Scary Moments In Film

[ian.64]

The Mist has always uneased me to a degree because, in my view, it successfully conveys the terror of the unknown. Horrible and nasty creatures hide in the titular fog that surrounds a bunch of terrified people in a supermarket. It's brisk, grisly in parts and well-acted, with only the ending to divide how you feel about it - it's either a bleakly devastating conclusion or a botched ending that makes you feel as if it's a bitter punchline to what went before it. See for yourself.

Anyway, there's a bit in the film where the lead, Thomas Jane's character, tries to prevent a snotty young shop assistant and his two chums from opening the store's loading bay and seeing what's out there, knowing the creepy-crawlies will take the advantage and burst in.

Against his wishes, they open the bay door. Suddenly, tentacles emerge, take a chunk out of the shop assistant and, despite help, drag him into the mist. He disappears, but not before letting out a loud shriek. That I found particularly unnerving as what was scary enough were the tentacle attacks, but the real scare was the scream in the mist as the shop assistant found out what they were attached to.

A small, even tiny moment, but a hugely effective one.

Your nominations?

[erwin]

Scary Moments In Film

Countless, but one that occurs to me straight away is in Alien, when John Hurt descends into the hatchery on the planet. It's one of those (extended) "don't go down there, you idiot!" moments; we know that something's going to happen, and the tension just keeps ratcheting up until it does.

In fact the film's full of such extended bits of tension, then the kick.

(Ah ... maybe you were after shorter 'moments', ian ...)

[evilC]

Scary Moments In Film

Yep - what erwin said: the facehugger scene from 'Alien'. Took me about 10 viewings/years before I could watch that!

The bus in 'Cat People'. (Spoiler)

The alleyway scene in 'Mulholland Drive'.

[Uncle Ethan]

Scary Moments In Film

The head rolling out of the submerged boat in Jaws. Still gets me every time.

[ian.64]

Scary Moments In Film

(Ah ... maybe you were after shorter 'moments', ian ...)

No problem, we can widen the brief if needed.

Haven't seen Mulholland Drive, but good choices so far (not including mine, he said modestly.).

Always think the last few frames in Psycho where Anthony Perkins's face dissolves into the shrivelled skull of the dead mother retains a creepy frisson before the end titles.

[via vicaria]

Scary Moments In Film

I'm in the 'botched' camp for The Mist, though I'd agree it's a good effective scary film up to then.

Oddly the first thing occurring to me this morning in terms of scary moments is one I first saw as an easily-frightened kid. Those evil black shadow-things which carry off the dead baddies in Ghost - it's the sounds they made which got to me. Of course I doubt the film would scare me now (should I ever watch it again) but I remember being bloody terrified.

And probably a divisive choice, but The Blair Witch Project had some good moments. A lot of people say the ending, but I was always more freaked by the hands on the tent/mad dash away from the tent bit, it's got a frantic edge to it which just adds extra nervousness.

[Ginger Yellow]

Scary Moments In Film

Back to topic. I'm going to sound like a broken record here but the scene in Audition with the burlap sack had my head reeling for days. It's the measure of a truly brilliant film-maker that he can invoke such a visceral response with such comparatively limited means.

Yeah, Audition wins this hands down. Frankly it pisses all over every other movie in the creepy stakes. It's the way it changes tone halfway through so dramatically and, if you haven't seen it before and aren't familiar with Miike, without any warning.

[Sits]

Scary Moments In Film

via vicaria wrote:

And probably a divisive choice, but The Blair Witch Project had some good moments. A lot of people say the ending, but I was always more freaked by the hands on the tent/mad dash away from the tent bit, it's got a frantic edge to it which just adds extra nervousness.

I'm with you on Blair Witch - one of the few movies which really freaks me out, at various points, however many times I see it. It's really old school film making, i.e. you barely see anything. The rock noises / little piles of rocks / increasing panic and bickering all just add to the rising tension. Like John Hurt going down the pit, it's another "Just don't do it, get out!" effect, but it cranks up almost from the start - right from when they visit the creepy (witchy) woman in the trailer with twisty twiggy stuff all round the place.

[Slightly Brown]

Scary Moments In Film

Great choices so far (I loved the ending of The Mist, by the way). Audition would be my number one too. I’d also add the scene in the bed in A Tale of Two Sisters; the fact that it happens in broad daylight adds to the brilliance of the white terror. Numerous scenes in the original The Grudge did it for me, again because a lot of it happens during the day. In fact, daylight-scares are what Asian cinema does best.

For sustained heebie-jeebies, I’d nominate the ’63 version of The Haunting. The soundtrack alone gives me goose-flesh. For sweaty-palmed sleeping-with-the-lights-on I’d nominate Paranormal Activity. That freaked me out for months; so much so, that Ms Brown has forbidden me from seeing the sequels.

And for childhood scarring, I’d go The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse. It was all in his face, an image that I carried around in my poor, little impressionable mind for years.

As for David Lynch, David Foster Wallace does a great essay exploring/nailing the director’s particular brand of creepy-unease.

[evilC]

Scary Moments In Film

The beginning sequence of 'Suspiria' is a real assault on the senses. But, just when you think the worst is over and it's going to follow the rhythm of a regular film, our heroine arrives at the big house and...!!!

(edit: Spoiler, should anyone want to watch it. One of the all-time great soundtracks, too, of course.)

[via vicaria]

Scary Moments In Film

Having woken up a bit more since the earlier comment, I've considered a few more scary moments to have got past my eyeballs and lodged themselves in my brain, to bother me post-viewing.

Building on Suspiria, there's an awful lot to be said for films that carry a real aura of uneasiness about them. Giallo in general has that going on. A couple of my particular favourites of the type have a few sequences that are pretty memorable.

Messiah of Evil is one, back in 1973, and is a beautifully-shot thing to boot. The most famous sequence is the 'cinema' scene (

if you're interested), akin to the building-up of the climbing-frame birds in, well, The Birds, in that gradually the implied threat becomes greater and greater. But the supermarket (meat) scene (can't find it on youtube) is the one that I always go to, mentally, when thinking about that film. It's a criminally overlooked film and well worth a watch.

The other one coming to mind is The House with Laughing Windows, which is bloody great. Very slow-burn in general and not a 'shocker', a bit more in the vein of things like Don't Look Now, and like that film it has a seriously creepy end.

Apols if a bit wordy, I do bloody love horror films though. I'd throw Session 9 in as another with a few great moments, but I'd end up here all day if I'm not careful. Back on Suspiria for a moment though, I've gotta confess, the Goblin soundtrack stuff just ended up getting on my wick after a while.

[Crusoe]

Scary Moments In Film

The chap waking up and flicking his lighter in the closing scene of The Vanishing (the original version). I watched that on my own on a black and white TV in an empty house at night. Cue me racing around switching every light on, sticking the radio on, talking to myself, etc, etc.

[erwin]

Scary Moments In Film

Brrrrrr, Crusoe ... good shout.

[Slightly Brown]

Scary Moments In Film

Crusoe wrote:

The chap waking up and flicking his lighter in the closing scene of The Vanishing (the original version). I watched that on my own on a black and white TV in an empty house at night. Cue me racing around switching every light on, sticking the radio on, talking to myself, etc, etc.

(spoiler)

Sitting alone...lights off...watching the re-make of The Vanishing...the end approaching...clod after clod of earth on his coffin...huuurumph....huuurumphhm..like a metronome of the Devil’s heart itself.....burying him alive....the end closing in...and then...the absent mother from Three Men and a Baby digs him up. Horrific, indeed.

[ian.64]

Scary Moments In Film

Put me down for Audition as well. Normally I'm not really a fan of movies that trade off on torture as entertainment, but that film was an almost hypnotic experience - grisly, yes, but hugely compelling.

The bit that got me - as well as everything else in it - was the dream sequence (which I won't spoil for any posters that haven't seen it). In other films, specifically horror films, you cotton onto the fact that you're in a dream sequence right away and you tap your fingers waiting for the thing to end, but in Audition, the fact that you know you're in a dream sequence only seems to make the events in the film feel even worse.

[Gerontophile]

Scary Moments In Film

I think its 'The Devil Rides Out'... (Googles...), no, it isnt.

It was 'Race With The Devil'. The film itself was crap but

********************SPOLIER (than thou)****************

The ending has stuck with me all these years, where they end up, with their motor home in a huge circle of fire, and they are well and truly caught... and that's how it ends, which freaked me out enormously, and still does.

*****************END SPOILER HoNESTLY******************

Loretta Swit was in it, if that helps, and I was 9 and most impressionable. There was something to do with snakes, and it was just all a bit too much. If I can find it, I will watch it as an adult, but it might be another 30 years before THAT happens.

Without being too obvious, there is a scene in SAW 2, where

******************SPOILER AGAIN************************

the ex-junkie has to find a key, on pain of death for everyone, in a big box full of hypodermic needles. OHFORFUCKSAKE.

********************AS YOU WERE************************

All of that said, the first time I watched 'Chitty Chitty' and saw Robert Helpman doing the 'Child-Catcher' scared the shit out of me, as he looked like my (hated by everyone in the family) grandmother.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Scary Moments In Film

One I saw as a youngster and can't get out of my head: the climactic scene in Wait Until Dark where the would-be killer is stalking Susy around the apartment as she smashes all the lights........but forgets the one inside the fridge. Brrr.

[moolag]

Scary Moments In Film

As I haven't been scared by a horror film in years - not for the want of trying - though The Ring was good I will have to revert back to the terrifyingly creepy smile of the little boy as Damian in The Omen as he watched the nanny hang herself.

Also when he rides his tricycle around in circles humming some demented tune before pedalling off and knocking Karen over the balcony. Terrifying as a kid.

Just while I remember - Halloween - the completely blank staring eyes of the boy dressed in the clown suit, knife in hand by his side with blood dripping down. The boy had just brutally murdered his sister.

And then there's the vampire at the window scene in the mini series of Salem's Lot. The smiling floating boy scraping and tapping at the window had me making sure those curtains were properly drawn for months afterwards. The fact that the boy gets out of bed and lets him in disturbed me.

Salem's Lot

On a slightly different note I remember being mildly obsessed by the little boy floating behind the curtain in the Three Men and a Baby film. Does anybody remember this? The rumour at the time was it was a ghost of a boy who had lived in the apartment they were filming.

As it was it apparently turned out to be a son of one of the crew who had accidentally wandered on to the set but it freaked me out big time.

It's at 0.42

[moolag]

Scary Moments In Film

I have just realised that all four of my examples involve young boys. Hmmm..