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What is the scariest scene in any movie you have watched?

284 replies

RamseyGordon · 02/11/2023 09:50

If you watch horror movies, what is one scene that you can think of that sticks out as being one of the scariest scenes you've watched?

I think it is interesting to see what is effective and what different people find scary.

For me it's the scene in hereditary where she's on the ceiling sawing her head off with chicken wire. Absolutely hated that imagery and felt so disturbed!

OP posts:
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FromMilanToMinsk1 · 02/11/2023 14:07

SirenSays · 02/11/2023 13:36

Lots of scenes stick with me but the thing that really freaks me out is when they do that crazed shaking head thing. They use it a lot in the '99 version of House on the Haunted Hill.

Edited

I hate this too. It's the only thing I can remember about Jacob's Ladder. Scary.

One scene I found really disturbing was in the film Audition - not the end scenes that everyone always mentions (also horrifying) but the scene where she's in her flat and there's a big sack tied up on the floor. And then it moves 😱

Also The Grudge. I think I've blanked it out, I was shitting myself so much. The noises.

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RamseyGordon · 02/11/2023 14:09

SuitYouSir · 02/11/2023 14:03

Two scenes in The Grudge (US remake) - ghost with no jaw and little boy ghost who appears under the covers. Just no.

Omggg yes I forgot about that! The scene with the boy under the covers is the only time I have ever screamed out loud at a movie. I was about 12 I think and me and my brother were watching it and both screamed haha

OP posts:
Firebug007 · 02/11/2023 14:11

VeridicalVagabond · 02/11/2023 10:55

I'm a huge horror junkie, but I can't think of anything recently that's stuck with me. Maybe also Hereditary, the bit where she's battering the attic door creeped me right out.

Bizarrely a scene that still sticks with me a decade two decades (just realised how old I am) after it first scared me is the bit in Signs where Joaquin is watching the grainy home video footage of the birthday party and an alien walks across the scene, visible for like .5 seconds. I don't know why but that completely shit me up when I first saw it, and still lingers!

Edited

For me it's the part where Mel Gibson is looking outside and he sees a figure on the barn roof, sends shivers down my spine every time.

Invisablepanic · 02/11/2023 14:14

The scene in nightmare on elm street where freddy is pressing through the wall above his victims bed.

diggermama · 02/11/2023 14:16

Snoopystick · 02/11/2023 12:25

The ending of Blair Witch Project where he’s stood in the corner awaiting his fate.

I was about to add exactly this! Still creeps me out to this day

MadisonAvenue · 02/11/2023 14:19

diggermama · 02/11/2023 14:16

I was about to add exactly this! Still creeps me out to this day

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That’s mine too.

LadyHag · 02/11/2023 14:28

Exorcist 3 the person stalking up tje coridoor behind the nurse

Talk to Me the boy being taken over and banging his head

American werewolf in London "It's circling us"

Most of The Thing, but the dog!!

A remake of Texas Chainsaw where leatherface had cut off a boys face, was wearing it as his own and chasing the boys girlfriend (who he was going to propose to as the ring fell out of his pocket as he was being hoisted upside down)

tattygrl · 02/11/2023 14:31

It doesn't scare me in a "can't go to the loo alone" way, but more in a deeply unsettling, upsetting and disturbing way: that scene in Killing Ground where the camera is on a main, adult, character, in the Australian outback, and in the background is a tiny toddler, stumbling along, having not been noticed by the main character. It's so desperately against what your instincts are comfortable with, to see this man unknowingly walking away from a tiny, vulnerable, lost toddler in the outback!!! Absolutely chilling.

tattygrl · 02/11/2023 14:32

Another one for me

The scene in It Follows where someone's coming into a room and suddenly an impossibly tall man is looming over him, behind him, coming into the room too. That whole film freaks me out badly!

Lakeyloo · 02/11/2023 14:34

Love a good horror but so few around now.
Something that has always stuck with me though is the moment in Nightmare at 20,000 feet (Tales of the unexpected) when a flash of lightning lights up the gremlin on the wing of the aeroplane. It must be 35 + years since i saw it and I'm absolutely sure it's not how i remember it !

FourNonBlondez · 02/11/2023 14:34

Oh god, for me it's the scene in the Exorcist with the crucifix and her mother, that makes me want to vomit.. in addition to the head spin in the Exorcist. God, that movie terrifies me to this day.

Aurora2023 · 02/11/2023 14:34

Brightburn. I can't remember much about the film but anything with levitating in it just freaks me out. I saw a thing on IG where someone emulated a scene from Stranger Things (I think) levitating somehow in front of a house. OOOF NO. Not sure what it is about levitating that makes me feel like this !! Hideous and very odd.

BarborousBarbra · 02/11/2023 14:36

Lakeyloo · 02/11/2023 14:34

Love a good horror but so few around now.
Something that has always stuck with me though is the moment in Nightmare at 20,000 feet (Tales of the unexpected) when a flash of lightning lights up the gremlin on the wing of the aeroplane. It must be 35 + years since i saw it and I'm absolutely sure it's not how i remember it !

That's actually the Twilight Zone. I agree, it's a good one.

holachicatita · 02/11/2023 14:36

Frazzledyeti · 02/11/2023 12:02

If you count TV series then surely it's pretty much any episode of Motherland season 1? Far more traumatic than anything else I've watched.

Motherland is fab!!!!

BarborousBarbra · 02/11/2023 14:37

Now that Tales of the Unexpected has been mentioned, I feel I should put a word in for the episode "The Flypaper." the ending of that is chilling even if, as with most episodes, it was actually pretty expected!

Lakeyloo · 02/11/2023 14:38

BarborousBarbra · 02/11/2023 14:36

That's actually the Twilight Zone. I agree, it's a good one.

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Yes, Twilight zone !

CrashyTime · 02/11/2023 14:38

VeridicalVagabond · 02/11/2023 10:55

I'm a huge horror junkie, but I can't think of anything recently that's stuck with me. Maybe also Hereditary, the bit where she's battering the attic door creeped me right out.

Bizarrely a scene that still sticks with me a decade two decades (just realised how old I am) after it first scared me is the bit in Signs where Joaquin is watching the grainy home video footage of the birthday party and an alien walks across the scene, visible for like .5 seconds. I don't know why but that completely shit me up when I first saw it, and still lingers!

Edited

Yes that was effective, but that scare device is used in many many movies, the "other" suddenly appears and it`s close to you! The classic example would be the "bigger boat" scene in Jaws? In Platoon they sort of do a slow burner through the whole movie where you never see the enemy until near the end when they breach the perimeter defences, it happens fast and is quite shocking.

Gifflon · 02/11/2023 14:39

@RamseyGordon

Exorcist 3. It’s maybe not overall the greatest film, but if you look for ‘hospital scene Exorcist 3’ on YouTube. It’s terrifying and completely out of the blue. Perhaps more so if you watch the scene as part of the whole film and not just the clip…

UptobedNOW · 02/11/2023 14:40

It's not a horror film but there is a scene in A Field in England where the Reece Shearsmith character is being tortured in a tent. you don't see what is happening but the screaming is horrific. He then emerges from the tent with this awful maniacal grin where you can see he has gone insane. Stayed with me for weeks.

BarborousBarbra · 02/11/2023 14:41

@Gifflon The whole film is fantastically creepy, isn't it? Doesn't get the love it deserves because Exorcist II was so awful not as many people bothered with it.

pollyhemlock · 02/11/2023 14:41

The ending of Don’t Look Now is pretty terrifying, particularly the first time you see
it.

Twdfn123 · 02/11/2023 14:42

There is a film called Megan is Missing that is banned in some areas and was made on a very low budget. I just heard about it by chance and I can honestly say the last 15 minutes is one of the worst things I've ever seen.

Anyone that's seen it will understand and if you haven't, I wouldn't recommend it. I can for certain never ever watch that film again. From the description....

"Marketed as an educational film, Megan Is Missing was banned in New Zealand[3] and has been heavily criticized by critics for its depiction of sexual violence and brutal imagery. Goi wrote the script in 10 days and shot the film over a week. Because of the graphic content, he requested that the parents of the young cast be on set during filming so that they were fully aware of their involvement in the project.[7]"

BarborousBarbra · 02/11/2023 14:42

UptobedNOW · 02/11/2023 14:40

It's not a horror film but there is a scene in A Field in England where the Reece Shearsmith character is being tortured in a tent. you don't see what is happening but the screaming is horrific. He then emerges from the tent with this awful maniacal grin where you can see he has gone insane. Stayed with me for weeks.

Yes to this! In the Earth (also staring Reece) is worth a watch too, It's not scary, but there's a scene of him in a tent sewing up someone's foot which has been well and truly ripped open and I cannot look at it!

SoHereWeAre01 · 02/11/2023 14:44

The beginning of A Quiet Place.

The build up of tension in the supermarket, then the boy playing with the space shuttle, then a period of uncertainty and then Noooooooo....!

I couldn't get it out of my mind for weeks afterwards.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 02/11/2023 14:45

The first horror movie I ever watched was a zombie movie - I was on school exchange in Germany, and a bunch of us and our own friends went to the cinema. The film was dubbed in German, but I understood enough of what was going on to be scared. The worst scene was a woman hiding in the bathroom, and a zombie smashed the louvres in the door, grabbed her, and dragged her out, and a shard of wood went straight into her eye.

I can’t remember what the film was called, but it ended up with zombies shambling over the bridge into New York City. I was scared of the dark for years!

On TV, I think the scariest monsters are the Weeping Angels, in Dr Who.

Don’t blink.