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Greatest Scariest Movie Moments
and Scenes
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Greatest Scariest Movie Moments
and Scenes
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Greatest Scariest Movie Moments and
Scenes |
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Movie Title
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Brief Scene Description | Example |
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The dizzying trick camerawork (a reverse zoom, dolly-out) visualizing the vortex of vertigo and acrophobia (fear of heights) in the film's opening shots and in the bell tower scenes; in the film's second terrifying sequence, obsessed and retired SF police detective Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) drags Judy Barton / Madeleine (Kim Novak) up the stairs to the top of the mission's tower - where she suffers a 'second' (and fatal) fall after she recoils from the sight of a nun (thought to be a ghost) and steps backwards through an opening in the tower -- the last shot in the tragic ending shows a stunned, open-mouthed Scottie standing on the belfry tower ledge as he stares down at Judy's dead body |
  
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Videodrome (1983)
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Cable TV director/producer Max Renn's (James Woods) assassination of political leader Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) by transforming his hand into a gun-grenade, and the killing of head of Convex Optical Barry Convex (Leslie Carlson) by shooting him with an organic gun and causing tumors to erupt from his torso and skull; also the bizarre surrealistic scene of Max kissing a hallucinogenic TV screen displaying a pair of giant seductive red lips that begins to suck him into the glass monitor |
  
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Village of the Damned (1960)
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A group of hyper-intelligent, blonde-haired, glowing-eyed kids (an alien race) born in the British village of Midwich during a mist, and resident scientist Professor Gordon Zellaby's (George Sanders) face-off against the deadly-staring robotic children in a brick schoolhouse |
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Wait Until Dark (1967)
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This film centers around the deadly search for drugs, unknowingly stashed in a rag doll; one early shocking moment is Mike Talman's (Richard Crenna) gruesome discovery of the body of Lisa (Samantha Jones) in a plastic garment bag; in the final battle of wits staged in complete darkness, after splashing gasoline all around her tiny basement apartment, there is the exciting jump-out-of-your-seat (or shock-leap) moment of the villainous and crazed Harry Roat's (Alan Arkin) lunge with a knife from the dark hallway toward blind Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn) - and her retaliation by threatening to ignite his gas-soaked body with a match |
  
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The War of the Worlds (1953)
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Sylvia Van Buren's (Ann Robinson) farmhouse encounter with a Martian |
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When a Stranger Calls (1979)
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Teenaged baby-sitter Jill Johnson's (Carol Kane) fearful torment as she receives phone calls from an unknown, lunatic assailant ("Why haven't you checked the children?"), and the police's classic warning: "We've traced the calls...they're coming from inside the house!" |
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What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
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The scenes of grotesque, former vaudeville child star "Baby Jane" Hudson (Bette Davis) serving an ex-pet and a roasted rat to her paralyzed invalid sister Blanche (Joan Crawford) for "din-din"; and the tense scene in which Blanche struggles to get downstairs to the phone to call for help as Jane returns home |
 
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The Wicker Man (1973)
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After repressed Scottish policeman Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) discovered evidence of a potential virgin sacrifice of a missing young schoolgirl named Rowan (Geraldine Cowper) by pagan worshippers and inhabitants of a remote island on May Day, inside a giant hollow Wicker Man statue (created of wicker materials designed to be used for fire sacrifices) - the final scene followed in which he ultimately becomes the final perfect sacrifice himself |
 
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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
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An unlikely scary scene in a children's film: in a fanciful land with a candy factory filled with orange-skinned, green-haired Oompa-Loompas workers - the scene in which tormenting, purple-clad Willy (Gene Wilder) offers a boat ride down the Chocolate River to the kids and their parents - while hallucinatory, colorful, hellish and surreal images (a kaleidoscope of insects, a beheading of a chicken, a slimy worm on a face, etc.) are back-projected behind them while Willy provides strange commentary |
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The character of the cackling Wicked Witch (Margaret Hamilton), and her dispatching of her Flying Monkeys to stop the progress of Dorothy Gale's (Judy Garland) companions to free her |
 
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Wolf Creek (2005)
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In a somewhat repulsively-sickening film based on a true story and reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a trio of stranded backpackers (Britishers Kristy Earl (Kestie Morassi) and brunette Liz Hunter (Cassandra Magrath), and local Ben Mitchell (Nathan Phillips)) in the remote outback of Western Australia were aided by a "Crocodile Dundee"-type local named Mick Taylor (John Jarratt); the sadistic, cruel, and brutal antagonist inflicted violent acts upon the group -- kidnapping, rape, torture (i.e, Ben is stuck hanging to a wall crucifix-style), dismemberment (i.e., Liz has several fingers severed), and murder; in the film's most horrific scene, Mick stabs Liz in the back - severing her spine and rendering her paralyzed (while calling it "head on a stick") |
 
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The Wolf Man (1941)
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The incredible transformation scene of Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) into a werewolf (with shots of his legs growing hairier and hairier through dissolves), and the scene in which Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains) unknowingly attacks his own werewolf son; also the pursuit scene in the foggy forest/swamp |
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Zombie (1979) (aka Zombi 2)
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One of the most gruesome and scary eye gouging or 'splinter-into-the-eye' death sequences ever (in a Lucio Fulci film), in which Paolo Menard (Olga Karlatos) was hiding behind a door to avoid an undead, marauding flesh-eating zombie from attacking - when her bedroom door was broken down, he grabbed her by the hair and slowly dragged her right eyeball into a shard of wood sticking out - after her death, she was eaten by zombies; a similar scene appeared in Fulci's The Beyond (1981) |
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Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.
Many sites
and horror books have attempted to compile listings of the scariest
scenes in film history. In late October 2004, the Bravo cable
network first presented a countdown of 100 movies that contained the
100 Scariest Movie Moments in Film History, later supplemented with
30 Even Scarier Movie Moments in October, 2006. Other sites and film
critics have presented their own compilations of cinema's scariest scenes,
such as the UK's Channel Four and RetroCrush. The selections
of Entertainment Weekly for the "20 Scariest Movies of All
Time" in October 2004 are marked with this symbol -- 
