Scariest scene in a movie? (Spoiler alert)

Gunpowder Nash

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Heh, like I said, as an adult less visceral than as a kid, but still get shivers from the "redrum" scene - and of course Jack Nicholson's line - "Here's Johnny!"

I later learned that line was actually one of the most famous ad lib lines in the history of cinema! Didn't know that wasn't​ part of the original script!

The scene in The Shining that scared me, was when the wife reads the paper in the typewriter, seeing it is the same thing repeated over and over, she shifts through the reams of paper composing the rest of the story he was writing, only to discover they all had the same thing! It was at that point you know... that she knows... her husband is demented, and that she is screwed.
 

Spooky

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The scariest scene in the shining is when Nicholson is just..... absorbing the gleeful glow of the shrieking snowstorm, he looks absolutely bonkers, just a shell of whatever dregs remained of his clutch on sanity before he arrived, that keening, whistling in the background succinctly reflects what is going on, he's preparing to do the hotel's bidding and the crap he's been writing all this time is another cupful of carnage that's getting ready to spill over, the whole film is the wasp's nest hovering on the edge of the precipice that King wonderfully makes use of in the source text.
 

KitKate

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Nearly every scene Diana from Lights Out is in. Apart from when they showed her face, there was something truly terrifying about a demonic entity that was there lurking in the background when the lights went out and all you can see is a growling silhouette. I still have to have all lights on in the house if I watch it.
 

Enlightened

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Texas Chainsaw Massacre II.... MAJOR SPOILER

Late night, radio station, Texas back country. One woman at the station only. She comes downstairs to see a freak. He is partly bald, mirrored glasses, rotted teeth. He lights the hook tip of a metal coat hanger, melts the skin around the metal plate in his head. He picks the melted skin off the hanger and eats it. He notes he's her biggest fan. He worms a quick tour of the station before he agrees to go. She runs him around the station as fast as possible. He mumbles throughout and acknowledges the things she points out. They get to an empty wall and Leatherface (a man with a sewn, human flesh mask and chainsaw) comes barreling through the wall with the chainsaw blazing. He hits the brother's metal plate with the chainsaw. He cries and she gets a head start run. The brother tells the fiend to get her. The fiend runs after her while revving the chainsaw.
 
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cmhbob

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Anyone ever watch Tales from the Crypt on HBO? The one that really got me was "Carrion Death," where the bank robber and ex-con is trying to escape, and the cop's dying move is to cuff them together--and swallow the key. Bad guy has to carry the dead man through the desert, stalked by a vulture. Bad guy eventually falls, loses a body part, and is paralyzed from the fall when the vulture finds him.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Anyone ever watch Tales from the Crypt on HBO? The one that really got me was "Carrion Death," where the bank robber and ex-con is trying to escape, and the cop's dying move is to cuff them together--and swallow the key. Bad guy has to carry the dead man through the desert, stalked by a vulture. Bad guy eventually falls, loses a body part, and is paralyzed from the fall when the vulture finds him.

YES! And the look on the Vulture's face at the end. Such a classic episode, with both the actors hamming it up. I love ToC, all the episodes are on Youtube.
 
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Crowned in Fireflies

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I don't really get scared during horror movies, but I saw Annihilation in theaters, and I thought the scene where they were (SPOILERS) tied to the chairs, and the skull-faced bear with the voice of the dead teammate attacked them was very tense and great.
 

R.A. Lundberg

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I'll play: The Thing. John Carpenter's version. The idea that the monster can literally look like anyone else, hiding in plain sight. The scene where they are testing the blood with the hot wire is just nerve wracking. Every time the wire is plunged into the blood you just cringe. Plus the spider legged head scene.
I'll also mention, as a deep reach here, the scene from the first episode of "The Walking Dead" where Rick encounters the little girl in her bathrobe and slippers carrying her stuffed bear, only to discover her face is ripped off and she's a zombie. Little kid zombies creep me out.
 

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The ending of "Eden Lake"

The sleepwalking puppet death in the 3rd Nightmare On Elm Street movie

And then there are the movies that are so fucked up that they are almost unwatchable (the original Last House On The Left, Cannibal Holocaust, Salo, A Serbian Film, etc)
 

Xenia

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IMHO the scariest scene in The Shining is toward the beginning when the mom is talking to the child services people and the ash on her cigarette just keeps growing and she doesnt flick it. Crazy unnerving.
 

Azdaphel

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All scenes with long-haired Japanese ghosts creep me out and I always watch them with the lights on :snoopy: Especially when they go through the tv screen and into the room with the viewer...

Let's make a club then.

In Epitath, there is a scary scene where the ghost of a woman is just standing close to her daughter. She is just standing there but you are scared to hell because she makes a really creepy face with a fanatic smile and you see real terror on her daughter's face.
 

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One of the scariest scenes that I've seen in recent times is from Annabelle Creation. It is the scene where the little girl plays with a toy gun that shoots the ball attached to a string. While the girl tries to wind the string she notices that something is pulling from the other end of the string. And then this mysterious force starts pulling the string towards the ceiling. It sent a shiver down my spine.
 

mccardey

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Ok. If I say the Weeping Angels episode in Dr Who, you're all going to laugh at me, aren't you? Ohmygod I'm scared just writing it!! ARRGGGHHHH!!

ETA: Dammit, I'm not going to sleep tonight. :(
 

MindfulInquirer

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All scenes with long-haired Japanese ghosts creep me out and I always watch them with the lights on :snoopy: Especially when they go through the tv screen and into the room with the viewer...

yeaaah. Never thought the Exorcist was scary, partly because it was past my time but I know plenty of people, even younger than me, who still find it very scary.

Never really quite understood what it was about Japanese ghost ladies with long black hair that was so freaky, heh.

Not scary but The Fly (1986) is the film I've found the most disturbing.
 

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I still shudder remembering the video tape from The Ring. The fly on the horse's eye, the spinning chair... I know it doesn't sound scary to type it out but watching it... Something about it was just so... off.

Also, the forced praying in The Ritual.

Also, the automatic c-section scene from Prometheus.

Also, the final scene in Blair Witch aaaaagggghhhhuuuuhhuhuuuh I'm getting goosebumps just imagining it.
 

Albedo

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The boat ride in Willy Wonka. Absolutely freakin' terrifying. The moment where Willy Wonka's wacky inventor facade falls away for a moment, you see and hear the depth of madness in his eyes and voice, and you realise the adults and kids and you the viewer are at the mercy of a capricious minor god. Johnny Depp in the remake resolutely failed to capture the Puckish aspect to the character that Gene Wilder had, IMO.
 

MindfulInquirer

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The boat ride in Willy Wonka. Absolutely freakin' terrifying. The moment where Willy Wonka's wacky inventor facade falls away for a moment, you see and hear the depth of madness in his eyes and voice, and you realise the adults and kids and you the viewer are at the mercy of a capricious minor god. Johnny Depp in the remake resolutely failed to capture the Puckish aspect to the character that Gene Wilder had, IMO.

would you tell me more about that, what exactly is scary about it. The ride increases in speed and the sound gets louder, the images come up faster, Gene Wilder ends up bonkers by the end of the scene, so there's generally an exponential emotional explosion... but what is it yet that is disturbing and scary about the scene, what are the hidden implications that make you scared ?
 

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Mirror scares have a history of giving me a really good jump and shivers down my spine. Scenes from The Mothman Prophecies and The Omen come to mind.
 

Crowned in Fireflies

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I don't know if I would say this scene scared me, but it was a really great and tense scene. Around probably halfway in the movie Annihilation, one woman from the group is killed by a bear, and among the survivors, one of the women becomes extremely paranoid because of the crazy body horror stuff that's happening. She ties the others up in chairs to interrogate/kill them. From outside the house, the paranoid woman hears the voice of the friend they thought were dead, and they go to check, but she instead finds a bear with an exposed skull who tears her apart. The skull bear then proceeds to walk inside and find the other women women helplessly tied to the chairs. When the bear opens its mouth, the voice of the dead friend comes out as if she's somehow still alive as part of the bear, and the voice screams for help.
 

MR. MACABRE

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I personally think the scene in the original THE HAUNTING when they are all in one room together and the door slams shut and then begins to "breath" is one of the greatest scenes ever filmed. The way it was done, with the lighting and sound affects and the fact that it is in black and white makes it my favorite scene in all the horror movies I've seen.
 

jackwritesstuff

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hmmmm.... for me i think it's the big reveal of the woman in white in the first insidious, after the psychic takes bens photo.

insidious to me is STILL the scariest movie i've seen!
 

williemeikle

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Was going to say the end of DON"T LOOK NOW but scrolled back to find I already said it :)

So instead, I'll plump for the ghostly knockings on the bedroom door in the original THE HAUNTING. That freaked me out fifty years ago, and still does.

Another, not a movie but a TV movie, is the last ten minutes of the BBC / Nigel Kneale ghost story THE STONE TAPE from 1972. Scared the pants of a 14 year old me back then, and has been a direct inspiration for a lot of my writing since. ( I talk about it here if anyone is interested.... https://williammeikleblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/14/revisiting-my-influences-the-stone-tape/ )