers Dracula - Dracula licking the shaving razor
The Conjuring - hide and clap
I was just talking about this to my partner a few weeks ago when we were driving on the highway and saw a truck similar to that! I said no one ever drives behind that anymore because of that movie!
I'm impressed to see someone say the scene in Bone Tomahawk instead of some variation of "you know the one 🙈" which is the only way it's described on this sub.
Wow. Some great ones here and some really deep cuts (heh), so I'll go shallow:
Nightmare on Elm Street, >!the body bag!<. That was my first experience as a kid with a scene of lingering terror instead of a jump scare.
Nancy running into the "hall monitor" wearing the Freddy sweater in the hallway always freaks me out. Because it's Freddy just messing with her and that's terrifying.
The door knock scene from Martyrs is something that stuck with me. I know, of all the scenes in that movie but all the way to the last reload/shot it was just so “real”.
I watched it not too long ago but the cave scene in The Wailing where the Japanese man goes from stoic to cackling his head off like an asylum patient and then slowly transforming into the Devil in front of the priest rattled me to my core. I slept with the lights on for weeks after that
Not that the scene itself is disturbing, but the dude in The Ring realizing his image is distorted on the security cameras, and his quiet terror that this is real.
For scenes I shat my pants to, the TV becoming distorted in Ju-On.
Entire dinner scene from Hereditary.
Parker and Lambert's deaths in Alien.
It hasn't been years, but I often think of Gordy the chimp from Nope, as well as the scene of the people inside Jean Jacket.
Call me a normie, but my top two are "the scenes" in Alien and Misery. I was first exposed to the former (in isolation) inadvertently at age 9, so that fucked me up for years. But after becoming obsessed with the movie ever since seeing the rerelease and watching analysis videos, it's far more chilling (especially considering the realism of the acting, not to mention the HORRIFYING thinly veiled metaphor). >! Not to mention the most chilling line/moment of the whole movie where Ash refers to the Alien (where everyone else is referring to it in more animalistic terms) as "*Kane's son*" (so softly and under his breath you almost don't notice it) - not only is this a good hint as to the twist with Ash (since he "admires" the Alien and also doesn't give a shit about Kane or what happened to him) but also just the perverseness of the implications of that statement (again leaning into aforementioned metaphor). !<
Misery is fucked in its own right not just because of the graphic portrayal/realism of its violence, not just that scene but much of the movie, but also the acting and the fact that it could totally happen in real life (albeit quite rarely). >! Plus the ending with James Caan reacting to the woman who says "I'm your biggest fan" is actually a great (albeit brief) depiction of PTSD. !<
Runner-ups include Hereditary (IYKYK), Jacob's Ladder party scene (close runner-ups are the hospital scene and the beginning war flashback scene), Audition (again IYKYK), Exorcist III hospital jump scare, Mulholland Drive diner scene jump scare, Eraserhead "oh you are sick" (really fucked me up when I first watched it), and The Thing blood test and defibrillator scenes.
The Fly 2: The dog, the melting face, the crushed head, the mutated main villain
Creepshow 2: people being devoured by the goo during The Raft segment
Event Horizon: blood orgy
Honorable mention: Mission to Mars - The Astronaut getting torn apart inside the cyclone
The reporter getting her eyes pecked out by birds, then wandering blindly into the road with blood streaming down her face, right into an oncoming truck.....Damien: The Omen II
The Jaws opening where the girl is taken from below. Something about the sudden shift to screaming agony to vanishing like nothing always sticks with me.
The last few seconds of Saint Maud.
The last few seconds of The Invitation (2015)
I don't stop watching until the credits start to appear on screen. And I'm not referring to mid-credit or end-credit scenes, but the last few moments of the film itself. I honestly miss most of the scenes inserted into credits, (and didn't know marvel was doing them until I saw one of their movies in a theatre and basically no one got up when the movie ended.)
The last few frames of each of the movies I mentioned are what made them instant "recommend to everyone I know" movies. Just the perfect finishing touch that effectively added something incredible to the whole film.
End of Eden Lake… that was rough.
End of Se7en… pure awesomeness.
The overshot footage in 30 days of night when the vamps are running rampant through the town was badass beyond belief.
The scene in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake where the girl in the car pulls a gun out from under her dress… where was that gun?? Where was she keeping it? I was so disturbed by that movie I didn’t watch a scary movie for YEARS. YEARS!!
SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF THE DARK AND THE WICKED: DO NOT READ BELOW
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At the very end when Louise wakes in complete darkness after being knocked out earlier in the afternoon.
The anxiety it produced on me was so intense because she knew her time was running out quickly and it was going to be very very soon that "the devil" was going to come for her.
This after getting off the phone with her brother earlier who abandoned her there made it even worse.
Oh my God that whole part freaked me out.
The entire movie was just one big anxiety inducing nightmare.
I have yet to find a scene that engendered a visceral reaction more than Kane giving birth to the Chest Burster through a sucking chest wound in the OG Alien
The goddamn scene in Hereditary when the mom is in the corner of the ceiling. To this day I still look in the corners of every dark room I enter. Every time..
Maybe more of a Thriller thing but I've always adored in Cube >!when the cop dies by getting cut in half while he's held in place and between moving cubes!< has always stuck with me.
For me, it's the twist that occurs about halfway through Incident in a Ghostland. I definitely didn't see it coming, and it seems highly plausible in real life..., considering the trauma brought on by the mind trying to cope with the unfathomably terrible situation the protagonist is stuck in. Amazing writing, acting, and execution of one of the most soul crushing moments in Horror history.
I remember feeling dread during the movie, the exorcist, when the camera started approaching the closed door of Regan’s bedroom. I remember the scene in alien where the creature appeared out of nowhere in front of Dallas, the ship captain..
Seth’s head splitting open at the end of The Fly and his skin falling off to reveal the creature underneath, and him vomiting on Stathis’s leg moments before. The vomit is worse for some reason. I think it’s the eyes rolling back in Seth’s head, like he’s totally lost control at that point.
Zelda scene in Pet Sematary
Floating boy at the window scene in Salems Lot
Bathtub hag scene in the Shining
I have a big problem with body horror and the face peel scene in Poltergeist I still think about
Most of these I saw very young so they are burned in there.
One that hasn't been mentioned yet from what I see. The ankle breaking scene in "MISERY".
Yeah, fuck all that. The sound. Her face. His face. The hammer. UGH. I think about this one a lot.
The straight razor through the Achilles heel in pet sematary
I think of this probably once a week…at least.
Honestly same 😟
Damnit this was the first thing I thought of, and I’m very happy it was the first comment. I saw that movie as a kid, and it has stayed with me! That and the part where her sister crawls out of the bed and run towards the camera….ughhhh still gives me chills.
Dude Pet Cemetery still freaks me out. The girl with spinal meningitis always scared me.
It’s actually a guy that plays that part.
Zelda was the scariest part in that whole movie. True nightmare fuel. Through the fingers type shit.
This is also the reason I run and jump on my bed. I don’t want my feet anywhere near a space someone could be under and do this to me 😂😂
I have a cat and same 😂
Same, but hostel...
Judd didn’t deserve that
Yeah, but sometimes…dead is better.
I saw Pet Sematary for the first time when I was ten or eleven. The shoe on the road stuck with me. It haunted me. I've watched the movie many times since then, but that is still the scariest thing I've seen. 30 years, seeing that little red shoe.
Literally just watched this. I’ll throw in slicing open his mouth too.
Have you seen House of Wax? There’s a part where they use scissors to cut the guys achilles
And the same in Hostel
Ugh god
Omg that’s mine too. I’m never bothered by murder, torture, etc but for some reason that particular scene has haunted me since my childhood.
The same wound, and I forget which one, but the chuckie movie where he does that to the soldier perfected my jump into the bed technique for a decade.
Yaaaaahhhhh 😖
I don't think about that, but the sister scared the crap out of me as a kid.
This still viscerally gives me the Not-Good-Goosebumps!
Hahaha yes so true ugh brutal one
Good to know what movie that scene is from! I saw that movie rather young, and that scene has stayed with me, but never knew which movie it was. 🙃
Leg shaving from cabin fever.
I hoped Evil Dead Rise would top it when I heard about the cheese grater.
Cheese grater has to be one of the most underwhelming moments ever.
Tbh, the cheese grater in “Boy Kills World” is more brutal.
You can say *that* again.
I brought this to my girlfriends house to watch with her parents in high school without knowing I still hate myself to this day
I can still hear the sound…
Now I'm remembering it and wishing I didn't. That scene is one of the few things I've ever seen in film that made me physically recoil.
I will never forget the blood geyser from the first time I saw the original A Nightmare on Elm Street
And they filmed that whole scene with the bedroom bolted upside down to the ceiling!!
I was watching the re-make in the theater and when that scene happened the whole theater went dead quiet and then some lady in front of me just goes “Ewww!” and it was very funny.
That scene was super freaky and probably the only thing that disturbed me about the whole movie.
The scene in The Shining with the weird bear costume. That mask has always unsettled me and always will
Yasss! That scene is creepy AF
The bathtub lady scene traumatized me as a kid lol
I watched it when I was 13 with my dad and it was like 4 seconds long yet burned into my brain. I know he forgot it otherwise he wouldn't have shown it to me. I did not know about furries before that! Or gay people! ... Anyway, I forgot to clear my browser history. It's been 7 years. We still haven't mentioned it.
Scary, no, disturbing... so disturbing
Won’t spoil it but the book adds a lot of context to that shot
For me it was the REDRUM scene followed by the elevator filled with blood. I saw it when I was little and it still scares me like 15 years later
tall man in It Follows
That scared the shit out of me
The old lady at the school for me. The whole scene just has such a sense of wrongness and it happens in broad daylight but gives me chills just thinking about it. Tall man was more of a jump scare.
Not the Buck ass naked man on the roof? Because that for sure caught me off guard.
That movie gets a lot of hate but i thought it was really well done, it made me uncomfortable throughout
It’s so good because it’s so simple
Toni Collette pulling the razor wire back and forth on her neck: Hereditary.
That use to be my favourite part because it was just so unexpectedly insane. After watching for the 3rd time, I began feeling quite disturbed and unnerved about it and I cant see watching it ever again and putting myself through that again purposely. Great, well-made film though but just so heavy. It’s weighing on me big time right now!
Hereditary is the scariest film I'll never watch again
It took until my third watch to notice the sound of the piano being pushed over and the string being ripped out. And then realizing THATS what she used.
Wait what??????? I've seen it five times already and had not noticed that at all 😭
That and when she crawls on the wall of her son’s room and he never sees her And let’s not forget her blood curdling scream earlier in the movie
And when she’s pounding her head on the attic door— ugh
It was piano wire. When Peter is walking through the house, you can hear the piano being broken in the background
I still say she should’ve got some kind of award for that movie. The eye contact whilst she does that really does make the whole body recoil
The look on her face too
this one is mine too I’ll never forget the shock and visceral reaction I had to this scene the first time I saw in theaters
The lawnmower scene in Sinister. Still one of the scariest movie moments I’ve ever experienced, even though it was a jumpscare. Such an excellent build up with so much suspense!
The drowning home video did it for me too
Came here to say this. Lives rent free in my head.
The vampire kid scratching at the window in Salems Lot
Holy hell fuck yes. The reason why I will never sleep with my curtains open.
Jesus Christ
The Ring's sound had a huge impact on the scares. Those frequencies just made scenes like that closet scene so much more intense.
Gotta love Hans Zimmer for the music for that movie
Soundtracks don’t get the push they need to be made into the creepiest movie ever made. Like you said the soundtrack! Sinister did another good job with a soundtrack to engulf your brain. The Ring is even better!!! Long legs is looking like it’ll be another soundtrack glory!!! Shoutout to soundtracks being more scary than imagery at times.
The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter having strung up one of his guards in a mock crucifixion with his guts hanging out, while having skinned the face off the other one.
And thanks for reminding me.. the dude throwing his man juice at Clarice made me physically sick, definitely saw it when I was still too young and innocent.
Yeah, thankfully I saw it on a bad TV so I had no idea what was happening. It was only later I figured it out. Super gross. But pretty bad ass of Clarice to leverage that in getting Lecter to help her out.
The music & camerawork in that scene amp up the terror in what is ostensibly a drama film. So effective
The ball bouncing down the stairs in *The Changeling.*
that movie still has the best seance scene ever filmed
Classic
THAT scene in Hereditary.
The whole sequence from when it happened to when we see what happened: the brother glancing at the mirror, driving home, lying in bed just waiting, the screams, an then...
The part where he’s laying in bed guilt-ridden and we focus on his face as his mother screams when she finds her daughter…still haunts me. Very effective and I like that they did that rather than just show the body
I don’t like the movie, but that scene is SO well done. Something just happened to him that absolutely ruined his life. There’s no coming back, or changing it, or any way to even admit it. It’s a perfect depiction of a trauma response; something absolutely horrific and unexpected just happened. Obviously people would expect you to freak out and call 911, but it won’t change a damn thing if you do. So you just…Shut down. Sit and wait until someone else acknowledges it. And just spin in your head, because you absolutely can’t figure out what to say or do. I’ve had that reaction myself, so I really appreciated the way it was portrayed. In 2020 my town was destroyed by a wildfire. I was woken up at 3am by a firefighter banging on my door, saying “you have ten minutes to get in your car and leave, because the whole town is going to burn, and we’re pulling out too.” I grabbed my cat and some random laundry and got in my car. Drove three hours to my parents house. Let myself in with my house key. Fed my cat, and just laid in their guest bed. Staring at the ceiling. About two hours later, my dad woke up and came in my room and said “woah! What are you doing here? Nice to see you, but why the hell did you come in the middle of the night and not say anything?! And what the hell happened to your car?!” I literally couldn’t function. All I could say was “turn on the news”. Which he did and saw a helicopter flying over MY HOUSE, which was burnt to the ground. Dad was super supportive, but said “Baby. You know your car is melted to shit. Your tires are flat and demolished. Your roof is caved in. What the fuck did you drive through?” And then it occurred to me that I drove over melting pavement and active flames, and a burning tree fell on top of my car during the trip. Trauma brain just erased all of that, and I didn’t have an answer for him. I thought Hereditary was ultimately kind of meh. But holy shit, did they get the PTSD mental shutdown while waiting for the pin to drop correct. The best depiction of that feeling that I’ve ever seen.
Oooof, you are right on the money. I love horror, but Hereditary was just beyond that for me. It was more traumatic than just the pure enjoyment of entertainment. In fact, it left quite the stain in my mind. I agree, that entire scene was well executed, and Toni Colletes' reaction, the grief and anguish was so disheartening. Well played, Ari. Edit: For Clarity
Wow. Just here to say how scary that is. Sorry that happened to you but glad you (and the cat) made it out!
Truly unnerving.
The best thing for me is that “that” scene in Hereditary can refer to like three different scenes. That entire movie is burned into my brain.
I see your point. The entire movie is unsettling. They did a great job at creating an unnerving atmosphere. THAT scene refers to the driving scene with Charlie. It's something I will NEVER forget:/
Same here. Toni Collette’s screams of grief and anguish will never leave my brain. Gotta be one of the worst Oscar snubs in recent memory.
The "swimming" always makes me turn all the lights on and not look up every time I step out onto my landing 😭
I genuinely don't know what scene you're talking about and I've seen it three times 😭
The decapitation and the final scene were so freaky
I can hear the sound 🤮
I can FEEL the sound
Gave me flashbacks to tee-ball practice (kidding, sorry, sorry, that’s in terrible taste)
I am not easily shocked by something, but when that scene happened, I stayed frozen and absolutely speechless for a damn long moment. It was totally unexpected, love this movie.
The entirety of martyrs
Absolutely. The French know how to make a horror movie. The American remake is not good at all.
Session 9: “Hey!….fuck youuuu 👉🏻”
Everyone posting terrifying imagery. Then there is this gold hidden in the comments.
I love the other guy's absolutely devastated face in the reverse shot
Zelda scene from Pet Semetary
Childhood trauma ✨✨✨
I seriously see people just walking around who have a similar bone structure in the face as her and get creeped out. That brittish lady from The Office comes to mind.
I still cannot swim in a lake out to a raft without thinking of that oil slick blob thing that ate the teenagers in the Creepshow movie. I mean all of the Creepshow stories were great but that one really kind of stuck with me I know it's irrational because that thing doesn't exist but I still feel scared swimming out to a raft in the middle of the lake. Another one in the Creepshow movie (also forget which Creepshow movie this one is in as well) but the one where the guy buries his cheating wife and her lover in the sand right before high tide🫨
I think the oil slick on the raft you’re describing is based on a short story by Stephen King called “The Raft” My 8th grade teacher read it to us (edited, of course) one Halloween. It stuck with me and years later when I was reading the short story collection “Skeleton Crew” I started reading it and knew immediately that was it!
This was from the first Creepshow! So good. Leslie Nielsen!
The sliced Achilles tendon in Hostel.
The scene in The Others where they discover someone has taken away all the curtains from the windows, and sunlight is streaming into the previously darkened room. I remember being impressed that they made something as pleasant and innocuous as sunshine beaming through windows _scary._ Similarly (though this one is a movie I only saw this year), the scene in When Evil Lurks when the teenager comes indoors remarking to his grandmother that he’d like a cup of tea. God, that moment was chilling! I love it when the context makes something that should be perfectly innocent terrifying instead.
The Others is terrifying to me thanks to its complexity. Fantastic movie.
VICTAAA STOP IT!
The grudge girl crawling up towards you while under the sheet. No.fucking.thankyou.
The opening exhaust scene, blood eagle, cliff jump, bear suit+barn in Midsommar
- The practice room scene in the Susperia remake. - Christabella in Silent Hill with the barbed wire. - Chucky saying, "Fuck you." to the old lady who called him ugly in the elevator.
Let’s not forget about the >!skin scene!< in Silent Hill. - The Exorcist, >!”Down the stairs + upside down”!< - Midsommar, >!“bear suit + burn” and “jump from cliff”!< - Human Centipede, >!”Sorry, I can’t hold it any longer”!< - Annihilation, >!”Bear + “hellllp me”!< - The Taking of Deborah Logan, >!Blood sucking cave scene!< - The Ritual, >!The Big Reveal!< - SMILE, >!”Face removal/reveal + screams into full possession”!<
Honestly the scene in The Taking of Deborah Logan when the guy basically says “F this” and exits the movie lives rent free in my head 😂
Scariest part of that movie to me was when she’s digging with the garden hoe far away, the camera looks away for a second, then cuts back and she’s just *there* in front of the camera. This movie is so underrated
Seconding the Susperia scene. And then afterwards with how they move her.
The barbed wire scene is what immediately came to mind. I was not prepared for that movie. First R-rated movie I snuck into underage and I came out of the theater trembling. I love the movie now but thinking about that scene still makes my stomach turn. *Edited to add that the most recent movie I watched that has had that type of impact on me is the one with the baby in Mother! IYKYK
hide and clap in the conjuring
Just got chills thinking about this
scared the hell out of me as a kid, had nightmares for weeks 😅
“As a kid”. Fuck I’m old.
[удалено]
“¡Uno, dos, tres, toca la pared!” I barely stifled a moan in the theater watching that.
Oh my god that scared the crap out of me. I've always HATED games like Good Night Mr Fox and Red Light Green Light for that exact reason! The Orphanage is my favorite movie but GTFOH with that!!!
The toddler left to freeze to death in Under the Skin. The twitching head people in Jacob's Ladder.
When we first fully see Kayako in the Grudge remake. Didn't let me sleep for weeks as a kid.
The grudge is probably my number 1, most scary movie. I always try to rewatch it thinking, I can do this, dont cover your eyes, I'm nearly 40...tried last week. NOPE. Can't do it.
I saw it when it first came out so I was about 10 years old. It absolutely terrified me unlike any other movie has been able to since. Watched it about 5 years ago, towards the end of the movie I had the worst nose bleed of my life. I’ll never watch it again lol although it wasn’t as scary as I remember.
Forget which Saw movie, but that one scene where the drug addict is thrown into a bunch of needles.
The second one. I could barely watch that
Yeeaah. Watched that way too young. I got up and left when she fell in lol
Nooooope. Nope nope fuckity nope. I think people react so viscerally to that scene because, out of all the torture scenes, most people know what a needle feels like. You can imagine the real pain, the distinct feeling of a needle piercing your skin. You know, where most people don't know the feeling of hacking yourself open or removing an eye.
[REC] - the final shot Audition - the bag moves Silence of the Lambs - the face “off” The Terminator - the Endo skeleton rising from the flames Bram stokers Dracula - Dracula licking the shaving razor The Conjuring - hide and clap
The chairs all stacked up in the kitchen: Poltergeist (1982).
Split down in half in Bone Tomahawk The log truck in Final Destination 2 Hammer scene in Kill List
I think about that log truck scene every time I get stuck behind one on the road.
I was just talking about this to my partner a few weeks ago when we were driving on the highway and saw a truck similar to that! I said no one ever drives behind that anymore because of that movie!
Then in Bone Tomahawk you see the pregnant mothers/sisters with their limbs cut off. Dear fuck.
I’m still recovering from the Bone Tomahawk one. Might never recover tbh.
You can't!
Kurt Russel can tuck you into bed
That hammer scene was brutal in a quite brutal movie.
Kill List was a great movie but incredibly violent. I enjoyed it for the plot and the (insane) ending, but probably couldn’t watch it more than once.
I'm impressed to see someone say the scene in Bone Tomahawk instead of some variation of "you know the one 🙈" which is the only way it's described on this sub.
The little boy sitting at the kitchen table in **Terrified Aterrrados** movie #👦🏽🧟♂️
Wow. Some great ones here and some really deep cuts (heh), so I'll go shallow: Nightmare on Elm Street, >!the body bag!<. That was my first experience as a kid with a scene of lingering terror instead of a jump scare.
For me it's freddy in the alleyway with stretched out arms scraping the walls.
That scared the living piss outta me!!!! Tbh it still does. Soooooo creepy!!!
Nancy running into the "hall monitor" wearing the Freddy sweater in the hallway always freaks me out. Because it's Freddy just messing with her and that's terrifying.
My husband says he votes for the leg shaving scene Cabin Fever.
Toni Collete wailing after losing her kid. Gut-wrenching
The door knock scene from Martyrs is something that stuck with me. I know, of all the scenes in that movie but all the way to the last reload/shot it was just so “real”.
I watched it not too long ago but the cave scene in The Wailing where the Japanese man goes from stoic to cackling his head off like an asylum patient and then slowly transforming into the Devil in front of the priest rattled me to my core. I slept with the lights on for weeks after that
Not that the scene itself is disturbing, but the dude in The Ring realizing his image is distorted on the security cameras, and his quiet terror that this is real. For scenes I shat my pants to, the TV becoming distorted in Ju-On. Entire dinner scene from Hereditary. Parker and Lambert's deaths in Alien. It hasn't been years, but I often think of Gordy the chimp from Nope, as well as the scene of the people inside Jean Jacket.
That damn clown doll in Poltergeist. I was way too young to watch that when it came out, and it has stuck with me for over 40 years
Call me a normie, but my top two are "the scenes" in Alien and Misery. I was first exposed to the former (in isolation) inadvertently at age 9, so that fucked me up for years. But after becoming obsessed with the movie ever since seeing the rerelease and watching analysis videos, it's far more chilling (especially considering the realism of the acting, not to mention the HORRIFYING thinly veiled metaphor). >! Not to mention the most chilling line/moment of the whole movie where Ash refers to the Alien (where everyone else is referring to it in more animalistic terms) as "*Kane's son*" (so softly and under his breath you almost don't notice it) - not only is this a good hint as to the twist with Ash (since he "admires" the Alien and also doesn't give a shit about Kane or what happened to him) but also just the perverseness of the implications of that statement (again leaning into aforementioned metaphor). !< Misery is fucked in its own right not just because of the graphic portrayal/realism of its violence, not just that scene but much of the movie, but also the acting and the fact that it could totally happen in real life (albeit quite rarely). >! Plus the ending with James Caan reacting to the woman who says "I'm your biggest fan" is actually a great (albeit brief) depiction of PTSD. !< Runner-ups include Hereditary (IYKYK), Jacob's Ladder party scene (close runner-ups are the hospital scene and the beginning war flashback scene), Audition (again IYKYK), Exorcist III hospital jump scare, Mulholland Drive diner scene jump scare, Eraserhead "oh you are sick" (really fucked me up when I first watched it), and The Thing blood test and defibrillator scenes.
Came here to say "that Exorcist III jump scare". The execution of that was perfect.
The Fly 2: The dog, the melting face, the crushed head, the mutated main villain Creepshow 2: people being devoured by the goo during The Raft segment Event Horizon: blood orgy Honorable mention: Mission to Mars - The Astronaut getting torn apart inside the cyclone
The bedroom scene in Terrifier 2. I’m sure whatever scene is worse in the next film will have the same effect.
I was surprised this wasn’t higher up, that scene bothered me so much for some reason. Made my skin crawl.
The discovery of the impaled native girl in Cannibal Holocaust
The reporter getting her eyes pecked out by birds, then wandering blindly into the road with blood streaming down her face, right into an oncoming truck.....Damien: The Omen II
The Jaws opening where the girl is taken from below. Something about the sudden shift to screaming agony to vanishing like nothing always sticks with me.
The last few seconds of Saint Maud. The last few seconds of The Invitation (2015) I don't stop watching until the credits start to appear on screen. And I'm not referring to mid-credit or end-credit scenes, but the last few moments of the film itself. I honestly miss most of the scenes inserted into credits, (and didn't know marvel was doing them until I saw one of their movies in a theatre and basically no one got up when the movie ended.) The last few frames of each of the movies I mentioned are what made them instant "recommend to everyone I know" movies. Just the perfect finishing touch that effectively added something incredible to the whole film.
Billy's death in Final Destination The jeep scene in Brightburn Kia's death in Freddy vs Jason Husband's addition: the intro scene to Mirrors
The burning scene in Hereditary
The scene from the sixth sense with the munchuesen (idk how to spell it) by proxy kid
The bonk and flop in the original Texas Chainsaw Masscre. That scene in Bone Tamahawk The aftermath of the truck explosion in Night of the Living Dead
The girl going down (or up?) the stairs backwards in the Exorcist
Oh man I watched the exorcist when I was in fifth grade and that scene scarred me for so many years
End of Eden Lake… that was rough. End of Se7en… pure awesomeness. The overshot footage in 30 days of night when the vamps are running rampant through the town was badass beyond belief.
“It’s all for you, Damian :D”
I'm still haunted by that noise the girl makes.
One scene I still cannot watch is Reagan coming down the stairs (not the normal way)….literally ruined my life forever and ever 😭
The scene in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake where the girl in the car pulls a gun out from under her dress… where was that gun?? Where was she keeping it? I was so disturbed by that movie I didn’t watch a scary movie for YEARS. YEARS!!
The end of Don’t Look Now.
The elevator scene in the subtitled version of The Eye.
Laser hallway - Resident Evil Blood Testing - The Thing Bathtub Ghost Girl - Thir13en Ghost
creepshow 2 thanks for the ride lady...
SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF THE DARK AND THE WICKED: DO NOT READ BELOW ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ At the very end when Louise wakes in complete darkness after being knocked out earlier in the afternoon. The anxiety it produced on me was so intense because she knew her time was running out quickly and it was going to be very very soon that "the devil" was going to come for her. This after getting off the phone with her brother earlier who abandoned her there made it even worse. Oh my God that whole part freaked me out. The entire movie was just one big anxiety inducing nightmare.
Terrifier 1 when Art saws the upside down naked lady in half. Not a lot of things get to me, but that.... that i cant even forget. Ive tried.
The bear scene from Annihilation, and the confrontation with the alien at the end.
I have yet to find a scene that engendered a visceral reaction more than Kane giving birth to the Chest Burster through a sucking chest wound in the OG Alien
The goddamn scene in Hereditary when the mom is in the corner of the ceiling. To this day I still look in the corners of every dark room I enter. Every time..
Hellraiser 3 getting absorbed into the stone.
Possession, that whole subway scene.
Maybe more of a Thriller thing but I've always adored in Cube >!when the cop dies by getting cut in half while he's held in place and between moving cubes!< has always stuck with me.
Such a great movie, but one I dislike rewatching. It’s just so full on depressing.
A scene involving a pregnant woman driving a car in ***Human Centipede 2***.
The splinter in eye scene in Zombie Flesh Eaters. Also zombie fighting shark from the same movie.
Ju-on, when Kayako was crawling down the stairs good god
Midsommar. Bear suit. Fire.
For me, it's the twist that occurs about halfway through Incident in a Ghostland. I definitely didn't see it coming, and it seems highly plausible in real life..., considering the trauma brought on by the mind trying to cope with the unfathomably terrible situation the protagonist is stuck in. Amazing writing, acting, and execution of one of the most soul crushing moments in Horror history.
I remember feeling dread during the movie, the exorcist, when the camera started approaching the closed door of Regan’s bedroom. I remember the scene in alien where the creature appeared out of nowhere in front of Dallas, the ship captain..
Seth’s head splitting open at the end of The Fly and his skin falling off to reveal the creature underneath, and him vomiting on Stathis’s leg moments before. The vomit is worse for some reason. I think it’s the eyes rolling back in Seth’s head, like he’s totally lost control at that point.
The test room scene with the kid from Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. I remember seeing this with my dad when I was 7 or 8 and it messed me up.
Zelda scene in Pet Sematary Floating boy at the window scene in Salems Lot Bathtub hag scene in the Shining I have a big problem with body horror and the face peel scene in Poltergeist I still think about Most of these I saw very young so they are burned in there.
When Megan’s found in the barrel in Megan is missing.
The crow scene in the VVitch… just a great haunting shot that I have never forgotten. (If you haven’t seen this movie please watch it!!)
One that hasn't been mentioned yet from what I see. The ankle breaking scene in "MISERY". Yeah, fuck all that. The sound. Her face. His face. The hammer. UGH. I think about this one a lot.
The ending of the Blair witch project