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Don't be embarrassed. Ghost Train (despite being mostly a comedy) is quite creepy, especially Ben Isaacs singing in the tunnell.
1. Exorcist III A quiet hospital corridor at night, a nurse doing the rounds, then a white robed figure enters from nowhere carrying a huge pair of shears. Really skilful set up and wonderfully executed. Gets me every time!
2. Jaws Hooper investigating the wreck when a head floats into view!
3. Carrie Carrie's hand grabs Sue as she lay flowers at her grave!
4. Les Diaboliques The corpse of the seemingly dead husband rises from the bathtub scaring his wife to death!
5. The Descent A video camera pans across the group of girls and we get our first sight of a 'Crawler'...!
6. The Exorcist The demon becomes Karras's dead mother to goad him
7. Ringu The young dead girl crawls through the TV screen to exact revenge!
8. Insidious The garbled voice of something unknown comes over the baby monitor!
9. Sisters Jennifer Salt dreams of herself being a Siamese Twin in a nightmarish operating theatre about to be separated!
10. Don't Look Now Donald Sutherland finally discovers the identity of the small figure in the Red Raincoat....
If frightening can also mean 'tense scene', than I would add the entire sequence in Valkyrie when Tom Cruise must blow up the bunker with Hitler in it.
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One of the most terrifying scenes occurs in a moment with no blood at all. Henry and his protege serial killer have just come back from a rape and murder-which they videotaped-and we find them in their living room watching the footage. Both men grin sadistically with glee as one asks the other to rewind the tape so they can watch it all again, to which he obliges.
His camera work makes the movie a classic. He keeps Michael hidden from us until the very end so that he's built up as a silent killer of myth. I love those quick, two second moments where you see a character walking around innocently in their darkened out house or out on the street at night and you see Michael's white mask appear from the shadows in a blink and you miss it moment before he becomes hidden again. Carpenter shot monsters perfectly, and knew the suspense was lost for audiences the moment you showed them too much too early.
Add to that the perfect animalistic breathing Michael has, that simple but so effective score by Carpenter himself and Jamie Lee in a role that made her Scream Queen like her mother before her, and you have an unforgettable film. I'd put it up there as one of the all time greatest independent films ever made, with the likes of Mad Max, which were both birthed in that same late 70s period were edgy and risky filmmaking was welcomed.
About time someone mentioned these.
Thanks, @TheWizardOfIce
Saw Les Diaboliques at the age of 13 on a small portable TV. That scene froze me to the spot with terror!
It was a similar scenario with Don't Look Now...
That's certainly a very hard watch, @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7
Chilling performance from Michael Rooker. I'm surprised anyone wanted to work with him after that film!
The videotape scene is very disturbing.
Manhunter - the scene where the jouno is tied in the chair
And Alien also had a big effect on me, we take the burster secen for granted now but if you did not know it was going to happen...just wow, and the end when she slowly gets into the space suit , I had nightmares for days
Interesting that The Exorcist does nothing for me. Perhaps becuase I have a limited imagination and dont buy into any of that hocus pocus stuff. The great thing about science fiction is that it could all be out there.
Lastly, there is a thin line between horror and drama. I find some of the scenes in Mississippi Burning horrific but, its not a horror film (or is it?) Perhaps portrayals of events where humans treat each other horribly should always be seen as the most horrific?
But I can be straight up terrified in a thriller or drama. Which has made me see over time that it doesn't come down to genre for me. Films that scare me are those that present unflinching visions of things I'd like to pretend aren't out there.
I mentioned Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer earlier, and that film is so scary because it feels so real. It's easy to see why some choose to call convicts/killers "monsters." It's easier to face something when you feel no connection to it, and feel separated from it like it's a different species. Films get me when they show that humanity is capable of dark, dastardly things, and instead of portraying those figures of destruction as monsters, they present quite lucidly a regular human being like you and me.
It's why noirs have always been my favorite films. They're frightening because they depict the world as it truly is, teetering on a knife edge.
SUSPIRIA - the infamous hanging scene or the moment when Jessica Harper gets attacked by her own dead friend, all in glaring primary colours. Vintage Argento, best horror film ever.
DAY OF THE DEAD - I always found the nightmare scene with the white wall pretty frightening.
THE EXORCIST - the one scene that really stood out for me is where Regan turns her head 180 degrees.
INFERNO - another Argento, a simple scene here that is scary because of its simplicity. The beautiful Ania Pieroni, as Mater Lachrymarum, looks at the main character while he's attending a music class.
LES DIABOLIQUES - the presumably dead husband that rises from the bathtub.
MANHUNTER - when the protagonist realises he has to get his family into safety.
CARRIE - that final scene.
THE OMEN - "It's all for you Damian." Goosebumps even when I'm writing this.
- The blink-and-you'll-miss-it kitchen scene from 'Insidious'.
- The stranger quietly lurking in the midst of the living room behind Liv Tyler in 'The Strangers'.
- Pretty much any moment focusing on the villain in the original 'Nosferatu'.
- The first look at Pennywise in 'IT'.
- The flash of lightning that reveals Jason standing in a dark corner of the room amongst his inevitable victim in one of the later 'Friday the 13th' installments.
- The Xenomorph blending in with the pipes and cables above Brett in 'Alien'.
- A lot of the hidden symbolism and "hints" at the ending of 'Don't Look Now'.
- Just about the entirety of 'The Shining' gives me chills.
- Every scene in 'Rosemary's Baby,' because it seems like every shot and bit of dialogue is building up to that grand reveal.
- The casual shots of the shark in the water in 'Jaws'.
- The night vision finale of 'The Silence of the Lambs'.
- A nighttime visit in 'The Babadook'.
- The hide-and-seek scene in 'The Innocents'.
- The haunting, lost feeling that 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' gives me.
- The Brendan Gleeson eyeball scene in '28 Days Later'.
- 'Freaks'. Nothing more needs to be said there.
- The first night spent in 'The Uninvited (1944)'.
Speaking of 'Alien,' one of the scariest jump scares in horror history for me is the scene inside the vents with Dallas - I won't spoil it if you have yet to check it out, but you know what I'm talking about, if you have.
Some white folk on a safari upset some local natives who kill each of them in a variety of ways. This one guy gets covered in clay, put on a spit and cooked alive!
Quite freaked me out as a 7 year old! Saw it recently and it's still disturbing!
Well worth a look @Creasy47. The star and director Cornell Wilde was very ill during filming and it shows!
If you've seen Apocalypto you'll be surprised how similar they are.
Amazing film @TheWizardOfIce
Talk about the banality of evil! The ending really is a punch to the gut.
Didn't even bother with the remake.
Not that I've ever seen it obviously but in the remake he digs his way out and kills the guy! =))
Oh those funny Americans and their insistence on shit Hollywood endings!
And what about the actor who plays the killer? One of the creepiest guys in the history of cinema. Would have been nice to see him as a Bond villain in the vein of Mads or Almaric but sadly he died in 2010. Come to think of it he could have made a far more interesting Blofeld than Waltz.
Just watched this, I'm still in shock how good it is.
One of the most surprising and shocking moments I have seen in a Film Noir is Lee Marvin's evil character throwing boiling hot coffee into his girlfriends face.
Thanks to great direction this scene is memorable and unforgettable in an eery way.
Boy will I never again go near a boiling coffeepot again...
Jason looked his best in that one I believe, and if not for the ridiculous unnecessary cuts, which honestly makes the movie as bloodless and tame as PG, it could have been the best one!
I like The New Blood as it is, but if the following footage was re-inserted, it would be more brutal than the uncut version of Jason Goes To Hell: