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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 |
Brief Scene Description | Example |
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Creepshow (1982)
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In the fourth of five spooky stories written by Stephen King for this George Romero film, The Crate, a lethal, voracious werewolf-like creature in a large box from an expedition to the Arctic 134 years ago, mauled the janitor who opened up the crate with a university professor; in the last of five stories titled They're Creeping Up on You, ugly and gigantic cockroaches emerged and swarmed during a blackout in the germproof, sparkling-white apartment of roach-phobic, obsessively-clean, miserly millionaire named Professor Upson Pratt (E. G. Marshall) and eventually killed him |
   
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Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
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The tense, disquieting scene when Judah (Martin Landau) goes to the apartment of ex-mistress Dolores Paley (Anjelica Huston), killed (off-screen) by a hitman that he hired, to retrieve evidence - and finds her staring lifelessly up at him |
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Cujo (1983)
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In this horror-thriller adapted from a Stephen King novel, a monstrous, rampaging, rabid (from a rabid bat bite), ferocious and snarling St. Bernard dog that attacks mother Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace Stone) and her petrified son Tad (Danny Pintauro) in a locked, sweltering Ford Pinto at a deserted farm-garage - with the shock scene of the mean-tempered dog suddenly first appearing at her broken-down, canary-yellow Pinto's passenger door, as the mother struggles to roll up the window; also the climactic struggle in which Donna impales the psycho dog on the sharpened broken end of a baseball bat -- and the surprise resurrection of the mad animal (in a slow-motion sequence) ending with a final attack in the house |
 
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D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)
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The disquieting, disturbing scene in which Daryl (Barrett Oliver), a 10 year old amnesiac orphan boy is examined by military scientists on why he's "malfunctioning" - or betraying his true nature as a human with emotions, when he conveys the computer-printed words: "I'M FRIGHTENED"; the scientists force Daryl to acknowledge that he's android D.A.R.Y.L. (an anagram for Data Analyzing Robotic Youth Lifeform) |
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Dawn of the Dead (1978)
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The scene in which marauding, flesh-eating zombies in an abandoned Pittsburgh (Monroeville) shopping mall engage in an elevator attack upon helicopter pilot Stephen Andrews (David Emge); and the scenes in a department store when a zombie jumps out from behind a group of mannequins and tackles policeman Roger De Marco (Scott Reiniger), and when two zombie teens bust through a door and attack black Philly PD SWAT team member Peter Washington (Ken Foree) In the 'reimagined' remake by Zack Snyder, the undead zombies in the local mega Crossroads Shopping Mall were much swifter moving; in an early scary scene, one of the last surviving humans in a Wisconsin town, a nurse named Ana Clark (Sarah Polley), survived an attack and bloody neck bite by a neighbor girl inside their house that left her husband Louis a zombie - while she narrowly escaped through the bathroom window; one of the film's most horrifying scenes was the one in which infected Luda (Inna Korobkina), who was bitten by one of the zombies, gave birth while tied to a bed in the mall's children's store - her bare belly displayed unnatural movements and then a zombie baby was born! |
  Dawn of the Dead (1978)   Dawn of the Dead (2004) |
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Dead Alive (1992) (aka Braindead)
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This over-the-top bloody and gory Peter Jackson horror-comedy zombie film included an outrageous custard-eating scene in which rotting body parts from zombified Mum Vera Cosgrove (Elizabeth Moody) squirt pus into a bowl of porridge-pudding -- and when her ear falls off, she eats it with the mush; also the housewarming dinner party in which the guests are attacked by zombies (one zombie punches his fist through the back of a woman's head); and the climactic zombie massacre scene of shy mama's boy Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) using a rotary-blade lawnmower (strapped to his chest) in a room full of zombies to send buckets of blood, intestines, and body parts flying everywhere |
   
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The Dead Zone (1983)
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The gruesome suicide scene in which black raincoat-clad serial killer (the Deputy Sheriff) sought by psychic Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken), commits suicide by falling on an open pair of scissors attached to the bathtub - mouth-first -- in the film, only the twitching after-effects are shown |
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Deep Blue Sea (1999)
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The unlikely, extremely startling killing of Russell Franklin (Samuel Jackson) by a shark (a combination of computer-generated images and animatronics) during a rousing speech for survival |
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At shot-gun-point in the woods, in a nightmarish and frightening sequence, a sexually-perverted rustic viciously targets and humiliates Bobby (Ned Beatty) - a chubby-faced, defenseless intruder into his territory. He forces the fat salesman to first strip down to his underwear. After a degrading roll around in the dirt and up a steep, leaf-strewn hillside while fondling and groping his prey, the mountain man/rapist makes Bobby squeal like a female sow before sodomizing him; also the shocking final image of a hand emerging from the water |
 
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The Devil's Backbone (2001, Sp.) (aka El Espinazo del Diablo)
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A Gothic ghost murder-mystery set during the ongoing Spanish Civil War, with imagery of a seldom-seen dead boy ("the one who sighs") Santi (Junio Valverde) - a pale-faced orphan who (in flashback) was brutally beaten and drowned - he's a sad ghostly figure with milky eyes who leaves wet footprints and has watery blood flowing from a gash in his head; he also warns of an upcoming catastrophe ("many of you will die") and is associated with a scary, deep water tank in the orphanage's damp basement; the film boasts a haunting soundtrack (with gurgling, a ghoul's cries and sighs, and the screech of mechanical gears); in one shocking scene, while the camera looks through a keyhole lock in a door, the ghostly boy suddenly appears in the field of view |
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The Devils (1971, UK)
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In a sadomasochistic story adapted from Aldous Huxley's "The Devils of Loudon", with scenes of orgiastic and crazed, nude, head-shaved nuns and the exorcism of the wicked, sexually-repressed, and deformed (hunch-backed) Sister Jeanne des Anges (Vanessa Redgrave); also the climactic torture / burning at the stake of the promiscuous rebel priest Father Grandier (Oliver Reed) |
  
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The Devil's Rejects (2005)
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This brutal, repellent, uncompromising and sick film by writer/director Rob Zombie told about a lunatic tribe of hillbilly serial killers (the Fireflys, with names borrowed from Groucho Marx) on the backroads of Alabama and was filled with degraded scenes of murder and dismemberment; in an early scene, stringy, blonde-haired fugitive leader Otis P. Driftwood (Bill Moseley) cuddled with a decomposing female corpse (Jessica Helmer); one of the most awful and unpleasant sequences was the one in which Otis, his crazy sister Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie, the director's wife) and their demented father with clown makeup, Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig) terrorized, tortured and tormented members of a close-knit traveling country music band called "Banjo & Sullivan" at a motel - victim Wendy Banjo (Kate Norby) was dragged naked from a shower, bandleader Roy Sullivan's wife Gloria (Priscilla Barnes, from TV's Three's Company) was sexually humiliated with a large pistol and killed, and later Adam Banjo (Lew Temple) was lethally tortured out in the desert; the sole surviving Wendy was discovered by a motel maid wearing an organic mask made from Adam's face - when Wendy hysterically ran for help into the middle of the road and tried to wave down a car, a big truck ran over her, and her body was left a bloody mess |
    
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Les Diaboliques (1955, Fr.)
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The startling scene of long-suffering, enslaved and invalid 'widow' Christina Delasalle's (Vera Clouzot) death from a heart attack when watching her tyrant husband Michel Delasalle (Paul Meurisse) rise zombie-like from being submerged in the bath where she thought he was dead from drowning - and his removal of fake white covers from each eyeball |
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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 -- 
