# Best Horror Movie Moments **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 31, 2005, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717 "2005-10-31T14:30:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/61 "2005-10-31T22:10:13Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Oh no. There was much footage to follow. Yep, Ivylass - the maggot baby scene was just a dream much earlier in the movie. The actual ending really was sad. The sound of Geena Davis’s sobs . . . just heartbreaking. It has a similar feel to the ending of An American Werewolf in London but I found The Fly more heartrending overall, probably because there is a lot more humor in Werewolf. In The Shining, I also like the scene where Grady is telling Jack how when his little girls were bad, “I ‘corrected’ them. And when their mother interfered, I ‘corrected’ her too.” My sister and I like to turn off the all the lights, shine flashlights under our chins, and repeat that scene in our Grady voices, so we can scare the bejesus out of each other. ---
**Author:** ![dare\_devil007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@dare\_devil007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dare_devil007)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/62 "2005-10-31T22:21:19Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > The scene in The Ring where they flash to the girl’s corpse in the closet, and her head is slowly falling, and her jaw is in a strange position, like it’s unhinged… Creepy as FUCK. That bit send a jolt down my spine, and I cannot even remember the last time I felt something like that from a film. Maybe when I first saw The Exorcist. YES. That scared me and a bunch of my friends, too! My other friend told me about it and I told my friends about it when we went to a when the movie started, I thought, ‘There’s no scary part!! He lied to me to scare us!’ And then we saw that part and popcorn went flying everywhere, accompanied by high-school girl screams. ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/63 "2005-10-31T22:26:45Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > If I might offer an alternative view… > > I thought it was moderately scary, but mostly meh. On a level of gross, however, it excelled. As a (cheap horror movie level) drama is where it really shone. The man/machine scene at the end did not frighten me, nor did it gross me out, it made me sad. Even though the movie featured technology and insects and grossout visuals, it was a very human movie. It was a human morality tale. > > After many repeated viewings, however, the abortion scene still makes me squeem like a schoolgirl. The grossout scenes didn’t bother me too much. I thought they were the “meh” part of the movie. The abortion scene didn’t bother me at all. In fact, the first time I saw it (I’ve watched The Fly twice now in the past week) I didn’t realize what it was - “What’s that big white thing? Is her baby wrapped up in a towel???” I think it would have been much more effective to have a whole pile of maggots spill out of her. When the doctor said, “Oh, there’s a lot more in there” I thought that’s what was going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/64 "2005-10-31T22:35:20Z")
The elevator scene in The Shining. The first time I saw it, I was about ten and flipping channels on the TV. That one scene scared the crap out of me, and remains terrifying to this day. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/65 "2005-10-31T22:41:07Z")
> [@missbunny](#): > > After turning into a fly, he wants to reverse the process somehow but things get fouled up and he turns not back into a man, but into a fusion of fly and the telepod itself. So the top half of his body is a fly, and his back and back legs are now a mangled lump of steel, wires, and cables. But his brain is all human. It’s just horrifying to think about. Then Geena Davis blows his head off after he looks at her with pleading fly eyes and the movie ends right then with her sobbing uncontrollably. It’s really an amazing scene. Aw, you left off my favorite bit: [spoiler]BrundleFlyPod crawls painfully over to Geena Davis, who has picked up the dropped shotgun, but she doesn’t fire because she sees that he is no longer a threat. The Fly wraps his claw around the end of the rifle barrel, rests the muzzle on his own head, and lets it go. She realizes he’s saying, “please kill me,” and at first she can’t, but she finally fires out of pity. That’s my favorite emotional moment in the movie. A close second is when an obviously tortured Goldblum, realizing that as he changes he can’t control his animal instincts any longer, tells Geena Davis, “I’ll kill you if you stay.”[/spoiler] I hear tell that there was a scene deleted from **The Fly** as too gruesome: after Brundle consults his computer and learns that he has been fused with a fly, he conducts another test, running a baboon through the teleporter along with a cat. The resultant mutant cat/baboon hybrid goes berzerk in the lab until Brundle finally manages to kill it. Anyone know if this scene is on the latest deluxe DVD release, by chance? ---
**Author:** ![meat1981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@meat1981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meat1981)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/66 "2005-10-31T23:56:50Z")
I dunno if “Deliverance” qualifies as a horror movie, but the instant the hillbilly says “Now just you drop them pants” has to be the scariest moment in movie history! ---
**Author:** ![parthenokinesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/cc9497/32.png) [@parthenokinesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/parthenokinesis)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/67 "2005-11-01T00:37:47Z")
Bill Paxton V Semi-truck toward the end of Near Dark. There’s just something about having ancient evil killing machine personally pissed at the protagonist that makes the scary just a little more real. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/68 "2005-11-01T04:38:18Z")
**Texas Chain Saw Massacre** quite a ways in when Sally seeks shelter from Leatherface in the gas station/barbecue shack and the front door stays open. Leatherface doesn’t show (and Sally soon learns he’s not the only bad guy), but jeepers. That kind of thing in movies always gets to me, waiting for the second shoe to drop. Not that a closed door would stop a chainsaw. **Night of the Living Dead** “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!” That zombie gets him pretty quickly, too. No huge build up, just in for the kill in broad daylight. **The Ring (both versions)** The girl crawling out of the TV is utterly terrifying. **Dawn of the Dead (remake)** as mentioned in another thread, the bits at the end with the boat’s arrival at the island was just horrid, 'cause it made it clear that there was no safe haven from the zombies. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/69 "2005-11-01T05:05:57Z")
Maybe someone can remember what movie this is. I saw it as a kid {a few decades ago} A mad doctor was working on expiriments in his basement lab. Some creature is behind a locked door. His wife gets in an accident and he keeps her head alive in his lab. He is trying to find a new body for his wifes head and is lureing young babes to the lab. His wife {the head} learns she can mentally control the creature behind the door and decides to stop her twisted husband. The frightening scene for me {as an adolescent, before horror movies got real graphic} was when the Doctors assistant went to feed the creature and it grabs his arm and pulls it in through the feeding window. The assitant starts screaming and when he pulls away his arm is completely gone, pulled out at the socket. He bleeds out. When the evil doctor comes down and decides to destroy his wife’s head she summons the creature who busts down the door. The creature is some hideous thing with a large human body. It grabs the doctor and bites a huge hunk out of his neck, holding up the peice of flesh for the camera before he tosses it aside . Mild by todays standards I suppose but grossed me out back then. Was it “The living Head” or something like that? ---
**Author:** ![revolver\_4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9e5f3/32.png) [@revolver\_4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/revolver_4)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/70 "2005-11-01T05:17:01Z")
**The Evil Dead** The part when the demon-possessed woman in the locked basement gets hold of a pencil and stabs one of the characters in that sensitive part just below the ankle with it. That must have hurt! **The Others** When the blind medium’s face fills the screen. The part where the chandelier rattles. Nicole’s character suspects the housekeeper’s daughter is the one doing it and then she looks out the window and the young girl is there. **Un Chien Andalou** The eyeball slicing. **The Ring** The video’s content. Very Un Chien. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/71 "2005-11-01T06:55:38Z")
> [@](#): > > the Blair Witch Project: Yeah, it was for the most part over-rated nonsense with lots & lots & lots & lots & lots of filler, but the ending in the basement still creeped me out. As I was just saying in another thread, what you imagine is always scarier than what you see. And the final scene of the guy standing in the corner was one of the scariest movie scenes ever. Scary childhood memories: the _Jonny Quest_ episode with the invisible monster, the _Twilight Zone_ episode “The Jungle”, _The Other_ (the scene where you figure out what’s going on), and that scene in _Jaws_ (you know which scene I’m talking about - you jumped out of your chair too). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/72 "2005-11-01T06:58:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Maybe someone can remember what movie this is. I saw it as a kid {a few decades ago} A mad doctor was working on expiriments in his basement lab. Some creature is behind a locked door. His wife gets in an accident and he keeps her head alive in his lab. He is trying to find a new body for his wifes head and is lureing young babes to the lab. His wife {the head} learns she can mentally control the creature behind the door and decides to stop her twisted husband. > > The frightening scene for me {as an adolescent, before horror movies got real graphic} was when the Doctors assistant went to feed the creature and it grabs his arm and pulls it in through the feeding window. The assitant starts screaming and when he pulls away his arm is completely gone, pulled out at the socket. He bleeds out. When the evil doctor comes down and decides to destroy his wife’s head she summons the creature who busts down the door. The creature is some hideous thing with a large human body. It grabs the doctor and bites a huge hunk out of his neck, holding up the peice of flesh for the camera before he tosses it aside . > > Mild by todays standards I suppose but grossed me out back then. > > Was it “The living Head” or something like that? [The Brain That Wouldn’t Die](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052646/) (1962) - and yup, it’s cheesy as heck if you watched it as an adult. It was parodied on MST3K. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/73 "2005-11-01T12:42:29Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > [The Brain That Wouldn’t Die](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052646/) (1962) - and yup, it’s cheesy as heck if you watched it as an adult. It was parodied on MST3K. AHA!!! Thanks. I wonder if I could watch it all the way through? ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/74 "2005-11-01T13:36:01Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > The monster lived on in sequels, but was he truly immortal, in a Michael/Jason sense? I haven’t seen enough Frankenstein movies to really know. In Son of Frankenstien and Ghost of Frankenstien Igor (Played with great gusto by Bela Lugosi) States quite clearly the Monster can never die. As for the many “deaths” of Frankenstien’s monster… 1. Burned up in a Windmill 2. Blown up in the Labratory 3. Tossed into a boiling pit of sulfer 4. Given Igor’s Brain, goes blind and caught in another Fire 5. Washed out with a castle by flooding when a dam is broken while fighting the wolfman. 6. Drowned in Quick sand 7. burned up again. 8. Sinks to the bottom of a lake when the burning dock he is on collapses (No wonder he’s afraid of fire) By the way the last one happens in Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstien so take it for what it is worth. All this reminds me of my favorite Igor moment when he talks about how his hanging was botched and he was left there for days then declared dead. At that point he shows his neck to the good doctor and knocks on the juting bone which makes a dull thudding sound. ---
**Author:** ![TommyTutone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@TommyTutone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TommyTutone)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717/75 "2005-11-01T14:36:50Z")
The original **House on Haunted Hill**. I’m laying in bed watching this for the first time and it is rather unremarkable, but fun. I’ve always been a big Vincent Price fan and this movie shows off his skills remarkably well. At one point in the movie, one of the actresses heads to the basement. You hear the normal creepy voices and she is all scared and this is cheesy but just a little creepy and she backs into something. She turns around and sees [THIS](http://www.tapuak.de/kultur/pics/film-haunted_hill03.jpg)! Ohmygodohmygod. And then this thing slides across the basement, not moving her legs, through a doorway. This was so unexpected it just scared the CRAP out of me and had me watching happy shows after to try and get back to sleep. Also, in the remake, which was 80% awesome and 20% poo, the scene where the reporter is in the basement with the video camera and the ‘doctor’ and staff finally SEE her was terrifying. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-horror-movie-moments/328717.md?page=3)