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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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M (1931, Ger.)
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The stalking of a little girl by child-murderer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) |
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Manhunter (1986)
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The shocking scene of obnoxious "National Tattler" journalist Freddy Lounds (Stephen Lang) strapped to a wheelchair by The Tooth Fairy (aka Frances Dolarhyde) (Tom Noonan) (after having his lips bitten off), set ablaze, and rolled down a steep underground parking garage ramp towards the camera |
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In an excruciating torture scene, ex-death camp dentist Szell's (Laurence Olivier) sadistic, grim torture of a tied-up, idealistic doctoral student Babe (Dustin Hoffman) in a window-less room using probing and buzzing dental instruments as he repeatedly and calmly asks the baffling question "Is it safe?" while drilling away (the horror is accentuated by the loud sound of his drill and POV shots) - (his question asks whether or not it's safe for him to go and pick up a hidden stash of diamonds) |
 
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Men Behind the Sun (1988)
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This provocative and sickening documentary-style film (denounced by some as an exploitation film) displayed some of the Japanese atrocities and perverse medical experiments committed toward guinea-pig human victims in Unit 731 (a biological warfare R & D unit) during WWII: one atrocious scene showed a Chinese woman forced to thrust her deliberately frost-bitten hands into hot water, and then had her flesh ripped off her hands to expose the skeletal bones; it was also criticized for its use of actual autopsy footage depicting a drugged young boy whose organs were extracted from his body while he remained alive, and for another scene in which a live cat was ripped apart by a room full of hungry rats; in a decompression chamber sequence, the intense pressure caused a man's intestines to shoot out of his anus |   
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Misery (1990)
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The very painful 'hobbling' scene in which obsessed "Number One Fan" Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) explains how she can assure that her favorite captive author-writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) will never run away; she places a thick block of wood between his two ankles, takes a huge sledge-hammer (she lifts it and says: "Trust me, it's for the best") and blasts his left foot so that it visibly bends, and then his right foot - after completing the horrible deed, she adoringly says: "God, I love you"; also the tense scene of Paul frantically returning to his bed before Annie returns, and the near-rescue scene in which the Sheriff (Richard Farnsworth) is killed by a shotgun blast at the last moment |
  
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The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
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John Klein's (Richard Gere) chilling phone conversations with the inhuman "Indrid Cold", and the almost subliminal appearances of the Mothman |
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Mulholland Dr. (2001)
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The two startling, creepy appearances of a deformed, dumpster-dwelling crone/vagrant (Bonnie Aarons): she briefly appears behind the wall at Winkie's to scare Dan (Patrick Fischler) into a heart attack after a long monologue describing a dream she had appeared in, and later she appears in Diane Selwyn's (Naomi Watts) vision holding a blue box |
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Near Dark (1987)
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A vampire-western film with a famous setpiece, in which wise-cracking, vicious desperado-like, outlaw vampire Severen (Bill Paxton) (dressed like rock singer Jim Morrison), a part of a vampire family that travels the countryside in a blacked-out Winnebago van, engages in a blood-lusting, long and drawn-out roadhouse diner fight with hicks - in the massacre, he slits the bartender's throat with his boot's spurs and hisses: "Finger lickin' good" |
 
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New Nightmare (1994)
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The horror film-within-a-film,
including Heather Langenkamp's (Herself) stalker's phone calls and Freddy's
clawed fingers acting like shark fins through Heather's bedsheet; the
tense scene in which young Dylan Porter (Miko Hughes) climbs to the very
top of the monkey bars under a trance; also the reprise of a similar scene
in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), when babysitter Julie (Tracy
Middendorf) is bloodily dragged onto the ceiling by Freddy Krueger (Robert
Englund) in a hospital |
  
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Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) being dragged up the wall and across the ceiling by an invisible, striped sweater-wearing Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), and policeman's daughter Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) napping during a bubble bath, with Freddy's clawed hand appearing and moving towards Nancy's crotch area; also the silhouetted image of Freddy reaching his 10 foot arms out to touch the walls in an alleyway, or Freddy's transformation of a phone into a demonic tongue; also the liquifying death scene of Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) when he drifts off to sleep with a blaring TV on his lap and Freddy's clawed hand bursts through, pulls him through the bed cover and reduces him to a bloody geyser that gushes toward the ceiling |
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A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
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The stomach-turning "puppet-marionette" death scene in which Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) manipulates a sleep-walking boy like a marionette - using the ripped out veins from his hands and legs as the control chords; and "The Dick Cavett Show" television sequence, in which Dick Cavett (Himself) is interviewing guest Zsa Zsa Gabor (Herself) and then abruptly transforms into Freddy. Following his request ("Let me ask you a question"), he slashes at Gabor; with the exclamation, “Who gives a f--k what you think!” When the screen turns to static snow, Jennifer - watching the show at home and struggling to stay awake, walks toward the screen. Freddy’s head pops out of the top of the television, and his arms appear from the sides - he picks the viewer up and shoves her head into the television while taunting: “Welcome to prime time, bitch!” |
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The Night of the Hunter (1955)
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The pursuit sequence in the basement as Preacher Harry Powell (Frankenstein-like) (Robert Mitchum) chases the two children John and Pearl Harper (Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce) up the cellar stairs with arms outstretched; also their mother Willa Harper's (Shelley Winters) frightening murder scene and the discovery of her corpse sitting underwater in the Model T with her long hair tangled in the reeds; and Powell's chilling, sing-song exclamation as he pursues the children and calls out: "Chillll-dren? Chillll-dren?" |
 
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The opening scene of this black and white zombie classic, in which Johnny (Russell Streiner) sees a shambling zombie (thinking it's a drunk vagrant) in a graveyard and taunts Barbara (Judith O'Dea) - "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" -- and is suddenly attacked and killed by the zombie, the horrific scene of the horde of crazed, flesh-eating zombies surrounding the old farmhouse and terrorizing Barbara and Ben (Duane Jones), the attacks and gruesome murders of Helen (Marilyn Eastman) and Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman) by Karen (Kyra Schon) - their own zombified daughter, Barbara's death at the hands of zombies, with a shocked cry of "Johnny!" when she sees her brother Johnny is one of them, and Ben's shocking killing at film's end with a bullet to the head by redneck zombie hunters |
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Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
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The excruciating torture and brain-washing of rebellious middle-class drone Winston Smith (John Hurt) administered by O'Brien (Richard Burton): ("If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever") in Room 101 with the notorious rat-cage torture |   
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The famous pursuit-attack sequence by a deadly crop-dusting bi-plane in an open, flat and desolate field as Thornhill (Cary Grant) seeks protection in a cornfield, and the dramatic editing that heightens suspense when the strafing plane crashes into an oil truck; also the final and the cliff-dangling episode at Mount Rushmore when Eve (Eva Maria Saint) and Thornhill cling for their lives |
 
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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 -- 
