Best and/or Scariest and/or Creepiest Scenes Ever (from horror films or TV shows or whatever, I don't care)

Martyrs is all time and relies on its cumulative build to that pay off

That scene towards the end of Bone Tomahawk is the thing that's fucked me up the most recently. It's the audio track as much anything. Yeesh.

The ghost at the end of Personal Shopper is pretty extraordinary and had a huge effect on me - physically and emotionally.

The 'daylight stabbing' in Zodiac is horrible.

Yes, there's something about the overuse of darkness/nighttime as the setting for scary scenes that makes scary things happening in broad daylight even scarier.

when Matthau kneels on broken glass proposing to Elaine May in A New Leaf

(people do scream)

The 'daylight stabbing' in Zodiac is horrible.

― Good cop, Babcock (Chinaski), Friday, May 10, 2019 9:42 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh god zodiac is a very scary non-horror movie

just the sight of the killer stepping out from behind a tree in a long, kinda indistinct shot is terrifying even before the methodical stabbing happens

yeah cosign that scene, horrible

the end of this scene from the eye never fails to literally raise the hairs on the back of my neck for some reason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIiVlAJ6Fqw

The elevator scene in this movie is awesome too

i'm not a horror buff, but i feel like that one scene in inland empire, a couple hours deep when things are getting almost nauseatingly dreamlike, where laura dern's face temporarily morphs into a digital doom mask, should be in this thread

the first appearance of BOB

yes

and behind the cafe in Mulholland Drive

Yes, I was alluding to those scenes and more in my earlier 'Lynch is the master of this' post. See also: Winkie's, Maddy's death, etc., etc.

deems knows

BOB terrified me the first time i saw it when it aired originally and didn't happen long after i watched Bedroom Window (mentioned upthread)
i guess i am terrified of creepy men hiding behind things and then revealing their faces

I want to include haunting and uncanny scenes in this list, as well! Even if they aren't (finger quotes) SCAAARY.

Like I'm thinking of Kwaidan atm. The scenes of Hoichi singing as the camera slow pans across his spectral audience...nothing like it. And the freeze frame at the end of 'The Black Hair'. Movie is dope, yo.

as i said in the Stephen King thread i think Lynch is underrated by a lot of folks for his mastery of dread-including atmosphere and framing. the original Twin Peaks was a tough show to watch at night as a kid living in a rural somewhat desolate town with a couple of lonely intersections and a road traveling into town covered by a tunnel of thick trees for a mile-plus. the woods and traffic lights swaying in the wind at night, no thank you for some reason!

the end of this scene from the eye never fails to literally raise the hairs on the back of my neck for some reason

because it's 100% nightmare fuel, jesus! though i think this scene from the 1989 woman in black just about tops it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhuc-ot7Ryg

linus roache’s face slowly, almost imperceptibly morphing into andrea riseborough’s and back again in mandy is very effectively creepy/trippy, while we’re on the topic of weird face stuff

^^^ almost brought up this scene

That diner scene in MD is so fucking terrifying. I've only seen it once but it's imprinted on my mind's eye. Lynch is master of the uncanny.

Re that stabbing scene in Zodiac, there's a documentary with the extended edition that details just how forensically rebuilt the park so it fitted the descriptions just so - to the point that he dug up and replanted a tree. That obsessiveness makes its way into the scene, somehow.

And god yes, that scene from Woman in Black is shriek-inducing. The stage version of WiB is one of the best scary experiences of my life. Had to sleep with the light on for a week the first time I saw it.

*xp just how forensically *Fincher* rebuilt the park

i put that scene on until the camera started panning across the bed with the voice and nope

Sister Ruth's eyes in the final part of Black Narcissus

Rewatched The Innocents recently and even knowing the the plot, the final scene still had me white knuckled. Speaking of scary stuff in broad daylight tho, this shot from the film has never failed to scare the shit out of me when it comes up:

http://dailygrindhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/THE-INNOCENTS-600x300.jpg

Yessssss, I couldn't think of anything specific but there are definitely some effectively spooky moments in The Innocents.

the stabbing in Zodiac has that same daylight horror as The Strangers. I see they were only a year apart release.

I guess it's sort of daylight horror but the first appearance of Leatherface in the og Texas Chainsaw Massacre was and continues to be very effective.

As mentioned above, all the scary face scenes in Salem's Lot and Inland Empire. Agree also with the television version of Woman In Black and hong kong version of The Eye.

Lake scene in Let's Scare Jessica To Death

Where do I start with Watership Down?

Even though its a horror comedy kung fu, the opening of Spooky Encounters is pretty spooky.

Not totally scary but the lightning scene in Secret Chronicles Of The Ghost Cat is awesome. Cat woman would have scared me more if I was 2-20 years old. Definitely intimidating though.

Bloody coffin scene in Alucarda is really awesome.

Blair Witch and Rec endings of course.

A few haunting scenes in The Premonition (70s) are pretty jumpy stuff, in a good way.

The Premonition is the only one in the American Horror Project box that I haven't watched. Must get on that.

I guess it's sort of daylight horror but the first appearance of Leatherface in the og Texas Chainsaw Massacre was and continues to be very effective.

― Artisanal Personality Disorder (Old Lunch), Friday, May 10, 2019 11:23 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the door slamming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QSsVgPbmeU

Yup. That impassive, static medium shot does so much of the heavy lifting. Frustrating that a setup that effective is used so seldom in horror.

Like, toss yr ooky-spooky score in the trash, don't telegraph every damn thing before it happens, just put that camera on a tripod and let us be a fly on the wall for the terror about to unfold.

Can't find a clip but the Ugly Wuglies scene from the BBC version of E Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle would probably do for a 12 years old's version of lynchian not actually scary but pretty damn creepy.

Last 20 minutes of Bone Tomahawk really freaked me out.

Came here to post first appearance of Leatherface, as I'm sure I have in some similar thread. That is alltime.

Here's one of my recent "favorites"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbNGXZO4vbA

mary elizabeth mastrantonio’s drowning and revival in the abyss is genuinely upsetting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7xza4oYsbY

thought the it adaptation was whatever but gotta admit this scene got me.

That was the one reasonably well-mounted moment in just about the entire thing.

Okay, I'm hoping that at least one other person gets where I'm coming from -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlv_LQHX450

the scene in "Aliens" where Ripley and Newt fall asleep underneath the cot in the medical lab; then Ripley wakes up, spots the empty stasis tubes where the facehuggers were, gently wakes Newt and just says, "We're in trouble."

the scene in "Aliens" where Ripley and Newt fall asleep underneath the cot in the medical lab; then Ripley wakes up, spots the empty stasis tubes where the facehuggers were, gently wakes Newt and just says, "We're in trouble."

2.58 is probably the most unsettling thing to appear in the entirety of classic Dr Who. Ironically the footage only survives due to being snipped out by the Aussie censors at the time, everything else was junked.

https://youtu.be/88svfiAJ0C8?t=178

Embed, you bastard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88svfiAJ0C8

Excellent use of British teeth there.

One of my favorite films. There's no way Lynch got the mystery man from Lost Highway without the guy at the end of this scene from Carnival of Souls. Also *great* use of music in a film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS-PRypBdIM

This scene from Kairo/Pulse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYs87-kDXwg

The cursed videotape from Ringu is next-level unease:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mbo5vHy8dw

yep

The stabbing scene from Side Effects was genuinely disturbing to me. Sometimes I’ll be using a knife in the kitchen and remember it and my stomach will do a little flip-flop

https://youtu.be/GRzA8KaskyY

thread just reminded be about ghostwatch

i think it did genuine fuckin damage to me for a while, that did. i was put to bed screaming, and woke up the same way, for about a week.

It's not generally thought of as a scary film, but the first abduction scene in Communion used to freak the hell out out of me, and still kinda does. I dreaded the alien on the book cover as a child, so maybe watching it was never the best idea.

But I do like the somewhat surreal, dream-like approach is takes in regard to the experience, which is a nice contrast to the literal-mindedness of most UFO/abduction depictions on film and TV. There's the sense of intrusion from some "other", akin to the Diner monster in Mulholland Drive and the subway/passing car people in Jacob's Ladder.

― Duane Barry, Thursday, 21 November 2019 12:53 (three days ago) link

Totally. “IS THAT SOMEONE THERE?”

Underrated movie.

Christopher Walken giving the most Christopher Walken performance ever only compounds the strangeness further.

Perhaps not as surreal but certainly justc as scary is the alien abduction flashback from Fire in the Sky. The movie itself is mediocre but that sequence could stand on its own as one of the greatest sci-fi horror shorts ever made. It masterfully captures the pure animal terror of being treated like a lab rat by beings with unfathomable motives.

Forgotten to mention the scary bits in Beyond The Black Rainbow

As this thread seemed to expand to include 'disturbing or upsetting' I'm going to nominate the beating dished out to Ray Liotta in Killing Them Softly. Brilliantly acted and really quite horrible.