I’m talking about super suspensful, or just drawn out, prologned scenes that no matter how many times you see, still affect you. (Spoilers to follow)
There are two that qualify for me:
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory- Wonderful movie. But I particularly liked the scene where Charlie hears that the guy in South America faked the fifth golden ticket and he still has a shot. And that scene with him opening up the chocolate bar…Even if you’ve seen it before and know it’s the golden ticket, I love it. It’s just such a feel good moment. I’m always so overjoyed at the moment that he knows.
Jurassic Park- Much less joyous, more scary. The raptor scene. That scene where one of the raptors leaps onto the counter and Timmy has to hold the spoons together to keep them from clattering and making noise. And the best part, when Lex is hiding in that compartment and leaps at her, but crashes into the mirror…Ahh. I always sort of get weirded out when I see that.
The scene in the Sixth Sense fairly close to the beginning of the movie, when they go upstairs and the wife sees the broken window and the phone lying off the hook… my God, that freaked me out. Perhaps because one of my worst fears is having to deal with an intruder in my house, but still. In my opinion that opening sequence with the intruder who shoots Bruce Willis’s character is scarier than the whole rest of the movie (which is saying a lot).
In Blue Velvet, as the cops close in on Frank, Jeffrey returns to Dorothy’s apartment to find two dead people, standing upright(???). He slowly approaches them when one of them suddenly springs his arm up. He’s still dead, mind you, he just sprung his arm up. Whatever. It’s a David Lynch movie. But it’s damn scary when you watch that scene for the first time.
That was the first thing I thought of when I read your title! The way he peels that wrapper back sooooo SLOOOOOW!
Also the scene in Rear Window when Grace Kelly has broken into Raymond Burr’s apartment and he comes back and you’re seeing the same thing Jimmy Stewart sees but can’t hear what they’re saying and you’re freaking out – even if you’ve seen it a million times!
Silence of the Lambs. The whole movie was suspenseful for me, and I don’t think I could ever watch it again, because it upset/disturbed me on SO MANY different levels.
Wait Until Dark–probably the entire movie, but most definitely the refrigerator scene. If you have not seen this film in a dark theater, you don’t know the definition of suspense.
Rear Window. The lovely and talented Grace Kelly is snooping in the evil and burley Raymond Burr’s third(?) story bedroom, stage right. On stage left, we see the evil and burley Raymond Burr ssssslllloooooooooooooOOOoooly going up the stairs, putting his key into the lock, opening the door and heading towards the bedroom where the lovely and talented Grace Kelly is trapped while the brilliantly magnificent Jimmy Stewart and the ubiquotous character actress who’s name I can’t remember look on helplessly.
TV time, you are now a god to me. That is a magnificent movie. Alan Arkin as Mr. Roat is absolutely blood-chilling and one of the scariest villans of all time. Those of you who have not seen this movie, I beg you to do so ASAP…with the lights off.
The chest-burst scene in Alien – I had to hide behind a chair in our living room (first saw it on video way back when), and it still affects me that way even though I know what’s going to happen.
Speaking of The Sixth Sense, the scene when the kid is in the bathroom and a figure passes quickly across the screen… just about sent me through the wall!
I’ve seen TEMPLE OF DOOM twenty times, but it ALWAYS catches me off guard when Kate Capshaw says, “Where’s he going?” and then Mola Ram pops his head up at her.
I’ve seen The Shawshank Redemption a gazillion times, but I still always have my heart in my mouth when they do the nose-counting thing that one morning, and Andy Dufresne doesn’t appear. The guards walk down to his cell, and all his friends are just sick at heart imagining the worst…
I know what happens and where Andy is, but I still feel the suspense.
The shining (the original Kubrick version please): the moment where the wife discovers that her husband has been writing the same line page after page.
