Favorite scene from your fave horror movie and why? Which movie or scene still scares you, even if you've seen it many times?

The exorcism at the end of the Exorcist, still gets the hair on my arms to stand up.
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At the end of Halloween. Laurie asks Dr. Loomis, “Was that the boogie man?”. He replies, “As a matter of fact, it was”!

It may seem tame by today’s standards but the ending of Carrie when her hand came out of the ground it scared the hibby jibby’s out of me and of course the first Night of the Living Dead in black and white is a classic it scares me everytime I see it but I must say Carrie surprised me the most.

I agree the Exorcist was scary, the Shining was creepy (big abandoned hotel, they’re snowed in and cut off from everyone, people from the past, long hallways).

Friday the 13th was scary to me because it was this camp where the kids are all there and clueless as to what was happening or about to happen. same thing with texas chainsaw massacre, which got stupid after a while, but the whole thing about the conspiracy in the town was creepy. sorry with any of these i can’t really specify scenes. i guess for me it’s not so much scary stuff, it’s the creepy buildups that scare me. i have to be careful because if i watch something too scary i have trouble sleeping at night. some things i know i just can’t watch, and so i don’t.

Yes! to me, empty hospital corridors are scary.

The feeding scene from “Eraserhead” still turns my stomach.

omg…haven’t thought of that movie for years!

Also, every time I watch Jaws, I jump when the face appears in the “night-dive” scene. I’d have dropped the tooth too.

i know you dont remember this scene, but you can find it in the original “amityville horror.” somebody looks out the window in the dark and two red eyes or lights show up accompanied by a “pig-like” sound.

or any scenes in “the grudge” type movies where unknown “things” run past real fast or “human hair” sways in water.

or “killer clowns” in movies like “it” by stephen king.

The scene if the first Nightmare On Elm Street when Nancy falls asleep at school and sees Tina in a body bag being dragged down the hall, while murmuring Nancy…

Gives me the willies every time.

The very last scene in The Decent. I won’t spoil it for anyone.

the vanishing, and the part that scares me is when the husband wakes up from being drugged to find himself buried alive.

Most of Halloween II because of the empty hospital… Halloween III when the woman is picking at the brand from the mask with a hairpin and it shoots her in the face and the giant bug crawls out (I have entomophobia).

The Grudge 2: when the school girl was in the principles office and she looks under the desk to find that haunting, pale face of the boy. Forget hair-rising, I jumped of my couch and soared across about half the room. I’ll never watch that movie alone ever again.

And yeah, the Shining is pretty damned creepy.

Several parts of “28 Days Later” still freak the hell out of me. Actually most of the movie does…

I also second pretty much all of Eraserhead. Amazing how one of the most disturbing, messed up, downright stomach-turning movies I’ve ever seen was in no way a gore-fest.

I like in the first Omen where the guys jumps out of the church window and hangs himself right at the start of the movie. Very freaky indeed.

@Hobbes – Yes! To both 28 Days Later and Eraserhead

I don’t watch many horror movies, so my list is probably different than other peeps.

A few scenes stand out to me:
– The Fly(1986_film) (the remake… haven’t yet seen the original) – When he discovers his changes.
– Brand Upon the Brain! – Anything involving brain nectar made me sick to my stomach
– Any Final Destination movie induces fear of everyday situations.
– The Ring(2002_film) (another remake) made me afraid to even imagine a ladder, a horse, a well, a television, a mirror, etc.
– Akira(film) disturbed me as a youngster, for some reason.

This seems weak. I’ll have to ponder this further.

Shadling21: In Akira, it’s the clowns. I think that scared one of my kids when they were little because of the clowns.

Love the Final Destination movies. The Shining: “Here’s Johnny!” In the recent Dawn of the Dead right near the beginning, when the zombie takes off after the car, gets distracted & goes off after a person on foot. Zombies that can RUN freak me out…in a good way! My favorite movie in recent years has to be Shawn of the Dead…funny and scary is a perfect combination.

If you liked that, try Hot Fuzz. It’s the same folks who made Shaun of the Dead. It’s a buddy cop movie with some elements of horror in it as well. And you just reminded me a it because there is a scene involving a miniature steeple that makes me cringe every time I see it. I still can’t watch that whole thing.

I saw Hot Fuzz…I didn’t really like it. Maybe I was expecting too much.

edit: Except that “bleeding” (ketchup) from the eye scene. That was hysterical!

I really liked a lot of the things they were spoofing and saw a rich texture there to the story and the spoofing. I liked Bill Bailey playing twins a lot.

fyi There’s a great gore/horror scene it Hostel where an eyeball gets ripped out…

Anyone remeber that?

i had a nightmare last night about Cujo. i never saw Cujo but i read the book, and i guess i saw some scary dogs on TV, and then after this question last night, i was thinking about scary movies, and it all linked together in my mind. in the dream, Cujo was in my mother’s house and I went outside and shut the door on Cujo and he was barking and growling so i gave him the finger, and went on my merry way.

yeah, cujo was a great movie. anytime you take a normal everyday thing and make it scary…it scares me. Like mannequins. I’ve got a few in my house and they still scare me sometimes at night.
That’s why I love dolls. Dolls are scary!

I like that you started to generalize what type of scenes do this for you. For me, the suspense of waiting for the inevitable bad thing to happen creeps me when it’s done right. Also, anything to do with eyes or pinnings. Did you see Shallow Grave? The pinning creeped me there.

In addition to several parts of The Exorcist, in the uncut version of Amityville Horror there’s a scene where the little girl goes to the window and there are red, glowing eyes and a pig squeals/grunts. I saw the movie when I was younger after reading the book and the terror of it sticks with me to this day.

Poltergeist. I love the humor and that the characters are so well-developed. Gets my “best movie kiss” award. Scariest moment? Probably when they fall in the muddy swimming pool and bodies pop up around them.

when i was younger and more gullible i thought damien omen II was scary. the one with the bird.

I love the unexpected…i love being scared to the point of having to turn on all the lights and pull down the shades.

Same here, DD!! I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared watching a film as I was when I saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Just knowing that it was based on a true story terrified me to death.

Silence of the Lambs: “It puts the lotion on it’s skin or else it gets the hose again!”

@amish…I have a hoodie with that exact phrase. My fave line!

The scene in “The Birds” when actress Tippi Hedren is sitting outside the elementary school listening to the children singing, and each time the camera pans on the playground there are more and more birds until there are so many, even the theater audience reacts.

@Mr.M Exactly the reason i stay out of bird houses at the Zoo! You sohuld see me scream when i feed the seagulls, while in my car. I tos out my fries to them and roll up the car window as they swoop down. freaks me out!!!

I’m pretty sure this thread is dead, but I just saw Battle Royale and was reminded of how thoroughly disturbing it was. It’s scary in a way that American movies aren’t, and in its own way one of the most terrifying films I’ve ever seen.

I remember that movie! It was scary—in a whole new way.

Just saw Saw V. Ugh. I think I’m going to hurl.

@shadling: Yeah, but in a good way? Is it worth seeing, or has it jumped the shark?

Meh. It’s good. I’m not a huge fan of horror movies, so I was basically counting down the minutes to get out of the theatre. Great plot twists, though. Some wonky camera movement and awkward scripting threw me off – I thought I was watching bad episode of CSI for a second. Somehow I got sucked into it, though. Nice buildup to the end.

They say it’s the best one since the original.

And yes, the hurling was in a good way, if there is such a thing. I still feel queasy. All horror movies remind me of how frail the human body is, and just what can happen if one isn’t careful…

Thanks…now I can’t wait to see it! Horror movie junkie, here.

Oh really? What is the appeal of gore-y horror movies? I don’t quite understand it.

I really wish I knew! I love horror books, too. Stephen King is my favorite writer. There’s nothing about me that would scream “horror fan”. I’m a normal middle aged woman who loves the scary stuff.

It’s no secret that I do as well. The gorier the better. I adore Clive Barker—he’s my fave writer. Lots of gore and sex!
I do like King as well, but not-so-much his battles between good and evil themes. Those get old.

Kings books rarely translate into good movies, IMHO. “The Shining” is the exception.

Agree. The Shining was THEEEEEEE best. Loved that movie – the original – and it stills freaks me out.

There’s another Shining?

August- “Jumped the shark.” Awesomely correctamundo.

@knot I seem to remember a remake, that wasn’t very good.

There WAS a remake, and it wasn’t good at all. Maybe “made for television”?

I think so…I forget the actor…a Steven someone? No one could reprise that role better than Jack.

Speaking of “Battle Royale”, what about Japanese Horror in general? Most of it is incredibly disturbing and scary, and in a completely different way than American Horror. It’s doesn’t really give you scares in the theatre or make you jump, but it stays with you long after you turn it off. Of course, this is a generalization: “Eraserhead” and “Pi” do this, and movies can do both (the first saw still haunts me a little, as does “28 Days Later”), but you should still check out J-Horror. Ever seen “Audition”? “Tetsuo: The Iron Man”? Those will mess you up.

I never liked Japanese horror. i thought The Grudge was stupid, as was The Ring. I prefer to be scared…and jump off my seat.

I do like 28 Days Later, but I don’t think of it as a horror movie, as such.
Guess it depends on what you consider horror or scary.

King books almost always suck as movies. The original Shining is by far the best one. I don’t get Japanese horror, either. You’ve seen one “jerky-crawly-pale faced kid with stringy hair”, you’ve seen ‘em all!

Well, that’s just the Ringu series. There’s far more variation and innovation in J-Horror than in American horror (in my opinion). While A-Horror seems largely confined to serial killers and zombies, Tetsuo, for example, is about a man who becomes fetishistically obsessed with metal, and begins driving pieces of scrap metal into his flesh, until he becomes a horrible walking monstrosity. Uzumaki is about a town in which becomes infected with spirals, of all things. Spiral shapes begin appearing everywhere, and people become obsessed or terrified of the shape. One woman becomes so afraid of spirals that she tears out her cochlea. One man is run over by a car and bent into a spiral shape. At the end, even the clouds over the town are twisted into spirals. The opening scene from Suicide Club is particularly disturbing, showing 54 girls committing suicide by jumping in front of a train on a busy platform.

@Hobbes: Ok, now I totally need to see Suicide Club! Gross! (in a good/awful way).

See, I don’t find the gore to be the disturbing part of that. I find the waiting for the thing to happen to be far worse than the splatterings to be. I cringed when they started counting.

I don’t know, I prefer American made movies…are these subtitled, Hobbes? If so, that takes a lot away from it for me.
I start laughing when they talk so freaking fast…
I like gore, but I prefer to be on the edge of my seat as well.
My ideal is a movie that can do both.

I think they have to be, as they’re in Japanese. The best parts of a horror movie are done without words, though.

I do highly recommend some J-horror to you, deaddolly. “Audition”, “Suicide Club”, “Three Extremes” (Which is three short films) and “Merebito”, which is weird and more subdued than the others, but absolutely incredible.

I will def check them out. I do have problems with subtitles tho, esp in Japanese. It just makes me giggle.

Also, Tetsuo The Iron Man is one of the most shocking, graphic, disturbing movies I know of. It’s also just… weird as hell. It’s a black and white movie from 1989, too. By the way, Suicide Club and Audition are the most gory and shocking, but Merebito is a much better film.

@Mr.M and DD, the shining remake had Steven Weber (from Wings) and Rebeca Demorney (sp?) as Wendy. I hated it and saw no need for it. I read somewhere that King did not like the original movie and cast and so had a hand in this TV remake. What King usually has “a hand in” when it comes to cinema usually sucks, IMO. I love the guy as a writer, though.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is my favorite horror movie. My favorite scene from that movie is the one where Officer Mooney is dead and Dave walks into the station. There’s no one at the desks, so he goes into the jail cells. There’s no one in the jail cells but there are creepy things all over the place. He goes back into the desks room and suddenly, he’s not alone anymore. A lot of people say this movie is funny, but this scene is absolutely the most bone-chilling thing I’ve ever seen in any movie in my whole life. What happens next is even scarier than the scene’s set-up. The music creeps me out, the lighting, like the klown is on stage and Dave is the audience member, those damn eyes as he looks right into the camera, and of course the fact that he’s re-animated a corpse back to life just to freak Dave out, just to play with his intended victim. And the expression on the klown’s face never changes.

Though not a horror movie per se, I think ImaginationLand had some pretty great scenes. For me, it’s a toss up between a Terrorist executing a Care Bear by shooting it in the head, then carrying its severed head on screen, The Mayor of ImaginationLand being killed by Alien, or the Evil Woodland Creatures raping Popeye and discussing the torture of Strawberry Shortcake in horrifically cute voices.