The Single Scariest Scene

Uncanny! Just when I read the thread title, immediately another David Lynch scene came to mind. It's the Uncle Fester encounter from Lost Highway. I found it highly unsettling the first time, and it still makes me feel weird in the stomach everytime I watch it (even when it's just the fragment on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZLQW2qr5Hs)

Here's my two cents: when watching a horror movie, or even thriller, you're always considering people in a situation or events that are at least less likely to happen to yourself. While you feel for the characters involved, there's always some distance kept in your empathy. In these two scenes however, reality is slightly off for a moment there, in an overall quite mundane scene. But the implications of those little surreal details are huge- like the moment in a nightmare where slightly weird stuff starts happening, but you're not yet realizing it's a figment of your imagination. Your idea of how reality is supposed to work gets challenged in a minimal yet profound way- which is way more unsettling than considering the small chance of ever encountering a mad axe killer, or your grandma turning undead.

I'm totally with you Schwartz. Lynch's atmosphere is incredibly unsettling. I think there are things in there that do it on a subconscious level. He's also just really great at creating atmosphere through visual composition and sound - you don't even need plot - some of the experimental films that he's had on his site work on that level. That blue lady in the balcony in Mulholland Drive is scary!

Oh that scene is super creepy, I think it''s the strangeness and questions it makes you think... and man his face is frightening.

As far as a scene that I thought was very creepy to me is A Nightmare On Elm Street (part 1) when Freddy goes after Tina. It starts with that window getting cracked all the way up to Freddy grabbing her before she can make it back into the house. There is something that even today scares me and gives me the willies. That is they most frightening scene of any Elm Street movie, Freddy is truly evil here and not so much the wise-cracking bad guy he later became.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy_mm51NhC8

That seal attack scene scared the hell out of me in 8 Below.

I rarely tense up or become frightened during movies (or at least I haven't recently), but the "Winkie's Dream" in Mulholland Drive had me sweating and my heart pounding. I have it playing in a separate Firefox window right now, an while I can't see it I can hear it; even so my heart's quickening its pace. There's nothing directly scary about it, it's just incredibly tense. It's the combination of floating camera, droning soundtrack (followed by that barely audible "cricket" noise) and the creepiness of the actor's look that made me feel almost sick to my stomach while watching it. As soon as I realized he was living the "dream" again and the man motions for him to "come on" I was thinking to myself "DO NOT fucking go out there, I don't think I can handle it."

And in regards to A Nightmare on Elm Street: the scene where Johnny Depp gets pulled through the bed bothers me to this day. I still think twice about putting my headphones on in bed.

Huh. Really? Mulholland Drive is an eerie movie, but I can't figure out what's so scary about NO AYE BANDA. The melting trashman behind the dumpster would be my go to creepy moment of that movie.

But I think the scariest single scene in movie history is that fucking dinner scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

completely agree with the man behind winkies in mulholland drive. i honestly have not been that scared of a corner in a long time.. took me fully completely by surprise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6rqrGqj1C0

I can definitely see it, Schwartz, although I didn't have quite the same reaction to that scene as you did when I first saw the flick.

I DO love that scene, however. In fact, it's one of my favorite scenes ever. I picked up the Mulholland Drive soundtrack specifically for that song (although it's a solid soundtrack anyway) and played it non-stop after the movie was released.

EDIT: I just realized how much I fucking love Mulholland Drive. I always considered myself a huge fan of it, but damn, I'm almost obsessed.

You know, interestingly enough, everytime someone asks me what I think the scariest movie that I've seen is, I always say Lost Highway. And I'm never sure why.

I remember driving up from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids to see it at Studio 28 and being very uncomfortable during and after for sometime. The party scene, the video tape in the envelope, Robert Loggia - all disconcerting. I think the reason I find it so scary is because I don't really understand it fully, yet I want to so badly.

I remember ONE TIME having figured it out, I thought, but I have since forgotten.

I always wondered if that scene was part of the original ABC pilot. Seems way too intense for T.V., but then again, Twin Peaks had several fucking creepy-ass scenes like that, too.

Scariest scene for me recently was the daylight lakeside murder in Zodiac. That really fucking upset me for some reason.

That scene addresses rape in a subtle subconscious way, I'm pretty sure. It does it in a very artful way - you don't realize it's happening. I think that's why it's so unsettling.

Yeah I know. It's abstract, but it comes from spending too much time reading internet theories about what Mulholland Drive is really about. Trying to sum it up quickly: Diane/blond girl was victimized by grandfather at young age, so never trusts men, falls in love with Camilla, creates fantasy - - the fantasy breaks down at Silencio, focus is on the ringleader emcee guy, this weird thing happens partway through, noises are happening, he thrusts and there's a noise and a sort of release, as though he's orgasming, diane is shaking as though through sexual abuse, you get the picture... there's a lot of symbolism in there for a woman broken by men and looking for a surrogate relationship with women and it not working out, and it's done in such a smooth way...

I agree with cheftournel's interesting explanation to the above, but the reason why this part has always freaked me the hell out can also be put quite simply: the scene plays just like a lot of my real nightmares.

We, along with the two women are led to believe that something sinister is at play in Club Silencio, but none of us learn exactly what. What we don't see becomes a fear of the unkown and I that's partly why this scene is so eerie. In my own dreams, what I "see" doesn't always match what I'm feeling. I might visualize a sunny day at the beach along with an underlying feeling of dread or panic. Am I having two dreams simultaneously? Why am I dressed like an astronaut as I'm herding cattle out of the ocean? David Lynch is an expert at conveying on film the look and feel of actual dreams/nightmares both because of his excellent visual sense and the fact that he is in tune with the randomness of the subconscious.

I love the hell out of Mulholland Drive. It's probably in my top 20 films of all-time, actually.

Hmm probably for me since I was a camper...

...Friday the 13th, blade through Bacon.

I always checked under my bed for crazy mothers. Still just the blade, that gasp of air.. ..I grab my own throat everytime. Agree on the whole, if the situation is more believable then it could happen.

The behind-the-cafe scene Mulholland Drive would be mine as well if not for Inland Empire, and that scene at the end with the long, painful shot through the empty cinema and then the encounter with the distorted face.
Both films are decidedly among my favourites.

I was going to mention the hallway scene too. Hard to beat that one.

I remember way back when my wife and I saw In the Mouth of Madness in the theater. She shrieked and crawled out of her skin when the old guy rolled up on his bike. She had a similar reaction to the gremlin on the wing of the plane in the Twilight Zone movie.

Good one, that scene when I was little terrified me. I truly got that "frozen with fear" feeling. I just watched this flick a few days ago and it still is able to make you jump.

I still think Laura Palmer 'turning' in the Black Lodge in the finale of Twin Peaks is one of the creepiest things Lynch has done in a visceral sense. There's just something about the way she is made up, the way she moves and the sound design which terrifies me completely whenever I watch it.

To be honest the finale of Twin Peaks turns me into a gibbering wreck as soon as they hit the Black Lodge. I blame my watching it at 8 for my subsequent phobia of dwarves.

This choice isn't nearly as intellectual or subtle as those previously mentioned, but the castration scene in the bathroom. . . with the little retarded kid. . . in "Candyman" scared the shit out of me. I'm a pretty jaded horror fan, but that scene, The raspy, echoing hollowness of Tony Todd's voice (He - leeeeeeeennnnnnn!), and the suddenness of his, and later Helen's appearances (I still jump every time he guts the psychologist) combined to cause me to lopse sleep for weeks after seeing it. Seeing it stoned probably helped.

I'm far too disturbed to ever be scared, but I like a film with a lot of atmosphere delivering unsettling scenes. From the aforementioned "the Shining", I thought Jack realizing he's kissing a diseased old woman was more effective than the creepy twins, but they are suitably disturbing in a film packed with atmosphere.

Another film chock-full o' unsettling atmosphere, Korean "A Tale of Two Sisters" executes the best Hair-over-the-face j-horror ghost routine of the Tartan Extreme releases: The girl seeing her dead mother crawling on the floor. It works well because it's morning, as opposed to night, and completely unexpected at that moment in the film.


Now For good old fashioned Jump Scares though, this still works pretty well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH8ynu0jRvY

I agree with all of the Lynch love. The only other director who can leave me deeply unsettled without even trying is Stanley Kubrick. The scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex revisits the man whose wife he raped earlier has always creeped me out immensely. The scene stretches on too long, with the man staring Alex down the entire time with this look of pure hatred and evil in his eyes (Something I call "The Kubrickian Stare," since one character does it in nearly all of his films). You know something bad is going to happen, but you have no clue what it'll be.

Note my Jump scare link directly above your post.

That Exorcist scene is kinda goofy...

I've never gotten how that jump scare is even scary. It just seems like there's nothing there to be particularly scared by.

It's just such a calm scene though, it's more Lynchian in its subversiveness than a proper jolt to the system.

That scene from Don't Look Now, and I don't mean the sex bit. as far as THAT scenes go (THAT scene in Exorcist III/Alien/Carrie/The Ring/Seven/etcetc) it's the best of the best. Nightmarish, unsettling, just perfect.

I have to commend everybody on some great choices in this thread. Just to add a scene, that part of Session 9 when the man who fears the dark is running down that corridor as the lights go out one by one still haunts me. I think it's right up there with all of the worthy scenes already mentioned and all the classic Alien/The Ring/Halloween/The Thing/etc. moments.

To sidetrack a bit, there's a scene in the otherwise fairly unremarkable Stephen King book Gerald's Game that was inordinately scary, almost too scary to read all the way through, at least for me.

Fire Walk With Me is an underrated masterpiece!

The last scene in a horror movie that genuinely freaked me out was in SESSION 9, when Hank goes back to the hospital at night to plumb the treasures hidden in the morgue furnace. The sight of the dark figure at the end of the hallway sent me up the wall.

The scene when Jeff is running full speed toward the camera and the lights are shutting off as he goes is pretty creepy too.

I think it's key that the film so expertly evokes a pervasive feeling of dread. I was already off-kilter, and was much more susceptible to being wigged out.

God I love that movie.

EDIT: Leaving it here, but I posted the hallway bit at the same time as yt. Good choice!

Echoing the love for Mullholland Drive's corner creep.

My favorite jump scare of all time is still the defibrillator scene from 'The Thing'. I love how it starts as something happening on the side while the main event plays out, and then suddenly everything changes in a way that nobody (not even the viewer) saw coming. Another thing I love about it: NO MUSIC. No suspenseful lead-up and no shock blast. Just the people and the monster. The perfect jump scare.

One I just thought of: the Large Marge scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Sure, as an adult it's a good unexpected shock, but to a kid? I was 5 when I first saw it, and that shit fucked me up.

As long as we are talking David Lynch, I had to pause Blue Velvet the first time I saw it, when Ms. rossilini is holding the knife on Kyle MacLachlan and doing whatever it is she is doing to him. I think the tension had just ratcheted up so much leading to that, but let's be honest a shrink would probably enjoy getting into why I REALLY find that scene to be so upsetting.

My personal scariest is probably the shark taking our young skinny dipper for a ride in Jaws ("It hurts!"), winning out over the Alien offering Skerrit a big hug. The skinny dipper has time to become aware of what is happening, and even seems to be in a "I can't believe I'm being eaten alive out here!" place. Even watching it on cable for the 137th time in the middle of the afternoon is truly horrifying to me, every time.

The opening scene of "Scream."

Before you start throwing things, I'm talking about the first time I ever saw that film, in a movie theater in December of 1996.

A lot of the weight of that movie has been lost because of sequels, parodies and knock-offs, but the first time I ever saw that Drew Barrymore scene (thinking she was the star of the movie and not having a clue she was about to have a REALLY bad night) it was fucking SCARY. Seemed like something that could really happen.

Agreed. It's so quick and brutal, and that actress did a great job of conveying the absolute horror of what was happening to her. Sets up the subsequent terror perfectly without seeing an ounce of fish.

Speaking of David Lynch

The first 15 minutes of the completely ignored, and wholly underrated sequel WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK. It's clinical, text book set ups and scares, and should be taught in film schools everywhere.

Bob in Laura Palmer's bedroom, circa Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Saw it as a kid, and it didn't effect me. Saw it again as an adult, modern trappings of reality, and it fucked me right up.

The last ten minutes of ALIEN, before Ripley blows up the ship.

The Maze chase scene in THE SHINING.

The entire third act of the Japanese horror film HYPNOSIS.

There's a steadicam shot in the Japanese horror film FORBIDDEN SIREN, based on the video game, shot inside this old house. Pitch black, with a crazy, gibberish spouting demon hunting down a girl and her little brother through the house's winding corridors, and half open hallways. Reall well done.

The barbwire scene from SUSPIRIA.

The transposed black and white photography from THE EXORCIST.

"NEVER AGAIN !!!"




The Shining (and yes, IT) scared the living piss outta me growing up, but no particular scene screwed me up more than spinal meningitis spokes-freak, Zelda.

EDIT: Some other good suggestions in the Movie Moments that will ALWAYS Freak You Out... thread.

Yeah, that was during the big climax. It starts off amazing, then it's complete ass for about 60 minutes, but the finale is pretty well executed.

Good point, LisaNewYork. One of the most frequent problems in a film, since it's something you can only see and here, is that often they don't properly convey something like physical force. Sure you can see somebody throw a punch or an SUV go through a wall, but without the ability to feel them in some way, they can be sort of weightless. One of the scariest things about Benchley's problematic novel is the description of this first attack. Spielberg, through showing us some simple movement across the frame, captured that confusion and horror of being swept away by some massive thing beautifully. It's scary to imagine, but the worst thing about being in those titular jaws isn't the stabbing or shredding from the giant teeth, but being pulled and crushed by the tremendous pressure.

For me, when i was 5 watching the 1987 animated movie "Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night" and when i saw this movie in a theater, this scene scared the bejesus out of me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCLhGj-DQ_o

Preety harsh and disturbing for an animated movie huh?

I'm not at all affected by Jaws, as I didn't see it until I was about 15, but I vividly remember being piss-scared by the opening of Jaws: The Revenge (of all fucking movies). Specifically, Brody's son having his arm ripped off, and not even noticing until he looks down and sees all the blood.

This may not apply to many older posters here, but Burton's BATMAN movies are full of shit that's scary to a 4-year-old. That Joker scene in the fleapit operating theatre absolutely terrifed me (in the good, fun way) as a lad.

BATMAN RETURNS has less clown input and is thus less scary than BATMAN, but Catwoman slicing open the mugger's face really jarred Young Paul McCartney.

When I was 3 I was totally freaked out by ET making the balls move around in the air to simulate the "solar system."