The Scariest Scenes I’ve Seen

There are different types of scares in movies and TV. There are the obvious jump scares when the monster jumps into the frame of view and you scream and then feel like an idiot for screaming. There are scares that keep you up at night. There are scares that are in situations that are not gory or horrific but unsettling and that get under your skin and stay there.

 

My favorite horror movie is The Exorcist and I don’t think anything can beat its gaudy terror and more subtle, unsettling questions. The most horrifying scene for me is 12-year-old Regan stabbing herself with a crucifix and saying unspeakable things in a demon’s growl. There aren’t too many other movie scenes I’ve found harder to watch. Another scene from that movie that I remember being awful is the spinal tap scene, maybe because of my fear of needles. They found horror not in something supernatural but in a medical procedure.

 

Rosemary’s Baby is another horror classic but there aren’t too many individual scenes that jump out at me as horrifying. The movie is more of a slow burn of disturbing events. However, I am always appalled by how awful Mia Farrow looks as a pregnant woman. She should be glowing with good health and instead she’s gaunt and hollow-eyed.

 

As for TV, two of the most terrifying scenes I’ve ever seen were on Breaking Bad. The end of “Crawl Space” was hair-raising, with Walt lying under his dug-up floorboards and cackling, a man at the end of his rope who has completely cracked up. Meanwhile, a stunned Skyler walks slowly through the house as Marie’s panicked voice rings out on the answering machine. The whole time, a rhythmic beating echoes like the beating of the hideous heart. “Ozymandias” was a horror show from beginning to end but everything after Skyler and Flynn got home was especially scary. The most gut-wrenching had to be when Walt was backing out of the driveway with Holly while Skyler screams hysterically in the street. I don’t think I’ve ever been more concerned for the safety of a fictional character. The genius of that episode was how it started with a traumatic event and just kept building and piling on more awful things until the end when I couldn’t take it anymore.

 

I was one of the people who was scared of The Blair Witch Project. A lot of the movie was boring but the end, when they got to the house, scared the hell out of me at the time. It was just something about the way the screaming sounded far away since the sound camera was detached from the video camera. The friend standing in the corner waiting to die was nightmarish. There was also something nightmarish about the scribble drawings with the red eyes in The Mothman Prophecies. That movie freaked me out.

 

For good, old fashioned jump scares, I yelped at the end of Carrie when her hand reached out of the ground. I also saw Alien at about age 12 and was traumatized by the chest bursting alien.

 

I suppose I can count The Human Centipede as scary but it was borne more from disgust than anything. I didn’t know anything about the movie and based on the title, I thought it might be a campy romp with some guy whose DNA gets crossed with a centipede’s, like The Fly. Boy, was I wrong. Instead, I kept thinking, “I can’t believe they expect us to swallow this crap” and left needing to bleach my eyes out.

 

Add your own horrifying scenes below.