Scariest Movie Moments and Scenes

	Greatest Scariest Movie Moments and Scenes Part 7

Introduction: The following list, in unranked alphabetical order by film title, presents a solid collection of the most classic, 'scariest' scenes in movie history, including film scenes that were once considered 'scary' upon their initial screenings (or scary for young viewers), but have lost some of their shock appeal. Films represent some of the best and worst of the horror film genre including entries from the classic Universal 30's monster films to some of the scariest, most shocking, bloodiest and gore-ridden slasher films of the recent past. [Author's Note: Admittedly, the word 'scariest' may also be interpreted as most horrifying, shocking, or many other such synonyms.] Other areas of this website have scariest scenes also - see Greatest Film Scenes with some descriptions of scary scenes included, or entries in Best Film Death Scenes.

Key to Iconic Symbol:

- Entries in Entertainment Weekly's "20 Scariest Movies of All Time" (October, 2004 issue)

Movie Title	Brief Scene Description	Example
Eraserhead (1976)	The views of Henry Spencer's (Jack Nance) and girlfriend Mary X's (Charlotte Stewart) deformed, bleating, sickly and whining mutant baby, born prematurely; it had a hairless lamb-shaped head with a bulbous, bandage-wrapped body
Event Horizon (1997)	In this film about an interplanetary deep-space research vessel named "Event Horizon" that was launched in the year 2040 to explore the boundaries of the solar system, but then vanished, its designer Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill) on a rescue mission experienced horrific past memories when onboard the hellish Event Horizon - especially the tormenting sight of his deceased wife Claire (Holley Chant) (with two empty eye sockets), presumably ignored by him due to his work and depressed; she was seen taking a bath and cutting her wrist with a razor blade and then viewed from a top-shot with her body floating in her own red blood in the bathtub; she then told him as she cradled his head against her stomach: "Billy, it's alright...You'll never be alone again. Use me now. I have such wonderful, wonderful things to show you" - and then squeezed his head to produce intense pain; also the scene of the playback of the captain's degraded videolog of what happened on the spaceship, showing quick-cut scenes of torture, cannibalism, and sodomy - with the image of the captain holding out his own torn-out eyeballs in his hands
Evil Dead (1981)	Director Sam Raimi's debut film was the ultimate "cabin in the woods" story - evil spirits were unleashed after the reading of a forbidden book - the Naturon Demonto (or Book of the Dead); the scariest scene was the infamous (and gratuitous) predatory tree rape scene, when one of the group members Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) was attacked in the woods outside the log cabin by vines and tree branches ("It was the woods themselves, they're alive") that wrapped around her neck and limbs, stripped her of her clothes, caressed her and then spread her legs - one tree branch suddenly impaled her in her crotch; after she was chased back to the house (with quick POV tracking shots), she was soon transformed into a demon zombie with a greyish white face and superhuman strength; as a result, she floated above the floor, spoke with a ghastly voice, and grabbed a pencil from the floor and jabbed it into the ankle of Ash's girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker) - Cheryl had to be confined in the basement cellar with a padlocked trap-door opening in the living room
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)	There was the startling, hallucinatory Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-like scene when Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) stood in front of a mirror - and his reflection reached out, said maniacally: "We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw", and then grabbed him by the throat; when his own possessed right hand grabbed his face and tried to beat him up in a schizophrenic frenzy, Ash stabbed the hand, exclaimed to the evil body part: "Who's laughing now? Who's laughing now?", and then in the gory scene, cut off his own hand with a chainsaw - spattering his face with blood
Evilspeak (1981)	The scary scene of a herd of evil carnivorous pigs devouring the school's naked secretary Miss Friedemeyer (Lynn Hancock) in her bathroom shower - to secure her blood needed by nerdy and tormented military academy cadet Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard) for a black mass celebration; also the scene of demonic power twisting the head of the drunken school custodian Sarge (R.G. Armstrong) 180 degrees; and the final slaughter sequence in the barricaded chapel including the Coach's (Claude Earl Jones) impalement in an overhead chandelier with spikes, a nail from a crucifix sailing through the air into the forehead of Reverend Jameson (Joseph Cortese), the bloody head-splitting of Colonel Kincaid (Charles Tyner) with a sword, more body-chompings by the ravenous pigs, decapitations, and the ripping out of Bubba's (Don Stark) heart by the reanimated corpse of Sarge
The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots (1895) (aka The Execution of Mary Stuart )	The controversial execution (decapitation) of Mary, Queen of Scots (Robert Thomae) on the execution block, using a dummy and a trick camera shot (substitution shot); in the short sequence, Mary knelt down, and put her head on the block as the executioner raised a large axe; when the axe was brought down, her head rolled off the chopping block to the left - where the executioner picked it up in the final frame and held it up; this scene was shocking and scary for unsophisticated cinematic audiences
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)	In this true story of a priest charged with negligent homicide during the exorcism of a 19 year-old Catholic college girl named Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter), the frightening scenes of Emily's demonic spiritual possession in which she lashed out at the priest Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson) and displayed double-jointed and contortionist positions and grotesque convulsions as she moaned and screamed
The Exorcist (1973)	The many scary scenes of possessed twelve year-old Regan MacNeil's (Linda Blair) monstrous appearance, including the blasphemous view of her masturbating (or stabbing) her crotch under her blood-splattered nightgown with a crucifix - sacrilegious self-abuse, as she bellowed obscenities in the Devil's voice toward her mother Chris (Ellen Burstyn): "Let Jesus f--k you, let Jesus f--k you! Let him f--k you!"; in another scene, she spewed a projectile of greenish, pea-soup throw-up, levitated and spun her head 180 and 360-degrees; in many scenes, her demonic tortured voice screamed obscenities, while the raised welts that bubbled up across her abdomen read: "help me"; in the supplemental The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen, there was the frightening upside-down spider-walk down the stairs
Exorcist III (1990)	The 'gotcha' scene of a nurse (Tracy Thorne) making her rounds in an asylum, when she was suddenly attacked from behind by a white-cloaked individual with large shears who proceeded to cut her head off - juxtaposed with an image of a headless statue; also the scene when an agile, old lady nursing home resident crawled spider-like on the ceiling over an unaware Detective Kinderman (George C. Scott)
Fatal Attraction (1987)	The terrorizing 'bunny boiler' scene of scorned Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), after experiencing a fling with errant husband and successful New York lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas), taking revenge on his daughter Ellen's (Ellen Hamilton Latzen) pet rabbit (named Whitly) by making 'hare stew' (filmed with suspenseful cut-aways of the child running to the empty rabbit hutch); and the shock scene in which Alex suddenly and explosively emerged from the bathtub after having apparently been drowned - and was shot in the chest by Dan's wife Beth (Anne Archer); this 'return from the dead' scene paid homage to a similar bathtub scene in the French film Les Diaboliques (1954); the reshot audience-pleasing ending was not the original one which had the victimized husband being led away after being arrested by police on suspicion of murder, and the scorned pregnant woman committing suicide with a knife (with Dan's fingerprints on it) while dressed in white, to the tune of "Madame Butterfly"
Fear (1996)	The character of sweet-talking, jealous, violent and psychopathic boyfriend David McCall (Mark Wahlberg) whose naive 16 year-old girlfriend Nicole Walker (Reese Witherspoon) finally realized that he was dangerous when he beat up her platonic friend Gary (Todd Caldecott) - the spurned, obsessed and intimidating David (who had etched the words "Nicole 4 ever" on his chest with a dart, and who methodically and repetitively punched himself after Nicole’s father Steve (William Petersen) told him to stay away from his daughter) stalked her and assaulted the Walker house from the door, screaming: ("SO LET ME IN THE F--KING HOUSE!!"); there was also a fight to the death when David was thrown out of a window
Final Destination (2000)	The scary scene in which psychic airline passenger/high school senior Alex Chance Browning (Devon Sawa) had a frightening premonition of a 747 airplane crash - and deplaned before it exploded on take-off in a horrifying scene; he found that fate followed him and the other survivors of the crash; one of the survivors, Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke), suffered an unlikely Rube Goldberg-like death - she was first sliced in the throat with a shard of glass when her computer monitor exploded, then stabbed in the chest when she accidentally pulled down a knife-rack in the kitchen, causing a knife to fall on her, after which a chair fell over and drove the knife deeper - even further, she was incinerated in the burning house; in another contrived death, menacing and creeping toilet bowl water on the floor caused Tod Waggner (Chad Donella) to slip and fall, thereby becoming strangled in the bathtub by the retractable clothes-line hanger that coiled tightly around his neck, while he struggled and was unable to reach a pair of nose-hair scissors on the counter
Final Destination 3 (2006)	Similar to the other films in this macabre black comedy series about fateful death, characters died a horrible death because they had cheated the Grim Reaper earlier - in this case, lucky survivors exiting a dangerous rollercoaster ride that killed everyone because of one person's premonition of disaster; there were a number of inventively grisly deaths in this film including one very scary death scene, in which blonde Ashley Freund (Chelan Simmons) and Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe) were positioned in two tanning beds, where - due to Rube Goldberg circumstances - they were literally barbecued and electrocuted when trapped inside by a falling CD shelf/board