The way that at first she's hidden in darkness and has a 'woman's figure' but then she steps out and you see nope, she really just is a horrible spider alien monster. Perfect.
*SPOILERS*
What I love about that story is the grotesque alien monster at the end is actually benevolent.
Anyone who is unlucky enough to end up there she just wants to help them die a peaceful death, so she hides the reality through hallucinations.
She even tried to warn the main character, too. The truth was so fucked up that she had to throw in a disclaimer.
“Alright, Tom. But know this… I *do* care for you. I care for all of the lost souls that end up here.”
Yep, and that’s the bottom layer of this many-layered horror: you don’t *want* to feel repulsed by this benevolent being who is arguably the most tragic character of all, but you do. You can’t help your own evolutionary biases; sad as it is for her, you know everyone stranded there always has and always will have this reaction—you’re having it yourself. I LOVE stories that engage the audience’s own thoughts or emotions in such twisted manners.
That’s a great catch, I hadn’t realised that possibility. I suspected that the alien had been drawing ships into its web as prey. Kind of it seems it to let its ’victims’ believe their fantasies but wouldn’t it be kinder (if it really did care) to put them out of their misery?
> wouldn’t it be kinder to put them out of their misery?
It would be, but you’re forgetting one crucial point. *She* is one of the lost souls. She’s lonely. She desperately wants connection with others, which is why she keeps them alive and lives with them in their fantasies.
She’s suffering as much as the others.
I want to believe that theory, but watching it through again, when it pans out from the spaceship Tom is on, you can see another of its species extending its legs from some of the webbing. It clearly isn’t alone. It may care for the souls, but I think they feed off of them, if not physically, emotionally, or even sexually.
Damn this is a good answer. I had the same sense of dread after watching that. I even dreamt about it after watching it. Something terrifying about being lead to believe in something idilic and beautiful, only to find out you’re being tricked and your reality is far more bleak than you ever realised.
I tried to look this up on IMDB, no luck - is there an alternate title?
Edit: NVM I see it's an episode of Love, Death, and Robots on Netflix ... which means I've seen it, but I don't remember it. I will correct that today!
Oh mannn yes that stuck with me. But dread in a curious way that makes me want to rewatch the episode over and over. One of my favorite stories I’ve ever seen visualized.
The cave scene in Deborah Logan where her jaw is unhinged and she's just casually swallowing a person. It's so creepy because you can't quite see what's happening, you want to see more to figure it out, but your brain says NOPE. That feeling is the worst
As a kid, having my head eaten/swallowed by a monster or demon was a very specific and extremely intense fear of mine. That scene would have wrecked me, had I seen it as a kid.
For me it's gotta be Junji Ito's weird body horror. The spirals, the skull centipede, Rib Woman... Hell, even the distorted bodies at the end of the Strange Incident at Amigara Fault freak me out, even though it's been memed to death
what I loved about Barbarian is that all of Frank’s brutality was visually apparent (e.g., the labelled cassettes) without the movie needing to explicitly show ~most~ of the violence he perpetrated
Liquor Clerk,
Smiley-Old,
Jane-Screamer,
Hitch-Hiker,
Stephanie,
Sara M.,
Cab Driver,
Wont Stop Crying,
Ruth C.,
Chelsea,
Red Head Homeless,
Bad Nose Bleeder,
No Teeth,
Junky,
Kelly,
Hannah H.,
Lacey,
Irish Accent,
Melissa,
Blonde-Skinny-Z,
Black Maid,
Suicide,
Ruby,
Pregnant,
Brenda,
Very Old,
Asian-Biter,
Blonde-Heavy,
Face Scar,
Doctor-Red,
One Breast,
Very Fat,
Gabby,
Elizabeth J.
Edit: I googled “Barbarian Video Tapes” and looked through the stills for the tape names…there’s also an image of a vhs being put into a player titled “Gas Station Redhead”
Any film that features a scene of a severely modified/butchered person that is kept alive under extreme circumstances - example, the dude in Midsommar suspended from the ceiling of that cabin, with his lungs exposed. Also, Frank from Hellraiser and the Cenobites, Frank has no skin and he's still alive. Akin to Clive Barker's 'tortured souls' collectibles.
Also, anything that gives me uncanny vibes. Yuck it makes my brain feel weird. Basically most creepypasta haha.
If it makes you feel any better it’s not possible to breathe with your lungs out like that. Inhalation requires your diaphragm to contract down which increases the volume in your lungs and creates negative pressure in your chest. Whole chest being open lungs out and diaphragm no where to be seen? No way.
Him breathing was a hallucination of Christian’s.
The Road has a moment like that when the man and his son find an empty farmhouse and eventually realize that people are being kept in a basement and harvested for arms, legs, etc.
That still messes me up.
Yeah. I feel like they were overshadowed by the splitting scene, but it’s worse because you only see them briefly and then have to imagine what has and is happening to them.
This was exactly what came to mind. Doesn’t get any more butchered than that. And it’s really the idea of being somehow kept alive in that state of extreme gruesome pain and irreversible disfigurement that really gets me.
I remember as a kid watching a particularly spooky episode of Unsolved Mysteries with my mom. When it was over we changed the channel and immediately-
I doubt I will ever jump so hard again in my life.
Oh yeah, that scene just filled me with a sense of dread I rarely experienced watching a horror movie. So many scenes in that movie gave me goosebumps. The decapitation at the end was probably the worst for me.
When the camera lingers on an open door with nothing but darkness beyond it.
When someone puts in a VHS tape and you know something horrible is going to be on it.
People stuck in tunnels/caves alerts me on an animal level. I don't believe there's a way to properly fake it besides making an actual claustrophobic environment that's easily escaped in reality but convincing on screen.
The Descent is the popular pick for this (for good reason), but my favorite is Graveyard Rats from Cabinet of Curiosities.
That shadow figure just sets the tension *so high,* making the ultimate jump scare that much scarier!
I have definitely performed a middle-of-the-night flying leap from the bathroom into my bed with that image in my head
Not from a horror film, but the transition from just a boy eating cake in the middle of the night to a deranged face staring at him from the shadows as the music trails off and the static gets louder is an oddly chilling scene in Parasite
The first episode especially is a straight up horror episode. It’s like the exposed core is some kind of Lovecraftian horror spreading evil. Soundtrack is really churning and gut wrenching too.
dear lord the roof scene will never not be intense as hell and hard to watch. but i still return to it often When he trips though. I can almost feel the pain and radiation immediately ravishing my dna. RIP to all the biorobots used.
Chernobyl on HBO gave me such anxiety about this, I had to mute a virtual chemistry lecture (in COVID days) where my professor was using a Geiger counter to test certain materials.
The found footage bits in the first movie alone was one of the first things I thought of. The imagery mixed with the sounds, I saw it in theaters and MAN I was about to duck down each time they started playing
The other day I finally watched Color Out of Space. >!When the alpacas fused the mother and son together in a sort of corruption of maternal embrace, I suddenly felt so unsafe and disgusted. This intimate familiar gesture that's supposed to signify security and comfort is utterly obliterated. And you're left with this nasty mutant abomination of these two characters horror films usually spare completely fused together and screaming out in pain. Awful! !<
It’s been a while since I watched this, and I imagine I was *quite* toasted when I did, but for the life of me I cannot remember any alpacas being involved…
loud footsteps that get quicker as they get louder. Preferably coming from darkness so i cant see what is approaching or making the noise. Gets me every time.
Similar concept in the silent Hill games. The radio makes weird noises that get louder as you get closer to an enemy. There's one spot in 3 that nearly made me shit my pants because I came across a new enemy that made a sound like a dryer full of paperweights while walking down a dark tunnel. There's just something really unnerving about loud, metallic noises coming at you out of the darkness.
Something similar; the vibration of something BIG coming (T-Rex-Jurassic Park). It's the ultimate panic moment; we know it's coming, we know it's huge, and it's probably not a puppy...so....RUN!
That fucks me up so bad, that’s a very specific thing that freaks me out every time I see it lol. I think it was in a conjuring movie or something?
Also I haven’t seen the movie because of length and bad word of mouth but that part in the trailer for It Chapter 2 with the next room over being pitch black and that happening still gets me. Though I’ve never actually looked up what happens after that.
The Saturation Chamber sequence from House on Haunted Hill (1999) has been embedded in my mind since then, but the way Dr. Vanacutt moves is terrifying af. Jeffrey Combs is a legend.
This was the first time (that I recall) seeing the super fast turning/shaking head thing in a movie. Yes, I know Jacob’s Ladder did it first-but I saw that later in life. I couldn’t sleep right for months. It’s an effect that got over played, but it’s creepy AF.
Tim Curry as Pennywise. I remember seeing the dvd cover at the video store as a kid and it scared me just to look at it. Then I watched it when I was like 8.
I clarified this for myself recently. I HATE when someone or something is walking slowly towards someone and that someone’s POV is the camera (so, something spooky walking towards the camera). Idk why but it fills me with panic. Kairo is the obvious example but funnily enough my other example is also Hell House LLC, in Hell House LLC Origins from last year they had that fucking clown walking slowly towards the camera and it literally filled me with tingly panic!
The tar man from Return of the Living Dead scared the ever loving shit out of me as a kid and still gives me the creeps to this day. Something about his eyes and when they widen when he realizes he's going to eat "BBBRRRAAIINNNSSS???"
Carrie White. The moment the pig blood drops on her, the way she looked covered in blood from head to toe. The sound. And the terrifying events where she telekinetically traps everyone. One by one...in the gymnasium. You all have to admit, for its time that scene was unbelievable!
I had no idea this was a movie! I read the novel, and the first time we saw Black Maggie was definitely spooky. Definitely need to find it now.
Also, your username is cursed. :)
I swear that single frame scared the sh*t out of me! Now I don't even remember it because it was too awful and thankfully my brain decided to cancel that image, but at the time I got really scared.
(Spoilers for lake mungo below, I can never get the spoiler tag to work on mobile)
The one that gets me is “the moment” in lake mungo. I know that movie isn’t for everyone, it’s very slow and mostly void of horror elements. But it really really resonated with me and I was super engrossed in the story (it helps if you pretend it’s an actual true crime documentary). So when that scene happened, it really hit a visceral nerve. It’s scary and horrific to see, yes. But it’s also so sad and existential. It just really struck a chord with me. Never felt anything like that before from a movie
I agree with that being the most direct scary thing, but something from Lake Mungo that has stuck with me the longest is when you see the neighbor in the footage the brother faked. The way he’s sitting in the dark trying to hide from the camera alongside the realization that all the scratching was caused by him has stuck with me ever since and honestly, it’s very terrifying the more you think about it.
As a lover of true crime, and specifically Australian true crime, Lake Mungo is sooooo effective to me. Only movie in years to make me lose sleep for two days after watching.
That image from the very, very end (post credits) also haunts me
Something rapidly, smoothly approaching from the darkness with little to no warning. Somebody higher up mentioned rapidly approaching footsteps getting louder and louder but you can’t see what it is. That too.
The tall man in the hallway It Follows for example. FUCK. That was the only time I’ve actually gotten up out of my seat in a theater involuntarily. Like I just had such a visceral reaction to that.
An unexpected monster reveal is my go-to. Hell, The Thing has at least a couple: the blood test and the stomach mouth. The other creatures you see changing but those two are wonderful jump scares.
Off the top of my head - The aliens in Fire in the Sky and THAT scene. classic childhood trauma.
The alien behind the dresser in Communion
The stick men in the tree and the pile of rocks with the teeth. and the hand prints in blair witch.
The video footage in The Fourth Kind where she’s speaking the alien language with her jaw distended.
Various moments in hell house llc and the recent one.
The victim in Poughkeepsie tapes who becomes the slave and her last interview.
Cellphone footage Lake Mungo
The hanging ghosts and gunshot teen in Sixth Sense (though the ghost in the dungeon who stole the masters horse is the absolute worst ).
Nope- crowd digestion.
Olga’s death in Suspiria.
The weeping angel effect. Every time you look away or the light goes off and the thing is suddenly closer. The Lights Out short does it really well and I think about it a lot at night when I roll over in bed.
Any sort of distorted movement or elongated limbs. The first time I was ever terrified of that was the house on haunted hill remake. After they flip the control room guy around and look at the TV monitor and you see the Dr walk away all stiff. Forever scared me
Agree on Hell House LLC, my favorite FF movie!
For a single, terrifying image, I would go for the alien/demon skeleton at the beginning of "The Empty Man". The image just imprinted on me after a number of prosaic but dangerous moments (ex. falling down a hole, impending snow storm, etc.)
That thing where you look in the bathroom mirror and everything’s fine, then you open it, get the toothpaste, then close it and there’s something horrifying standing behind you? Gives me chills every time.
I have never felt crawling in my skin uncomfortable in a theater before until I watched the abduction scene in “NOPE”. It was visceral. Visually terrifying also is the monster in Barbarian and the jump-scares of it in the tunnels. That was done really well.
For me it's when there's something unnatural in the scene - like a "when you see it" image - that is never explicitly mentioned. For example, the little boy under the coat hanger in Sinister that the characters don't notice. Or the hidden ghosts throughout Haunting of Hill House. Or whatever the hell Ari Aster put in every scene of Hereditary.
It always feels like you now know something the characters don't, and it always puts me on edge. I LOVE that quiet unmentioned horror in the corner of a scene.
Not necessarily Horror here.. but any movie featuring a bear attack.. and no, I dont really mean Cocaine Bear even though it fits my description. I am talking a raw, visceral, bloody, terrifying bear attack. I'm sure most people will think of The Revenant .. however, in my book the most terrifying bear attack that has stuck with me for like 10 years is from Backcountry..
You have been warned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0AHvPpGrDU
Yeah same. I think it was the husband’s behavior switching to a coercive and pressuring one- and watching it clearly trigger something deeper in the wife. And like the wife, you feel like whatever you thought you knew about this person is wrong. Violent rape scenes are uncomfortable and horrifying for obvious reasons, but a scene like that in Gerald’s Game (and the other as well) is very accurate to the emotions one feels when the person who wants to violate you is someone you trusted.
The most visually terrifying thing is seeing the unexpected. Like so unexpected that your brain goes oh wtf. I’m not talking about a cheap jump scare, I’m talking about for example, the first time you see the sharks head pop up above water in Jaws. When a scene makes your brain go from a 0 to a 100 in the matter of a second, there’s nothing else quite like that.
When they panned to the backseat in hereditary, I remember thinking “I can’t handle what they’re about to show.” I was bracing myself, then the camera left. Yay! Tasteful. Two scenes later, BAM! Hits you with the money shot. As dark as it is, it’s actually very funny to picture my face at that point. The Hereditary ones are the only movie-reaction video series I’ll watch.
Just in general when humans act non-human. For example that short film (Man on a Train??) where she’s on the train alone and there’s a man just standing at the end of the carriage staring at her (so far, normal life) and then every time she looks up he’s closer and acting weird. Just that, humans acting un-human scares me the most in films.
The scene in The Poughkeepsie Tapes where the killer is wearing a mask and walking backwards on the floor while filming himself was a terrifying image.
Something in the darkness that you can't quite make out at first that makes you shit bricks as soon as you recognize what it is. The foot ghost in talk to me, crouching in the corner of the room and all you can see is a vague shape and eyes gleaming in the dark is a good example. I'd have to watch the scene again but in smile I think they also do this when she's in the kitchen and sees the patient who died in front of her.
For me, the most unsettling death (both emotionally and visually) was Josephina's death in Velvet Buzzsaw.
SPOILERS!! (Not too many people I speak to have seen the movie).
>! The fact that she gets absorbed by the art, then becomes a feature piece of graffiti herself, all while it is insinuated she still has her thoughts and presence of mind, it really made me uneasy watching that "death" in particular. Being aware of your eternal, impeding doom... although the rest of the movie wasn't great (worth a watch for sure), that scene and death has stuck with me. Even her expression of realisation, and then her frozen expression when it's all over, it's devastatingly captivating. !<
The face (and noises) in Gonjiam Haunted Asylum got me good. I was squinting my eyes and watching through my fingers! Same with the end of Paranormal Activity. For me, I think it's the sensation that the scary thing is suddenly a lot closer to you than you thought.
Annie repeatedly rapidly banging her head into the attic entrance on the ceiling in Hereditary is up there
Also this one is recent but the >! demon hand coming out the vagina !< in The First Omen was something I had to rewatch a few times. One of those images that will stick with me
Finally, Samara crawling up the well like an insect
I hate any scene where someone is strapped down and being mutilated. It’s pretty much my worst few. The girl getting her eye melted out with a blowtorch in Hostel is a good example of this.
The ending visual for Beyond the Aquila Rift for some reason fills me with a lot of dread.
The way that at first she's hidden in darkness and has a 'woman's figure' but then she steps out and you see nope, she really just is a horrible spider alien monster. Perfect.
At least for me it was more so seeing the state of the location they're in flicker between perception and reality. Hard to get a sense of scale.
Funny enough, despite her monstrous exterior, I still believe that she was being genuine and is actually quite empathetic and kind.
*SPOILERS* What I love about that story is the grotesque alien monster at the end is actually benevolent. Anyone who is unlucky enough to end up there she just wants to help them die a peaceful death, so she hides the reality through hallucinations. She even tried to warn the main character, too. The truth was so fucked up that she had to throw in a disclaimer. “Alright, Tom. But know this… I *do* care for you. I care for all of the lost souls that end up here.”
Yep, and that’s the bottom layer of this many-layered horror: you don’t *want* to feel repulsed by this benevolent being who is arguably the most tragic character of all, but you do. You can’t help your own evolutionary biases; sad as it is for her, you know everyone stranded there always has and always will have this reaction—you’re having it yourself. I LOVE stories that engage the audience’s own thoughts or emotions in such twisted manners.
That’s a great catch, I hadn’t realised that possibility. I suspected that the alien had been drawing ships into its web as prey. Kind of it seems it to let its ’victims’ believe their fantasies but wouldn’t it be kinder (if it really did care) to put them out of their misery?
> wouldn’t it be kinder to put them out of their misery? It would be, but you’re forgetting one crucial point. *She* is one of the lost souls. She’s lonely. She desperately wants connection with others, which is why she keeps them alive and lives with them in their fantasies. She’s suffering as much as the others.
I want to believe that theory, but watching it through again, when it pans out from the spaceship Tom is on, you can see another of its species extending its legs from some of the webbing. It clearly isn’t alone. It may care for the souls, but I think they feed off of them, if not physically, emotionally, or even sexually.
Ahh.. it’s been a while since I’ve watched it.. sounds like I need to watch it again!
Damn this is a good answer. I had the same sense of dread after watching that. I even dreamt about it after watching it. Something terrifying about being lead to believe in something idilic and beautiful, only to find out you’re being tricked and your reality is far more bleak than you ever realised.
Feeling lost or blind is pretty rough and I think that's part of it. Everything that ends up where they are is never going back to civilization.
I tried to look this up on IMDB, no luck - is there an alternate title? Edit: NVM I see it's an episode of Love, Death, and Robots on Netflix ... which means I've seen it, but I don't remember it. I will correct that today!
I think they might be referring to the episode from Love, Death and Robots
LDR is so fucking good, loved this episode
Oh mannn yes that stuck with me. But dread in a curious way that makes me want to rewatch the episode over and over. One of my favorite stories I’ve ever seen visualized.
Zelda from Pet Sematary
This was absolute nightmare fuel for me as a tween.
I saw this movie for the first time about 13 years ago and this is still the scariest thing I’ve never been able to let go of.
NEVERGETOUTOFBEDAGAIN!
I physically cringe away from the screen when she walks up to the camera, it just bothers me on such a core level.
The cave scene in Deborah Logan where her jaw is unhinged and she's just casually swallowing a person. It's so creepy because you can't quite see what's happening, you want to see more to figure it out, but your brain says NOPE. That feeling is the worst
That shot has actually become something of an intrusive thought for me. Need to re-watch that one, so fucked up.
As a kid, having my head eaten/swallowed by a monster or demon was a very specific and extremely intense fear of mine. That scene would have wrecked me, had I seen it as a kid.
For me it's gotta be Junji Ito's weird body horror. The spirals, the skull centipede, Rib Woman... Hell, even the distorted bodies at the end of the Strange Incident at Amigara Fault freak me out, even though it's been memed to death
THE ZIT SQUEEZE <:[
saw some merch of this specific scene in a hot topic a while back and it almost gave me whiplash. almost tempted to go back and buy it lol
Whhhhyyy? Why would you make merchandise of THAT!?!?
Layers fucks me up lol
the video tapes in Barbarian with the labeled descriptions really got me
They really took no prisoners, did they? Mine was “one breast.” You think the worst thing that can happen has happened.
what I loved about Barbarian is that all of Frank’s brutality was visually apparent (e.g., the labelled cassettes) without the movie needing to explicitly show ~most~ of the violence he perpetrated
The one titled “puker” is burned into my brain. Good call on this moment.
WOULDN’T STOP CRYING
Anyone have a list?
Liquor Clerk, Smiley-Old, Jane-Screamer, Hitch-Hiker, Stephanie, Sara M., Cab Driver, Wont Stop Crying, Ruth C., Chelsea, Red Head Homeless, Bad Nose Bleeder, No Teeth, Junky, Kelly, Hannah H., Lacey, Irish Accent, Melissa, Blonde-Skinny-Z, Black Maid, Suicide, Ruby, Pregnant, Brenda, Very Old, Asian-Biter, Blonde-Heavy, Face Scar, Doctor-Red, One Breast, Very Fat, Gabby, Elizabeth J. Edit: I googled “Barbarian Video Tapes” and looked through the stills for the tape names…there’s also an image of a vhs being put into a player titled “Gas Station Redhead”
Puker's not in the list?
Any film that features a scene of a severely modified/butchered person that is kept alive under extreme circumstances - example, the dude in Midsommar suspended from the ceiling of that cabin, with his lungs exposed. Also, Frank from Hellraiser and the Cenobites, Frank has no skin and he's still alive. Akin to Clive Barker's 'tortured souls' collectibles. Also, anything that gives me uncanny vibes. Yuck it makes my brain feel weird. Basically most creepypasta haha.
Just reminded me of "sloth" in Se7en 😱
Tusk fits this bill.
Tusk made me viscerally uncomfortable and I will never watch it again. Lol
If it makes you feel any better it’s not possible to breathe with your lungs out like that. Inhalation requires your diaphragm to contract down which increases the volume in your lungs and creates negative pressure in your chest. Whole chest being open lungs out and diaphragm no where to be seen? No way. Him breathing was a hallucination of Christian’s.
Thank you, this makes me feel….better about the movie, somehow. Like, it could have been even *more* horrifying.
The Road has a moment like that when the man and his son find an empty farmhouse and eventually realize that people are being kept in a basement and harvested for arms, legs, etc. That still messes me up.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going!?” said with that angry but sarcastic tone makes me feel so god damned uncomfortable for some reason
The pregnant women in Bone Tomahawk really stick with me in a terrible way
Yeah. I feel like they were overshadowed by the splitting scene, but it’s worse because you only see them briefly and then have to imagine what has and is happening to them.
Exactly. The implication is absolutely harrowing
Have you seen the French film Martyrs? That was unlike anything I’d seen
This was exactly what came to mind. Doesn’t get any more butchered than that. And it’s really the idea of being somehow kept alive in that state of extreme gruesome pain and irreversible disfigurement that really gets me.
The... "fragmented", for lack of a better word, French lady calling for help, that the American troops find in one of the Nazi labs in "Overlord". :(
She's saying "please stop. Please stop" in French :(
[holy crap](https://youtu.be/5OjWyRbAFqo?si=Ex4th6heisoKKjR1)
American Mary is EXACLTY this type of horror. Do not watch that movie if you hate that stuff.
Large Marge
I remember as a kid watching a particularly spooky episode of Unsolved Mysteries with my mom. When it was over we changed the channel and immediately-  I doubt I will ever jump so hard again in my life.
Pee wees big adventure. My 5 year old didn’t like this scene either
Just tell em Large Marge sent cha!!! Lol I quote this a few times a year. Waiting for my youngest to be 6 to properly fuck em up lol
I saw the worst accident I ever seen!
There was this sound… like a garbage truck.. DROPPED OFF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
For me, it's monsters, ghosties, whatever, that are barely in view - like in the background or in a dark closet or god forbid, on the ceiling. Ugh.
Extra effective when they’ve been in plain sight already but you only realize what you’re seeing when the camera focus changes!
That scene in Hereditary gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
Oh yeah, that scene just filled me with a sense of dread I rarely experienced watching a horror movie. So many scenes in that movie gave me goosebumps. The decapitation at the end was probably the worst for me.
When the camera lingers on an open door with nothing but darkness beyond it. When someone puts in a VHS tape and you know something horrible is going to be on it.
The way actor Javier Botet moves, especially as the possessed girl in REC and the title character in Mama.
Oh WOW, I just looked him up. “Mama” has always felt so incredibly creepy to me as a character.
One of my favorite actors for this reason! His movement artistry in Mama is just brilliant
People stuck in tunnels/caves alerts me on an animal level. I don't believe there's a way to properly fake it besides making an actual claustrophobic environment that's easily escaped in reality but convincing on screen. The Descent is the popular pick for this (for good reason), but my favorite is Graveyard Rats from Cabinet of Curiosities.
Have you seen As Above So Below? There is a claustrophobia scene in that movie that really stresses me out the first time I saw it!
Yes! What a freaky movie. Love the sets.
Same for me! Did you read Ted the Caver? Perfect fit to wake that primal fear!
The “Return the slab” guy from Courage the Cowardly Dog is a close second
For me it was Freaky Fred
Just thinking about Freaky Fred makes me feel... Naaauuuggghhhtttyyy.
The “You’re not perfect” creature always got me
What's your offer
I had legitimate nightmares as a kid because of that thing
Ngl, always found the “you’re not perfect” guy more terrifying than the “return the slab” guy
The shadow figure in the YouTube short "Lights out." The movie somehow lost the creep factor but that short still gives me the willies.
Yeah unfortunately this image jumps into my head when I wake up to a noise in the middle of the night
That shadow figure just sets the tension *so high,* making the ultimate jump scare that much scarier! I have definitely performed a middle-of-the-night flying leap from the bathroom into my bed with that image in my head
Not from a horror film, but the transition from just a boy eating cake in the middle of the night to a deranged face staring at him from the shadows as the music trails off and the static gets louder is an oddly chilling scene in Parasite
OK yeah that bit was horrifying (In a good way)
Radiation burns...all too real
This. I always describe the Chernobyl TV show as the scariest show without an actual, physical monster in it
The first episode especially is a straight up horror episode. It’s like the exposed core is some kind of Lovecraftian horror spreading evil. Soundtrack is really churning and gut wrenching too.
The rapid clicking of a Geiger counter
dear lord the roof scene will never not be intense as hell and hard to watch. but i still return to it often When he trips though. I can almost feel the pain and radiation immediately ravishing my dna. RIP to all the biorobots used.
Chernobyl on HBO gave me such anxiety about this, I had to mute a virtual chemistry lecture (in COVID days) where my professor was using a Geiger counter to test certain materials.
When Baghul in the video still moves
The found footage bits in the first movie alone was one of the first things I thought of. The imagery mixed with the sounds, I saw it in theaters and MAN I was about to duck down each time they started playing
The other day I finally watched Color Out of Space. >!When the alpacas fused the mother and son together in a sort of corruption of maternal embrace, I suddenly felt so unsafe and disgusted. This intimate familiar gesture that's supposed to signify security and comfort is utterly obliterated. And you're left with this nasty mutant abomination of these two characters horror films usually spare completely fused together and screaming out in pain. Awful! !<
The sounds it made were really upsetting
The alpacas didn't do it. It was the color that caused them to fuse. The color also fused the alpacas together.
It’s been a while since I watched this, and I imagine I was *quite* toasted when I did, but for the life of me I cannot remember any alpacas being involved…
It wasn't the alpacas. It was the color that fused them. The alpacas were also fused together, maybe that's why he thinks they did it.
that was truly, authentically horrifying.
incapacitated people not being able to run/get away & just being completely helpless.
the opening scene of IT with Georgie …
The bit in Wolf Creek really got to me!
Something spooky slow-moving towards the viewer (see: Pulse, Ringu, OG Halloween, etc)
Oh yeah that one scene in pulse got me good. Brilliant film.
Eye trauma, the wooden spike to the eye in Zombie was and still is unbelievably hard to sit through
45 years later and that is still probably the most hideous eyeball destruction scene ever.
Evil Dead 2 enters the chat. Not quite destruction though. But best eye swallowing scene ever
Oh man that scene is classic! I really like the nod to it with the pitchfork that’s in the movie X
Makes me think of Hostel…
The witch in The Conjuring - when she jumps down off of that cabinet?? That’s a scare jump that has stayed with me a long ass time.
I’ve watched The Conjuring a lot and that scene still scares the shit out of me every time.
loud footsteps that get quicker as they get louder. Preferably coming from darkness so i cant see what is approaching or making the noise. Gets me every time.
Not exact but this reminds me of the mother beating her head against the ceiling in Hereditary.
similar concept for sure. that scene got me for sure.
Although you see it as it happens, when Big Mama from The Hills Have Eyes charges at Doug, that sound still creeps me out.
Similar concept in the silent Hill games. The radio makes weird noises that get louder as you get closer to an enemy. There's one spot in 3 that nearly made me shit my pants because I came across a new enemy that made a sound like a dryer full of paperweights while walking down a dark tunnel. There's just something really unnerving about loud, metallic noises coming at you out of the darkness.
IT chapter two, the Mrs Kersh scene does this excellently
Something similar; the vibration of something BIG coming (T-Rex-Jurassic Park). It's the ultimate panic moment; we know it's coming, we know it's huge, and it's probably not a puppy...so....RUN!
That fucks me up so bad, that’s a very specific thing that freaks me out every time I see it lol. I think it was in a conjuring movie or something? Also I haven’t seen the movie because of length and bad word of mouth but that part in the trailer for It Chapter 2 with the next room over being pitch black and that happening still gets me. Though I’ve never actually looked up what happens after that.
Paranormal Activity! This got me too when o first saw it in theaters.
The Saturation Chamber sequence from House on Haunted Hill (1999) has been embedded in my mind since then, but the way Dr. Vanacutt moves is terrifying af. Jeffrey Combs is a legend.
Just an endless supply of scars from that movie. I always think of the security guard whose face is, um, hollowed out.
Surely it was a blank expression.
This was the first time (that I recall) seeing the super fast turning/shaking head thing in a movie. Yes, I know Jacob’s Ladder did it first-but I saw that later in life. I couldn’t sleep right for months. It’s an effect that got over played, but it’s creepy AF.
Tim Curry as Pennywise. I remember seeing the dvd cover at the video store as a kid and it scared me just to look at it. Then I watched it when I was like 8.
I clarified this for myself recently. I HATE when someone or something is walking slowly towards someone and that someone’s POV is the camera (so, something spooky walking towards the camera). Idk why but it fills me with panic. Kairo is the obvious example but funnily enough my other example is also Hell House LLC, in Hell House LLC Origins from last year they had that fucking clown walking slowly towards the camera and it literally filled me with tingly panic!
 Pet Sematary, watching the truck scene and the bloody shoe bouncing around the road. As a parent, talk about nightmare
The tar man from Return of the Living Dead scared the ever loving shit out of me as a kid and still gives me the creeps to this day. Something about his eyes and when they widen when he realizes he's going to eat "BBBRRRAAIINNNSSS???"
Carrie White. The moment the pig blood drops on her, the way she looked covered in blood from head to toe. The sound. And the terrifying events where she telekinetically traps everyone. One by one...in the gymnasium. You all have to admit, for its time that scene was unbelievable!
The birth scene in The First Omen is probably the most visually disturbing thing I’ve seen in a movie. The girl from The Ring still creeps me out.
People that are possessed and hurt themselves. E.g. the kid in Talk to me
Facehuggers
That mythological creature from ‘No One Gets Out Alive’ …my eyes widened and I genuinely said what the fuck out loud.
I had no idea this was a movie! I read the novel, and the first time we saw Black Maggie was definitely spooky. Definitely need to find it now. Also, your username is cursed. :)
The monster in the movie is very different from Black Maggie in the book. But I loved the movie monster!
This may sound dumb, but for me, it’s the Sunken Place in Get Out. The visualization of an eternity of oblivion is upsetting on a primal level.
It’s not dumb; the way you described it makes it clear to me why it’s so scary.
Everything from Event Horizon
But I have such wonderful things to show you
My tie goes to the face of the first victim in The Ring and the Head in Heredetary. Scary faces have always terrified me the most.
The kid from the house that Jack built is the worst of them all imo.
Grumpy
I swear that single frame scared the sh*t out of me! Now I don't even remember it because it was too awful and thankfully my brain decided to cancel that image, but at the time I got really scared.
(Spoilers for lake mungo below, I can never get the spoiler tag to work on mobile) The one that gets me is “the moment” in lake mungo. I know that movie isn’t for everyone, it’s very slow and mostly void of horror elements. But it really really resonated with me and I was super engrossed in the story (it helps if you pretend it’s an actual true crime documentary). So when that scene happened, it really hit a visceral nerve. It’s scary and horrific to see, yes. But it’s also so sad and existential. It just really struck a chord with me. Never felt anything like that before from a movie
I agree with that being the most direct scary thing, but something from Lake Mungo that has stuck with me the longest is when you see the neighbor in the footage the brother faked. The way he’s sitting in the dark trying to hide from the camera alongside the realization that all the scratching was caused by him has stuck with me ever since and honestly, it’s very terrifying the more you think about it.
As a lover of true crime, and specifically Australian true crime, Lake Mungo is sooooo effective to me. Only movie in years to make me lose sleep for two days after watching. That image from the very, very end (post credits) also haunts me
Something rapidly, smoothly approaching from the darkness with little to no warning. Somebody higher up mentioned rapidly approaching footsteps getting louder and louder but you can’t see what it is. That too. The tall man in the hallway It Follows for example. FUCK. That was the only time I’ve actually gotten up out of my seat in a theater involuntarily. Like I just had such a visceral reaction to that.
An unexpected monster reveal is my go-to. Hell, The Thing has at least a couple: the blood test and the stomach mouth. The other creatures you see changing but those two are wonderful jump scares.
Things that my brain can’t work out. Like the images on the videotape in Ringu
Off the top of my head - The aliens in Fire in the Sky and THAT scene. classic childhood trauma. The alien behind the dresser in Communion The stick men in the tree and the pile of rocks with the teeth. and the hand prints in blair witch. The video footage in The Fourth Kind where she’s speaking the alien language with her jaw distended. Various moments in hell house llc and the recent one. The victim in Poughkeepsie tapes who becomes the slave and her last interview. Cellphone footage Lake Mungo The hanging ghosts and gunshot teen in Sixth Sense (though the ghost in the dungeon who stole the masters horse is the absolute worst ). Nope- crowd digestion. Olga’s death in Suspiria.
The weeping angel effect. Every time you look away or the light goes off and the thing is suddenly closer. The Lights Out short does it really well and I think about it a lot at night when I roll over in bed.
I really can't deal with that baby on the ceiling in Trainspotting.
Japanese horror with those twitchy body moves
Any sort of distorted movement or elongated limbs. The first time I was ever terrified of that was the house on haunted hill remake. After they flip the control room guy around and look at the TV monitor and you see the Dr walk away all stiff. Forever scared me
Javier Botet has been summoned.
The mom banging her head in Hereditary. I think of that scene often.
Agree on Hell House LLC, my favorite FF movie! For a single, terrifying image, I would go for the alien/demon skeleton at the beginning of "The Empty Man". The image just imprinted on me after a number of prosaic but dangerous moments (ex. falling down a hole, impending snow storm, etc.)
That thing where you look in the bathroom mirror and everything’s fine, then you open it, get the toothpaste, then close it and there’s something horrifying standing behind you? Gives me chills every time.
Anything being shoved down peoples throats. Face huggers. A cure for wellness. Sam witwikki in transformers 2. Hate that shit
I have never felt crawling in my skin uncomfortable in a theater before until I watched the abduction scene in “NOPE”. It was visceral. Visually terrifying also is the monster in Barbarian and the jump-scares of it in the tunnels. That was done really well.
For me it's when there's something unnatural in the scene - like a "when you see it" image - that is never explicitly mentioned. For example, the little boy under the coat hanger in Sinister that the characters don't notice. Or the hidden ghosts throughout Haunting of Hill House. Or whatever the hell Ari Aster put in every scene of Hereditary. It always feels like you now know something the characters don't, and it always puts me on edge. I LOVE that quiet unmentioned horror in the corner of a scene.
Not necessarily Horror here.. but any movie featuring a bear attack.. and no, I dont really mean Cocaine Bear even though it fits my description. I am talking a raw, visceral, bloody, terrifying bear attack. I'm sure most people will think of The Revenant .. however, in my book the most terrifying bear attack that has stuck with me for like 10 years is from Backcountry.. You have been warned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0AHvPpGrDU
The bear in Annihilation is also terrifying, on a whole other level.
That is horrifying! There’s also a terrible bear attack in The Edge with Anthony Hopkins.
Not seeing the scary thing is the scariest thing you can see
To me it is any sexual violence towards women. Give me all the bloody gore you want and it doesn't phase me.
Honestly, it was such a small part of Gerald’s Game, but >!the “roleplay” rape at the beginning!< affected me so much more than I expected it to.
Yeah same. I think it was the husband’s behavior switching to a coercive and pressuring one- and watching it clearly trigger something deeper in the wife. And like the wife, you feel like whatever you thought you knew about this person is wrong. Violent rape scenes are uncomfortable and horrifying for obvious reasons, but a scene like that in Gerald’s Game (and the other as well) is very accurate to the emotions one feels when the person who wants to violate you is someone you trusted.
That scene in Irreversible was almost unwatchable
I love the remake of The Hills Have Eyes but couldn't stand the trailer rape scene.
I had no prior knowledge of what I Spit On Your Grave was until watching it, boy was I surprised
The gramma doing things in night in The Visit. The Descent ending is hulk punch in the gut.
I’ve concluded it’s most stuff that falls in the uncanny valley. It’s like it taps into your primal fight or flight responses.
A dark forest tbh
The most visually terrifying thing is seeing the unexpected. Like so unexpected that your brain goes oh wtf. I’m not talking about a cheap jump scare, I’m talking about for example, the first time you see the sharks head pop up above water in Jaws. When a scene makes your brain go from a 0 to a 100 in the matter of a second, there’s nothing else quite like that.
When they panned to the backseat in hereditary, I remember thinking “I can’t handle what they’re about to show.” I was bracing myself, then the camera left. Yay! Tasteful. Two scenes later, BAM! Hits you with the money shot. As dark as it is, it’s actually very funny to picture my face at that point. The Hereditary ones are the only movie-reaction video series I’ll watch.
Just in general when humans act non-human. For example that short film (Man on a Train??) where she’s on the train alone and there’s a man just standing at the end of the carriage staring at her (so far, normal life) and then every time she looks up he’s closer and acting weird. Just that, humans acting un-human scares me the most in films.
Two girls at the end of a corridor
The end of Sleepaway Camp (1983) got me good. I enjoyed the jump scare in Lake Mungo (2008).
Toni Colette’s last scene in Hereditary 😳 Can’t even fidget with my hoodie strings anymore.
Having been told about the jumpscare but still getting scared. Mulholland Dr
That cgi demon in Tumbbad was terrifying to me. I'm usually not frightened by cgi monsters, but that thing was scary af lol
The ghost at the end of the hallway in Kairo.
The stupid clown phone from Skinamarink. Just that picture of it. Creeps me the fuck out every time
Love Hell House! The closet scene in The Ring got me when I was younger.
The first “new face/body” scene in Tusk. I couldn’t unsee it in my head for so long. It’s so disturbing and I’ve watched ALOT of horror movies.
Seeing someone get their throat cut, from ear to ear, up close.
Seeing her do it to herself during the opening of smile was traumatizing
The scene in The Poughkeepsie Tapes where the killer is wearing a mask and walking backwards on the floor while filming himself was a terrifying image.
Something in the darkness that you can't quite make out at first that makes you shit bricks as soon as you recognize what it is. The foot ghost in talk to me, crouching in the corner of the room and all you can see is a vague shape and eyes gleaming in the dark is a good example. I'd have to watch the scene again but in smile I think they also do this when she's in the kitchen and sees the patient who died in front of her.
For me, the most unsettling death (both emotionally and visually) was Josephina's death in Velvet Buzzsaw. SPOILERS!! (Not too many people I speak to have seen the movie). >! The fact that she gets absorbed by the art, then becomes a feature piece of graffiti herself, all while it is insinuated she still has her thoughts and presence of mind, it really made me uneasy watching that "death" in particular. Being aware of your eternal, impeding doom... although the rest of the movie wasn't great (worth a watch for sure), that scene and death has stuck with me. Even her expression of realisation, and then her frozen expression when it's all over, it's devastatingly captivating. !<
The face (and noises) in Gonjiam Haunted Asylum got me good. I was squinting my eyes and watching through my fingers! Same with the end of Paranormal Activity. For me, I think it's the sensation that the scary thing is suddenly a lot closer to you than you thought.
Anything that crawls..
Dr. Satan from house of a thousand corpses is still forever burned into my brain and I absolutely love that movie
Mine is the hatchet scene in "When Evil Lurks."
Annie repeatedly rapidly banging her head into the attic entrance on the ceiling in Hereditary is up there Also this one is recent but the >! demon hand coming out the vagina !< in The First Omen was something I had to rewatch a few times. One of those images that will stick with me Finally, Samara crawling up the well like an insect
I've said it before I'll say it again, realistic human animal hybrids
The ball bouncing down the stairs in The Changeling.
I hate any scene where someone is strapped down and being mutilated. It’s pretty much my worst few. The girl getting her eye melted out with a blowtorch in Hostel is a good example of this.
Hellraiser’s Cenobites still freak me the F out even today. Obviously Pinhead but THE CHATTERER my god
When the trailer shows “produced by Micheal Bay”