What's the scariest scene in a film that's stuck with you?

[lilybit2025]

There's not many, but one being Wolf Creek, my mum let me watch it with her when I was 13 and it's stuck with me ever since. Another is The Descent from when I was a similar age - the caves and creatures have stuck with me ever since and I refuse to watch either of them again.

Google it. It’s about feeling scared, adrenaline, a rush while knowing you are completely safe. So getting to experience the thrill safely. Also to feel in control of danger. Also why so many women love crime documentaries.

I am well aware of the theory, and I get it intellectually for scary/supernatural/jumpscare films while it's not something I find at all enjoyable. What is far harder to grasp for me is why anyone would enjoy watching people be raped, tortured and dismembered in gory technicolour in a world where that's not exactly in the realm of fantasy. Someone talked on this thread about The Hostel films being based on a real killer who taunted and tortured his victims before killing them. How is that enjoyable? Because it's not happening to you?

ETA That wasn't intended to sound hostile, incidentally!

Was the ice one possibly a scene from The Omen part 2?

The Hostel films actually annoy me because, well, the first one anyway, is that they could have been really good psychological thrillers. But just went for pure gore. But I suppose that's the point! (I don't remember any rape scenes?)

So many already mentioned. The bit in The Descent when she gets trapped and starts panicking makes me actually feel physically sick. And the ending 😢

There's a little known micro -budget British film called The Borderlands (which absolutely no one apart from me seems to have seen) which is great but, my God, the ending...

The Borderlands is brilliant! OMG the ending....

Re Ice scene. There is an ice scene in The Omen II and The Dead Zone, I think.

I have no intention of watching The Omen, The Omen 2 or any other Omen film to find out!

If you notice none of the movies mentioned here are about rape or gore; mostly tense psychological thrillers, quite a difference.

no one here enjoys a dismemberment 😑

Which Creep, the London Underground one or the one about the film maker? Both are scary but I found the second one really unsettling!

I find it fascinating how different people find different things scary!

Gore (the likes of wolf creek, the hostel etc) don’t bother me but paranormal stuff, nope, especially the things you can’t see…..

The two stand out scares for me are the scene in Poltergeist with the boy in bed and the toy clown on the chair. The other is in the Babadook with the “knocking” coming from the wardrobe.

I quite like a dismemberment. (I've had a dark horrible time in the past, which could explain my liking for incredibly nasty horror films.)
It's not because it's not happening to me. I simply like it.

On the other hand I can't stand to watch musicals or romance, they make my skin crawl.

Like said also Descent. Scary enough with the creatures but even before they pop up the whole caving and being stuck and just the clastaphonic!

Did read the first time the actresses saw the creature was when they did the filming jump scare!

And im glad we didnt get the American ending because the sequel was a bit iffy. And pointless

Killer Bob at the end of the bed was terrifying! Ugh. I’ve come out in goosebumps remembering it.

💯

Love your first sentence 😂

@EleanorPeck well, at least someone else has seen it too 😁

I'd forgotten about The Babadook. As the mother of a son with ASD that was way too close to the bone, have never been able to watch it since. Brilliant film though.

Oh, and obviously the chest-burster scene from Alien. Apparently, the actors had no idea what was going to happen, hence their absolutely horrified reactions!

The twist at the end of ex machina and the twist at the end of Behind Her Eyes (a series not a film)

And from Luther too where the guy was hiding under the woman’s bed 🤢
in fact loads from Luther 😂

I came on to say Quatermass! It was an episode called Ringstone Round and the final scene at Stonehenge frightened the life out of me. Particularly the Alsatian dog. I was about 10 at the time and it’s stayed with me for over 40 years.

Also the original version of The vanishing and the last scene of the Blair Witch Project as PP mentioned.

In the Alien scene it's the horrible move from a group of colleagues having dinner, bitching about their work, bantering, just being utterly normal to suddenly becoming a scene of unimaginable horror.
Isn't that the basis of most great horror? The everyday suddenly becoming horrific?

Was it when she realised she was in the car with the psycho in Wolfs Creek? I levitated from my seat.

I don’t really watch gory stuff but Rosemary’s baby is really scary. Lots of implied threat. There’s a scene where she hears moaning through the walls. Gave me the fear!

The Exorcist terrified me when I saw it. One scene was the child ‘walking’ downstairs in a crab position. It was so ‘other’ and unsettling

The original 1980s movie ‘Woman in Black’ where the solicitor is struggling to sleep and having a fever dream and he opens his eyes and the woman swoops down on him screaming in his face - omg - so unexpected and horrifying!

I later learned it’s a quite famous scene because of e lasting effect it has. Nothings come close for me to that one!

Eden lake. The entire movie is horrible. Only because it actually could happen.

I listened to the podcast "Too scary, didn't watch" on Event Horizon. My goodness. 😱

They filmed a full day with porn stars and amputees for the orgy scene. Apparently the test screening of the scene was so bad some audience members fainted/vomited and the theatrical cut ended up as just snippets of the scenes. They stored the remaining footage reels badly and the scenes were lost. Which doesn't sound like a bad thing, all considered.