Here begins a series of articles in which I have asked good friends and family members of mine to document their top 10 of scariest scenes in horror films. This is the first of the series . . . enjoy!
For me, scary scenes are not always in the best movies. They are rarely in bad movies, but often they are in movies that I wouldn't consider classic. Also, on any give day, I would probably have come up with 10 different examples, but this is what I came up with on this day. With those caveats:
Session 9: There is a scene early on in this film in which a character is in the basement of the eery asylum being rehabbed. He's found a secret stash of valuables and plans on sneaking them out. But something or someone knows he's there. As he runs through the basement halls (which are walled in by wire fencing), we catch quick glimpses of the shadow that's pursuing him. We never see what that shadow belongs to (though we'll know by the end of the film). What's truly chilling about it is the sense the character captures of seeing all this through the eyes of the hunted. A great moment.
Audition: This movie slowly builds to its horrifying climax. The sudden and horrible revenge taken in those final minutes is among the most horrifying cinema of all time.
Night of the Hunter: Robert Mitchum as a vicious preacher chasing down two children for their father's money. It doesn't get better than this. The truly scary scenes are the killing of the children's mother, played by Shelley Winters. The setting looks like something out of the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. And the scene later when we see the mother's body at the bottom of the river is probably the spookiest image of all time.
Zombi: Lucio Fulci's gore fest zombie movie has one super cringe worthy scene: a splinter through the eye. The camera just never looks away, but you'll want to.
The Blair Witch Project: Reading the background for the movie and really buying into the premise helps this movie a lot. But I still think the ending scene, camera shaking and the glimpsed image of one character facing the corner, is truly scary. Bonus: The scene with the bundle outside their tent. Teeth wrapped in flannel.
Open Water: The lightning storm scene makes you never want to leave a boat again.
Jacob's Ladder: The dance floor scene is certainly scary, but the various shots of freaky, head shaking demons have stuck with me for years after I saw this movie.
Candyman: This movie touches some deep rooted fears of mind. Through the majority of the movie, Virginia Madsen watches as friends and others are killed and there is nothing she can do about it. Then to top it off, everyone believes she is at fault. And the movie makes you feel it. There's plenty of over the top gore in this film, but the really horror is in the unwinnable situation Madsen's character faces.
The Haunting (the original '50s movie, not the horrible, horrible remake): Never have spooky knocks and rubbery doors been so scary.
Carnival of Souls: There is one scene in this movie (a movie filled with dreamy weirdness) that just spooked the hell out of me the first time. A face in the window of a moving car. No idea why this is frightening, but the first time I watched it, it worked well.
