Metallica, “Enter Sandman”.
“What…what happens if I lose?”
“YOU WILL WISH THAT YOU HAD WON.”
“Not long after the experiments began, however, there was – an incident. And since that time, the following protocol has been observed.”
Please don’t spoil it for me, because I’m only at the beginning of Lost Season 5, but I found that to be a nice understated current of ominousness . . . especially as you realize, thinking back, that the man saying those words appeared to have only one arm . . .
“The weed of crime bears bitter fruit…The Shadow knows!” (followed by eerie laughter)
Nietsche was full of 'em.
My favorite?
“. . . if you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
“This is Prince Sparhawk, the man who destroyed the Elder God Azash, and you just insulted his wife.” - David Eddings Tamuli trilogy
“This time we’ll do it right. In the dark, in the fog, from behind with a stiletto.” - Empire’s End, Allan Cole & Chris Bunch
From Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, when the Phantom is dictating conditions for his opera to the company:
“Our Don Juan must lose some weight - it’s not healthy in a man of Piangi’s age.”
The requirement for Piangi to lose weight is so that when, during the first performance of the opera, the Phantom kills Piangi and takes his place, the substitution won’t be so obvious.
I searched the thread and didn’t find this one, so I’ll mention Rowdy Roddy Piper’s quote from “They Live.”
“I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubblegum.”
“I supress the fury, but sometimes… The fury has me.” --Fawful, from Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
Boondock Saints II:
[spoiler]“I’ll see you in a minute.”
The lead characters’ father has been mortally wounded in a gunfight, and is standing over his nemesis whom he is about to execute.[/spoiler]
“Apres moi, le deluge.” (After me, the flood)-- Marie Antoinette
Quoted from memory:
Clothahump the wizard: “Whatever you do, don’t break that vial.”
Apprentice: “Uh, what would happen if I broke it?”
Clothahump the wizard: “Something so horrible, so awful, so unspeakably vile that in more than two hundred years I have not acquired the vocabulary to describe it.”
Note: He was lying. But it’s a great threat.
Not to complain, but some of these are “loudly threatening” or “explicitly warning,” but not what I think of as “ominous.”
Imagine you’re standing in front of two doors in succession. One is emblazoned with big red letters: WARNING: DO NOT GO THROUGH THIS DOOR. YOUR LIFE WILL BE IN DANGER IF YOU DO.
You turn to the other door, and it’s completely blank. Brand new, in fact, as if it has been recently replaced. Except for the doorjamb, which still bears traces of . . . . fingernail grooves . . . as if someone had been scrabbling not to be pulled inside . . .
So which do you consider more ominous?
ETA:
Or in the Discworld, would you feel more unsettled facing an angry Cohen the Barbarian, or an annoyed Patrician? (At the conclusion of your interview with the latter, His Lordship merely states in an even voice, “pray do not let me detain you.”)
I thought this was said by Louis XV, father of the king who was guillotined.
For me, the most ominous line ever spoken wasn’t really threatening, at least on the surface.
** "Fredo, you’re my older brother, and I love you. But don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family again. Ever. "**
Michael Corleone never raises his voice as he says this- but he’s scary even so. You can tell, he’s changed, and he is NOT to be trifled with. By ANYONE.
If Fredo didn’t grasp there and then that Michael wouldn’t hesitate to kill him, he wasn’t paying attention.
Any number of soon-to-be ex-rednecks:
‘Hey y’all! Watch this!’
And in Eric, when the Demon King is chasing Rincewind and Eric through time and space, at one point he goes to the farthest future and meets Death. The Demon King asks, "Pardon me, have you seen anyone? Death replies, YES. “Who?” EVERYONE.
Loosely quoted from memory:
“Is there a God?”
The answer from the machine came without the slightest hesitation; “THERE IS NOW.”
From the Star Trek novel Vendetta, the sentient planetary defense computer of the first planet attacked by the Borg is asked to identify the incoming vessel:
“THE BORG. AT LAST.”
In the film *Dark Star * the sentient nuclear bomb has been inadvertently convinced he is God, and ominously begins reciting from Genesis, leading up to…
“Let there be light!”
And then…
“I’m going outside. I might be some time.”
Said by Lawrence Oates,Antarctic explorer, as his health was threatening to jeopardize the expedition (he had severe feet frostbite, and thus was walking much slower than everyone else). A blizzard was raging on at the time.