Scariest scenes in movies

This scene. Because ... as I watched it the first time, I thought, "This is David Lynch, he's way above cheap jump scares." I relaxed just enough.

And it's genius because, for the rest of the film, every time the camera approaches a corner, you're waiting for another jump scare -- which never comes.

I watched Mulholland Drive shortly after I moved into a new apartment. For WEEKS, I couldn't round a corner without thinking of this scene.

R1 I just about had a fucking heart attack at that.

OP, I chose the same scene from Exorcist III. The first time I saw this movie, that scene took me completely by surprise and I almost jumped out of my skin. It's beyond disturbing. I should have known something was going to happen because of the slow buildup while the camera remained focused for a long time on nothin much going on.

The second time I viewed it, a friend was watching with me, and when the thing crossed the corridor, she grabbed my arm, and said, "What WAS that?"

I've viewed the movie a number of times, and each time, I still find that scene disturbing.

Agree OP! That scene ALWAYS makes me jump.

I didn't watch the full length Lights Out because the short scared me

Zodiac has a number of them.

R6 I forgot about Zodiac, the lake scene in particular put me on edge.

I will say this scene even though I know the movie isn't the most popular. The house just radiates evil. As soon as I saw it standing there I knew they were going to go inside and I knew they were going to die as soon as they did. With the handprints of what we presume to be the murdered children whose voices we heard earlier in the film and those witchcraft symbols leading to that creepy basement...it is just a terrifying scene that fills me with dread.

The remake of The Thing was the only movie I've ever seen that was too scary to watch. I had to turn it off.

So good he had to make a movie out of it.

R9 Another one of my favorite scary movies. It's intense. I watched it a few nights ago after not seeing it for a while, and the tension never lets up. Shock after shock.

Another is Jacob's Ladder (Adrian Lynne, 1990) which has a number of mundane scenes that turn horrifying, and this hospital scene that starts with everyone's deepest fears of being without control AND in the hospital.

The last scene in "Looking for Mr. Goodbar." I ran out of the theatre screaming like some 18 year old fucking drama queen. It still scares me.

Wait Until Dark

You know the scene I mean.

Even my parents, who saw it in the theaters, said that the audience leapt out of their seats at THAT scene.

Turn the sound off for the exorcist III scene and the scare is greatly reduced. 💪💪

R13, That's an awesome movie! The mundane scenes that become something else are unsettling. That hospital scene which you've posted is what nightmares are made of.

From "Fahrenheit 9/11"

R17, I saw it only once, in a cinema when it was first released, but I don't think there is a week or two that goes by without me thinking of some scene or image from the film.

No one wants to watch that kind of torture porn, r11.

I know what that's like, R19. There are a couple of movies that do that to me, and Jacob's Ladder is one of them. The other one, I'm going to post about in one second...

Session 9

There are numerous scenes in that movie that give me chills. The fact that the entire movie was filmed on site at the former mental hospital, Danvers State Hospital, in Massachusetts, is a big bonus and the building itself literally becomes the star of the movie. You find yourself at some point, saying, "What the hell is going on here?" It's one of the most eerie, atmospheric movies I've ever seen. David Caruso is the star, and I never much like him till I saw him in this.

Session 9 is a movie that’s stayed with me for years. Great choice. Watching the trailer again just gave me chills.

Another intense as hell scene from Zodiac. Why did the creep go in a different direction from poor, terrified Jake?

R7 MissLucy and OP, here's a creepy fact for you: Exorcist III was the movie Jeffrey Dahmer claimed to view with his future 'zombie' boyfriends at his apartment. Can you imagine being scared out of your mind watching the movie, slowly coming to the realization this is the last movie you'll ever watch...

another Lynch scene for me--

Speaking of Lynch, this scene certainly creeped me the fuck out (although perhaps it's not "scary" scary):

The scene at 34 seconds and shown in the screen grab can still get to me.

The dream sequence in Halloween 4.

The Exorcist. The scene where the priest looks up at the house.

The Strangers had tons of great moments. It was such a covert homage to Halloween.

Halloween 6, Kim Darby’s death scene.

[quote] another Lynch scene for me--

Yes. Anything with Bob from Twin Peaks terrifies me.

Cute guy dies in scary scene from not-to-shabby remake of Japanese original

R34 Yes! I was going to post that, his eyes are terrifying.

In Halloween, where Jamie Lee Curtis has found all her dead friends and is being chased across the street by Michael Myers and has to wait on the kid she's babysitting to let her in as Michael gets closer and closer. That's the scene that always makes me bite my nails.

The phone calls in the original Black Christmas get under my skin, too. Those are really scary!

R37 And when his face gradually appears behind her and looms over her shoulder like a specter.

R6 amen to that, I jumped out of my skin during the lake scene, seeing him approaching from a distance was so freaky, & the stabs were just gruesome, very visceral. I live about an hour away from there!

For me the scariest of all time is the Exorcist, where Regan’s head spins around. I saw it on tv (edited) when I was 9, & literally felt myself leaving my body. Horrific!!

R5 Oh hell no. I just saw this post and the screen grab is enough!

The scene in the Exorcist where Linda Blair turns into the priest’s dead mother — freaked me the fuck out.

That scene from "The Ring" f*cked me up.

Carey Mulligan singing New York, New York. Imagine anyone getting teary eyed from this!?

Fun fact: Bob was the makeup guy for the movie. Lynch saw him in a reflection on set and decided that he was scary looking enough to be in it.

Final scene of the "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" remake.

The first Alien film, when John Hurt fell victim to the face hugger coming out of the pod. A good scare, but the thought of that thing on his face gave me the heebie-jeebies for 2 weeks.

How about the shocking end of Don’t Look Now? It totally comes out of left field.

The confession scene from Exorcist III is chilling.

The opening scene in the pub and then on the moors in AAWIL.

The ending of The Blair Witch Project.

This scene from "Blue Velvet" really disturbed me sitting in the theater in 1987. Like a bad dream that stays with you all day.

The only thing that scared me about The Exorcist was when they re-released it twenty years ago and added the "spider walk" scene, which they originally had to cut out from the film because it scared audiences too much. I had heard about it for years before the new edition, but it still terrified me when I saw it.

The end of "Hereditary," when all those grinning naked old people start walking out of the house's shadows.

R3 = the OP = the Redundant Exorcist Thread Loon.

The only reason he’s using sock puppet accounts to congratulate his choice of a scene is because I have dissed that stupid scene in multiple threads from different hypomanic episodes he created.

Neither EXORCIST III nor the OP’s scene are scary. The scene is done in an extreme long shot where you can’t really see what’s going on. EXORCIST III is one of the worst, most panned movies of all time. A real crapfest released when that type of movie had lost its impact.

R39 That scene of Regan turning her head used to scare me, until I saw Catherine O'Hara parody it on an early SCTV episode. She played Linda Blair as Regan hosting her own morning tv show: Exorcising with Regan.. "Now turn your head all the way to the left"...(she does)...."now turn it all the way to the right"...(she does).

That scene never scared me again.

SESSION 9 — ho-hum with great mystery and atmosphere but not a lot of scares that’s overrated by a particular DLer.

EXORCIST 3 — worst, least scary movie EVER.

HALLOWEENS 4 & 5 — static children’s show for little girls like Jaime and laughably stupid cops. Two of the WORST entries in the franchise that only the DL HALLOWEEN Loon likes because he can troll people with it incessantly.

The ending scene in Quarantine

Matt has entered the thread, I see.

The first scene in Scream when the killer says over the phone, "I want to know who I'm looking at"

Clown-doll scene, Poltergeist (1982).

Conjuring 2:

R57 Matt needs his levels checked...he's been all over the place lately pitching fits about shit.

R53 I'm the OP and I have no idea what you are on about, I've never seen the full movie so I cant comment on it.

When a Stranger Calls --- Charles Durning, Colleen Dewhurst, Carol Kane

Hereditary has been mocked on here but this scene (with the music especially) really creeped me out. That fucking “mannequin” or whatever.

I like how itself off looking jubilant the demon looks confused and sort of like, “wait, I have to bestow riches on these people? WTF?”

Instead of looking jubilant ^

R53 I am not the OP. I have no sock puppet accounts. I have all I can handle being Miss Lucy. Now, calm down.

Hereditary scared the hell out of me too, r64. Scariest movie I've seen in ages; not just jump scares you forget ten minutes after leaving the movie theatre, but deeply ingrained shit that burrowed into my mind and stayed there. I found it deeply upsetting.

Back when M. Night Shyamalan was good.

R51 I was a freshman in college when the Exorcist was rereleased and I brought a classmate to see it because she had never seen a horror movie (I couldn’t believe it, I’d started watching them at age 5, but her parents were very strict, and then she had no interest in them.)

I thought I’d start her off with one of the best. She hung on until this spider walk scene, and when it happened she whispered an emphatic ‘no’, got up and left the theater. She wouldn’t come back in, so we left. I still keep in touch with her and she says she’s never finished the movie.

I loved that scene.

[quote][R53] I am not the OP. I have no sock puppet accounts. I have all I can handle being Miss Lucy. Now, calm down.

R53 Why would you think Miss Lucy's comments as R3 equals the OP? I follow Miss Lucy and can't think of one reason why you would make that assumption. Please enlighten us.

This scene. My mom and I were clutching each other:

I saw this in the theatre when it came out. I was 10 in 1975 and remember being with my brothers and a neighbour friend. The friend ran out of the theatre at this scene.

When a Stranger Calls still has the scariest opening in movie history.

r72, I was trying to recall one specific scene from that movie, but couldn't until you showed that one. I remember this was scarier...and re-watching right now, I jumped and exclaimed "Fucking hell!":

The head scene in Jaws is one of the best jump scares of all time. Really unexpected and perfectly timed.

Another good one was in What Lies Beneath when Harrison Ford grabs the necklace off of Michelle Pfeiffer and she turns into the ghost.

The scene in Scream 2 where Sidney and Hallee are trapped in the back of the police car and have to crawl out through the front seat and over the killer who is passed out, but who you just know will wake up at any second. I don't think I took a breath during that entire scene.

Session 9 is the only film with a jump scare that actually scared me. The film on the whole did not frighten me so much as horrify me, which is often worse. The kind of movie that makes my soul feel like it needs a shower. The lead actor was great in the film, which elevated it for me.

Anyone else seen Lake Mungo? It is not a frightening movie on the whole, but there is one scene that, for me anyway, is far scarier and more disturbing than just about anything else I've seen on film.

Strangely, the parts of the Exorcist that affected me most all occurred before the full-blown manifestation began. The opening scene, the scratching in the attic, Regan urinating on the carpet, the medical testing, the priest dreaming about his mother. I guess it was the atmosphere and the advancing dread. Once her head started spinning around, it was so over-the-top, it kinda made me laugh. Sorry, Exorcist fans!

My favorite scary scene from my own formative years is the old woman's corpse rising up out of the bath in The Shining. I didn't see the movie til I was a teen, and I'm glad, because it would have fucked me up.

I was 8 and fell asleep one night with my TV on in my bedroom, I woke up to the twin scene, didn't fall back asleep the rest of the night.

I can’t point to a particular scene, but the whole movie Seven wrecked me. I rented it on vhs & had to watch in 10 minute increments, I felt like I was having a heart attack. I ended up having palpitations for 3 months from that movie! I kept thinking someone was going to copy the killings in real life. 26 yrs later & I’m psyching myself up to try & watch it again.

Gave me chills when I was a kid.

The Descent. The scene in the cave. Where they see the creatures for the first time.

This gave me nightmares for weeks.

I have to break this into childhood and adult scares.

As a kid, I was genuinely terrified by the witch's threatening of Dorothy with the hourglass. What WAS she going to do to her? A child's imagination is mich worse than anything they could show.

I was also terrified of the child catcher with the net from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Later, I was terrified of the premise of Nightmare on Elm Street--that when you fall asleep, you'll be tortured. And Jaws really did mess me up for years.

As an adult, Wait Until Dark is also probably the scariest movie to me. I also find Eyes Wide Shut terrifying, but not any one scene in particular.

It is probably because I grew up without religion, but The Exorcist has always been borderline funny to me and not scary at all. The effects look silly to me, and I just don't get the terror of it. Couldn't the devil do a lot worse than just turning a little girl into a scary monster? I really don't get it.

Seven also fucked up my head and so I suppose it is "scary" in a way, but I think of it more as emotionally disturbing. And I can't bear to watch brutal killings like the Zodiac clip above. I find it more deeply disturbing than scary. I don't understand why people choose to watch people or other animals being butchered.

Moue R77 I've seen Lake Mungo and it stayed with me for ages. I know the scene you speak of. The whole movie is eerie.

Those scissors seen in OP clip were made for film Exorcist III as prop IIRC. Many theorized they were autopsy scissors, which they aren't and even if they were no hospital would have need for such a tool anyway.

It ended up being such a stupid movie, but the imagery in Insidious scared me a lot until the final scene.

Have always wondered why Satan, evil, or whatever you want to call the malevolent forces are able to operate with impunity inside Catholic religious buildings.

In Omen series you have Satan his his worshipers operating inside Catholic hospitals (one of which burns down to ground not long afterwards).

Killer tranny!!

Sorry, OP. I watched the clip you posted and laughed my ass off when whatever that was came out behind the nurse. Not scary at all and looked like something from a Scooby Doo episode.

If you want to hang out and be scared.

Candyman had some good scares -- really, all thanks to Tony Todd who is criminally underrated.