One of the delights of growning up in the pre-cable era was when the local station showed a horror film on Saturday nights. As kids we used to love to stay up late and cower under the blankets as we watched one monster after another stalk their hapless victims. "Don't go in there!" we screamed, but the fair-haired burgermeister's daughter never listened to us. Oh, the dreams we had back then. I think it was around this time that sales of nightlights took off.
As teenagers we made it our duty to see every horror movie that was released, if for no other reason to have plenty of material on Monday when striking up a conversation with the girls. For some reason horror films back then left a lasting impression on us, perhaps because they were works of superior craftmanship, perhaps because of our young malleable minds.
Tonight is Saturday night, and in honor of this traditional "Fright Night" I would like to present what I consider to be the most frightening scenes ever created in the history of cinema. I'll start the list now and add more in the morning, after catching up on my beauty sleep.
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This is a highly subjective list, I know, but it is still worth standing up for. Let's quit hanging around and begin:
The Exorcist - Linda Blair's "spider walk" down the stairs. This was deleted from the theatrical release but is in the DVD version. I can barely put into words how I felt when I saw this for the first time, but unnatural and run-for-your-life come to mind.
The Omen - The birthday party. What made this scene so frightening was that Damian's nanny is heard off-screen professing her loyalty to him. The viewer is not certain what she's talking about, but begins to get uneasy with her crying out "This is for you, Damian! All of this is for you!" When the camera turns to the nanny she commits an act of violence both unsuspected and unbearably gruesome.
Yawn...that's all for tonight - time to go to beddy-bye. I'll finish this little dandy cometh the dawn.
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Cockadoodle Doo! I'm back and standing at the blackboard once again. Let us continue on our journey down the flower-strewn, little-boids-a-singin' path of moviedom's most frightful scenes. [Editor's note: kudos to coturnix and the other commenters for bringing up Carrie and Psycho. The C.O. wet his britches watching those two films.]
House on Haunted Hill - The pretty, nervous young heroine encounters the blind housekeeper without being properly introduced. I confess I first saw this movie in the 6th grade on late-night television and was already close to hysterical before this scene, but after being hit with the perfect timing of this classic "gotcha!" surprise I turned off the set and ran to bed - not that I was going to get any sleep anyway.
The Shining - Little boy rides trike around hotel hallways. Little boy looks up and sees two twin girls staring at him. What happens next is best viewed in the privacy of one's home, not described here. What the heck isn't frightening about this classic tale of descent into madness? For me, though, watching those two girls sent me through the roof of my convertible when I saw this at the drive-in - and the car wasn't a convertible before the movie began.
Want more? Then, my friend, do what the voice below commands...Ha! Ha! Ha!
Halloween (1978) - again, there are many scenes in the film that curdle one's shorts, but I found the moment when Jamie Lee Curtis is in her bedroom, looks out the window and sees you-know-who standing there in her back yard in broad daylight the most disturbing. Most of us could anticipate when the major shocks were coming in this movie. It was the unexpected, subtle appearances of the killer, like when he is viewed carrying a body out of the house across the street, that blew me away. I could barely walk home from the theatre that night, and certainly did not have pleasant dreams.
The Thing (1982) - "Hmm, I wonder which one of you jokers is the alien? Let me just touch this hot wire on a sample of your blood...okay, here goes...." They should teach this scene in film school as a paragon of how to build unrelenting suspense. We all knew that one of these guys is not like the other but it didn't serve to lessen the blow to our nerves when the ghastly secret is revealed. Not for the faint of heart.
Jaws - most people will say the scene when the shark pops up behind Roy Scheider, but for me it was ordinarly folks swimming in the ocean, unaware that they are laid out as a buffet for Carcharodon carcharias.
The Exorcist III (1990) - when this film was released the main movie reviewer in my town said it contained the most frightening scene he had ever watched in his life. I agree - in fact, it is so horrifying I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen this movie. Let's just say that it occurs after a slow building of suspense punctuated by a "surprise" shock that turns out to be a false alarm for the character in peril, followed by ultimate terror for anyone brave enough to keep their eyes open. Honorable mention goes to the scene where a little old lady decides to take a shortcut across the room - yikes!
Rosemary's Baby - If you haven't seen this you're really missing a masterpiece. So many aspects of this film are oppressive and deeply disturbing, not to mention sinister, but the scene when people sneak around behind Mia Farrow's back sent me over the edge of my seat. After all, we would all like to know that when we lock the doors at night we are safe - right?
Pet Sematary - This movie bothered me so much I actually threw the tape away. I had seen the film in the theater and loved it. With the second viewing the whole story line suddenly became distasteful to the point of nauseating. Yes, the plot is abominable, but the scene where the father gets to see his little boy all dressed up for the Sunday dance is beyond scary - it's syncope time!
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My favourite - from "Carrie", the last scene at the grave.
I second the last grave-site scene from "Carrie". Also, the final shot of Norman Bates in "Psycho" ("wouldn't hurt a fly") was 10X scarier, I thought, than the famous shower scene. But ironically, the movie that scared me the most as a child was the rather cheesy "I Was a Teenaged Werewolf," starring a young Michael Landon. I had a sleepover with a friend from school one Saturday night and we got to stay up and watch it. The scene where he's watching a young gymnast rehease, then the school bell rings and he BEGINS TO CHANGE -- scared the willies out of me. I had nightmares about it for weeks.
Probably the scariest film scene among recent movies: the climax to the "The Ring" where the creepy whatever-it-is comes out of the TV... which YOU ARE WATCHING! So it could just as easily be... YOUR TV... Yikes! :)
The scene in Alien when you think the heroine has escaped and is safe on the ship and one of the oxygen tanks or whatever it was in the background moves and you realize it is the Alien's head.
Ditto on The Ring climax. Also those old "It's Alive" trailors kept me up many nights.
When I attended freshman orientation (in 1973!) some brilliant dorm assistant picked Psycho as the evening's entertainment for our cohort of 17 & 18 year old girls. Afterward, another brilliant assistant decided to poke a knife past the curtains of the stall where I was showering. (OK, it was a butter knife, but I didn't have my glasses on at the time.) So for me, Psycho always leads the list of Scariest Movies.
I too remember those pre-cable days, spending nearly every Saturday night watching scary movies on late-night TV. It seemed like every other one starred Vincent Price.
Speaking of haunted houses: My friend Karen's father was an anesthesiologist (we had no idea what that meant). Once he arranged for 2 young nurses to babysit a group of us 11 year old girls while he and the mrs were out for the evening. The nurses decided that the evening's entertainment would be a visit to an old, abandoned house that sat on a country road. We were scared out of our wits, but had a grand time. I don't think we told any of our parents about this.
Well, it's a bit obscure, but I would add "Dagon" (2001) to the list. I have a strong stomach, but the scene where one unlucky individual is slowly skinned alive from the neck up made me pretty queasy.
Okay, it might be a year since this piece was posted but I had to write in. Not too many people ever talk about Exorcist III but I know the scene you are referring to and I must say, as someone who was at home alone when he saw this film, that one quick clip (get it?) was so unexpected and terrifying that I still have a hard time sitting down to see this movie alone (yes, the old lady was extra spooky too as were several other moments in the film.