« Wednesday Musical Chairs: Damn, I Wish I Wrote That | Main | random camera phone picture »

QOD: And then the hand came out of the grave!

I know we've done this before, but I'm on a horror movie kick right now (part of my Halloween preparation) and it's a good question:

What's the scariest MOMENT from a horror movie? What scene made you jump out of your seat or cover your eyes? Which moment from a scary movie haunts your sleep to this day?

I'll put mine up in a bit.

Updates:

JFH says:

Friday the 13th: When the guy realizes that blood is dripping on him from the above bunk, and before he can sit up, a hand comes from underneath the bed, holding him down by his forehead as an arrow comes up through his chest from below.

I was terrified of sleeping in a bunk bed after that. We went upstate to visit relatives and they had bunk beds and I REFUSED to sleep in that room because of the F13th scene.

Also: There's a scene in The Believers (a Martin Sheen movie about voodoo) where the wife steps in a small puddle on the kitchen floor (obstensibly made to appear by voodoo) at the same time she touches the coffee maker and she fries to death. I swear to you, I am still afraid to touch the coffee maker to THIS DAY. I have to check the floor first to make sure there isn't a spot of water. It wasn't even a scary moment, as far as scary movies go, but it scared me enough to leave an imprint.

Comments

I don't know why, but that scene in the 6th Sense where the kid says "Hey I found my dad's gun, wanna see" and then turns around to show his head half blown off just freaked me the fuck out.

Friday 13th: When the guy realizes that blood is dripping on him from the above bunk, and before he can sit up, a hand comes from underneath the bed, holding him down by his forehead as an arrow comes up through his chest from below.

Slept on the floor that night.

In a movie called Ghost Watcher (2002). Womnan is freaked out, the power is out and she's sitting on the floor of her kitchen. Lightning from the storm outside illuminates the room off and on and you can see her sitting there on the floor frightened. At one point during the flashing, you see someone sitting next to her.

B-Movie (acting was terrible), but a good effect.

Probably its the scene in Night of the Living Dead where the little girl turns into a zombie then hacks up her Mom with the garden tool and procees to eat.

Also there was a movie in the late 70's(?) called Sasquatch, The Legend of Bigfoot that effin freaked me out for years, even into early adulthood. Did'nt help that the street I grew up on was right in the middle of the woods... I was always afraid Bigfoot was in there somewhere waiting to get me.

Holy crap, I remember that bigfoot movie. We lived in a House in CT that backed up against the woods. The treeline was visible from my bedroom windwow. I knew that one day I would open my eyes, look out that window and see the some harry fellow looking back at me.

In a related event, I had a BF experience on the Sounth side of Mount St Helens.

I don't know the name of the movie but a lady goes to take a shower and fire comes out of the shower head instead of water. I was afraid to take a shower for a long time.

In Blood Sucking Freaks -- which is outrageously stupid and campy -- there's a scene where the guy drills a hole into a woman's skull and then inserts a straw and starts drinking. Ewwww.....

I know it's not entirely horror but, the first time we meet the facehugger in Alien. Made me jump and squeel like a little girl. (and I'm not either)

1) Disney's Legend of Sleep Hollow - scared me witless when I was young. Watched it again for the first time since I was a wee lad a few months ago. I rented it from shop and felt anxious for hours before viewing.

2) First proper horror movie I saw was Poltergeist. That movie was filled with scary scenes but the one that freaked me out most was when the clown appeared next to Robbie on his bed. Have not liked clowns ever since.

Not a horror movie, but when Wait Until Dark came out, I got my mother to take me.

Near the end, there's a scene where the bad guys are chasing the blind woman in her apartment. She's destroyed all the lights, but they've jammed the fridge door open.

For a time, you don't see much of anything, but you can hear them moving around. Suddenly, you see light flashing off a knife blade as it moves across the screen. When that happened, my legs jerked so hard I'd have fallen over backwards if the seat hadn't been bolted to the floor.

The moment that has most freaked me out in modern horror was the first time I watched the Samara ghost climb out of the well, shamble toward the camera, and climb out of the TV screen in "The Ring." My little boy was one year old at the time, and that was a very long walk down the hall to his crib when he would cry at 3:00 am.

Close runner up: The guy standing facing the corner at the end of the "Blair Witch Project." That really freaked me out.

As a kid, I was very afraid of/haunted by a scene in "The Innocents" when the heroine saw the ghost of the woman in black standing at the edge of the pond. I just got a little shiver right now just recalling it...

The first Halloween movie, after the first time Michael is "killed" and comes back. I still HAVE to say, "Oh shit."

The Haunting (1963), of course. The scene in the library when Crane's ghost is booming about the house, then the huge, carved wooden doors start to bend inwards like rubber. I am covered in gooseflesh as I type this...YAHHH!!!!!

it wasn't a horror movie, but when i was small one day eating a grilled cheese sammich all alone, watching Dr. Who, Dr. Who killed an alien by bashing its head in, and what came out looked quite similar to my melted cheese. I didn't eat grilled cheese sammiches for years afterwards.

As a kid:

The scene in John Carpenter's version of The Thing Where all the men are tied up, save for one, and are having their blood tested one at a time to see which one is the alien. I just about wet myself when the alien popped up, but the only squealing you heard was from the grown men tied up and helpless...

As a teen:

Poltergeist III--The hint/realization at the end of this piece of crap movie that there might be a sequel.

As an adult:

Although the movie, overall, sucked yankee eggs, the opening scene in Ghost Ship was pretty freakin' gruesome...

Another shower scene-

I don't know the name of the movie-it was on TV when I was 10 or so, so early 80s I geuss, or late 70s. Anyway-it was about this house that didn't want anyone to live in it and it would kill anyone who came around it-boiling people in swimming pools, etc.

Anyway-one scene involved a someone in a shower and blood started coming out of the showerhead and filling up the shower and he couldn't get the door open.

Later-I was taking a shower and must have hit the knob and made the shower get hotter and just started screaming and jumping out of the shower. Scared my mom to death and was banned from scary movies for awhile.

That scene in Gray Lady Down when the ship is flooding and water is spraying everywhere. Scared the Jeebus out of me, seeing as how I rode around on submarines at the time. The sets were very realistic.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069992/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnx0dD0xfGZiPXV8cG49MHxxPWRhcmt8bW9yZT10dHxteD0xMDAwfHJzPWN8aHRtbD0x;fc=109;ft=1000;fm=1
Made for TV, but scared the hell out of me when the little monsters actually won for a change.

Sorry,goofed that,it is
"don't be afraid of the dark"
still gives me the willies.....

Pet Sematary, where the kid's under the bed and slices the back of Fred Gwynne's ankles. I developed a habit of jumping into bed after I saw that.

The Blair Witch Project sucked, but there was a scene towards the beginning where a woman is being interviewed about the Blair Witch, and her little kid is trying to shut her up by covering her mouth and saying "Mommy, no!" That was good and scary (and also made me hope that the move as a whole would live up to the hype. Which it didn't.)

Admittedly, I'm not much of a fan of scary movies, so this might be a little "pedestrian" for you, but I thought the scene in Aliens (the second one of the group) where the Marines are in the control room, all the doors had been sealed, but now their motion sensors are pinging like crazy, they are confused because "the movement" is right around them yet there is nothing in the room.

Then somebody starts to look up.

Creature falls from the ceiling. Begin carnage.

Good for me.

I have to agree with Sharp about that scene in The Sixth Sense. I can't help jumping when that kid starts talking even though I know what's coming!

The scene with the girl under the bed, too.

(Not fond of the blood and gore horror movies.)

Just thought of the one that still freaks me out-crappy movie really, only the first 20 min are good.

When a Stranger Calls-

"Have you checked the children?"

When the police tells her that the call is coming from inside the house-I literally jump up and down til she's out of the house.

1. The Haunting, when the woman is on the creaky spiral staircase and suddenly a panel of the wall opens up and a madwoman is staring out. I had a broken collarbone at the time and when I instinctively lifted my arms in front of my face it hurt like the dickens.

2. The very first episode of Night Gallery, where Roddy McDowell kills his sick uncle, then notices that a painting of the family mansion is changing ever so slightly every time he walks past it--showing a new grave, then showing the grave opened, then showing the corpse getting out of the coffin, then walking towards the house... scared the hell out of me.

"The Ring" - lots of scenes. Frozen horrified faces after being killed by Samara, Samara climbing out of the TV, etc. "The Ring" put me off horror movies for a good long while.

"The Exorcist III" - A few scenes. Worst for me is a long shot down the hallway that lasts maybe 3 minutes - a nurse is going about her business, back and forth between rooms, and when she leaves the evil room a figure covered in a sheet and holding those huge body slicing scissors at neck level comes out after her. "Exorcist III" is IMO an underrated horror movie.

Don't be afraid of the dark scared the hell out of me as akid. I damn near needed therapy. I bought it off ebay awhile back and made my wife watch. Still creeped me out, she thought it was stupid and just made fun of me.

The Grudge, when that creepy dead ghost lady scrambles up under the covers. I think it freaks me out so much beacuse when I was little, and I had to go to the bathroom during the night, I would get scared that there were vampires hiding in the dark corners. I would always think, "Once I jump back in bed and I'm under the covers, I'll be safe." Even though I've long since stopped being afraid of vampires in the night, that movie scene blew the safety-of-the-covers theory right out of the water. Very disturbing!

The Haunting gets a third vote, but the scene that I've always remembered is when Eleanor and the other girl are frightened by booming noises up and down the hallway outside their bedroom door at night - Eleanor reaches for the other girl's hand and finds out the next morning, that she'd been alone in bed all night...and she says, "Whose hand was I holding????"

I'm thinking . . . one movie that just creeped me out beyond description, and it's an old one, is The Blob - esp. the early scenes where it's small and somebody just touches the thing and it starts swallowing them up bit by bit. Just the idea that something gooey could just envelop you like that . . .

I still have memories from movies when I was little. "Don't be Afraid of the Dark" when they drag people through the fireplace? "Chiller Theater" just the commercial when the hand comes out of the ground and The Poltergeist clown.

Really, the Exorcist. Anytime the camera approached her bedroom door. For my generation, I'm 50, this was the end all be all scary movie. Surprising that my kids and thier friends think it's not scary..I wonder why.

Just about the whole of In the Mountians of Madness. I was about 14, and was just discovering Lovecraft.

Bravo, Brainster, on the Night Gallery reference. I had forgotten about that. The sequentially evolving painting was excellently creepy with no special effects whatsoever. I loved that show as a kid -- although Kolchak the Night Stalker was my horror favorite.

The clown-under-the-bed scene in Poltergeist always makes me jump, but my kids think it's hokey.

Another vote for "The Haunting", especially the hand-holding scene. The last time I watched it (a couple of months ago) I was alone, late at night, with the lights out, and outside was the WORST lightning storm I have ever witnessed. The night literally wasn't growing dark before the next lighting bolt lit up the sky, and the resulting thunder was nearly constant and wall-shaking.

I didn't sleep much that night, needless to say.

There's also the scene in "The Exorcist" when Regan's mother comes into the house and briefly, ever so briefly, there's a demonic face on one of the cabinets. It's there and gone so quickly I wasn't sure I'd even seen it, but it scared the living bat shit right out of me. I love stuff like that.

Always good to see other people with the good taste to know 'The Haunting' is the shizzle. Love that movie. Watch it every Halloween... and sometimes when I just feel like being too scared to sleep. My personal favorite scene of the movie is when Theo and Eleanor are in Theo's bedroom freaking out over the booming in the hallway. Makes me jump at every noise later.

The scene almost at the end of "Wait Until Dark", when all of the action has finished. Got me the first time really bad, and I don't think I've been really startled in a movie since; if I have I don't remember it.

There's a scene in the original version of The Eye where Mun (I believe that's the main character's name) is on an elevator and there's a ghost dude with a huge dent in his head standing in the corner a la Blair Witch, and even when Mun changes elevators, he follows her. That's pretty creepy.

For a long time after watching The Ring I couldn't look at a TV that had static on it. There was one time when the cable went out and there was static on my TV...then my cell phone rang. Freaked the shit out of me.

The Grudge was pretty scary, too, as was Ju-On. I don't think I'll go into an attic alone ever again.

For me, it's a Japanese two-fers:

The Ring: well, the entire movie creeped the heck out of me (especially seven days after we watched it), but the scene where the girl comes out of the well and through the TV still gives me shivers.

The Grudge: in addition to the aforementioned bed climbing scene, what freaked me out the most was the security camera tape. It just looked so real, and so wrong...

Bad news for "The Haunting" fans. Robert Wise, the director, died yesterday.

I think he made a few other movies, too...

1st prize: the original Jaws, when Richard Dreyfuss swims underneath the wrecked boat, pulls a shark tooth out of the hull, and the guy's head falls out on top of him. First saw that scene when I was seven. Still gives me the creeps everytime I see it, even thirty years later.

Honorable mention: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure - the Large Marge scene.
"When they pulled him from the twisted, burning wreck...he looked like THIS!!!" Great fun.

the show on tv not the dumb movie TAILS FROM THE DARK SIDE the theam music freaked me out more than any thing to this day also poltergist 2 still gets to me