# Paintings or photos that play a major part in horror movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 2, 2015, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274 "2015-10-02T16:43:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/21 "2015-10-02T19:48:50Z")
Was it a Night Gallery or Twilight Zone with, I believe Roddy McDowell, who scared his parents to death by changing the painting of the graveyard outside the house? Oh and the one with the Nazi who wished himself inside the painting. These are coming out of my fading memory. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/22 "2015-10-02T19:49:14Z")
In one of the _Damien: The Omen_ movies, a man becomes convinced that Damien is the antichrist because of a centuries-old mural with Damien’s face. When I was a kid, the word ‘antichrist’ was scary in itself. But having heard that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are antichrists, it’s lost its sting. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/23 "2015-10-02T19:52:20Z")
> [@dasmoocher](#): > > It’s not particularly scary, but what about [The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Red_Dragon_Paintings) from _Red Dragon/Hannibal_? > > It’s the painting that the serial killer “The Tooth Fairy” had issues with/inspiration from. Good one. I’m not familiar with any of the Hannibal canon except \*Silence of the Lambs \*but perhaps others are. At least it will get people to think / ask about it. These are all good, guys; keep 'em coming! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/24 "2015-10-02T20:08:31Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Was it a Night Gallery or Twilight Zone with, I believe Roddy McDowell, who scared his parents to death by changing the painting of the graveyard outside the house? Oh and the one with the Nazi who wished himself inside the painting. > > These are coming out of my fading memory. The first one was from the Night Gallery pilot. The second one is “Escape Route”, which I referred to above. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/25 "2015-10-02T20:12:50Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Was it a Night Gallery or Twilight Zone with, I believe Roddy McDowell, who scared his parents to death by changing the painting of the graveyard outside the house? Oh and the one with the Nazi who wished himself inside the painting. > > These are coming out of my fading memory. Both were Night Gallery. > **["Night Gallery" Pilot (TV Episode 1969) ⭐ 7.4 | Drama, Fantasy, Horror](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064725/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_157)** > > 1h 38m | Unrated Ninja! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/26 "2015-10-02T20:19:57Z")
Like **Ukelele Ike** , I thought at once of the photograph in Antonioni’s _Blow-Up_. The movie is a quaint/silly Sixties artifact in many ways, but the scene where the photographer comes to see that he inadvertently photographed a murder is very effectively unsettling. George R.R. Martin wrote the 1985 short story “Portraits of His Children,” in which an artist’s paintings come to life and bedevil him in various ways (or maybe he’s just going mad and/or hallucinating). It’s all right, but far from Martin’s best IMHO. Ray Bradbury wrote “The Crowd,” a 1955 short story in which a man realizes that the same people keep showing up at car-accident scenes. He compares photographs across many years and sees them again and again, unaged. Brrrr. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/27 "2015-10-02T20:20:52Z")
I wouldn’t call the recent movie a “horror movie” (nor a “good movie”) but the Dark Shadows soap was always dragging out portraits and paintings. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/28 "2015-10-02T20:36:11Z")
Also on the literary side is M.R. James excellent 1904 story “The Mezzotint,” about an engraving of a spooky moonlit country house which is invaded by an eerie figure that creeps across the lawn and eventually enters… A number or illustrations have been created over the past several years; this one’s a good one… [![](https://f1.bcbits.com/img/a2284290115_10.jpg) ](https://f1.bcbits.com/img/a2284290115_10.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/29 "2015-10-02T20:36:36Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The first one was from the Night Gallery pilot. > > The second one is “Escape Route”, which I referred to above. This was one of the first ones I tried to find but there are no good shots of it. Holy crap did that ep scare me. Still creeps me out, to tell you the truth. I even tried to find one of Joan Crawford’s portrait from another segment in that ep but no such luck. And how could I forget about [Barnabas Collins](http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/darkshadows/images/1/11/Barnabas_Collins_2.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20061021030130) !:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/30 "2015-10-02T20:56:45Z")
Tim Roth’s character in the Tales from the Crypt episode [Easel Kill Ya](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0716844/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_71) painted “morbid art” for a collector who pushed him to greater and greater extremes. Of course, an “O. Henry” ending was involved. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/31 "2015-10-02T21:01:29Z")
**Rebecca** by Daphne DuMaurier, film by Alfred Hitchcock, is more mystery/suspense than horror. A virtuous ingenue marries a dashing but decadent aristocrat, whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances. First wife’s [creepy portrait](http://internationalcinemareview.blogspot.com/2010/10/alfred-hitchcock-rebecca.html) (halfway down the page) dominates the living room. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/32 "2015-10-02T21:10:33Z")
Hope this helps: (pix from “[Escape Clause](https://www.google.com/search?q=night+gallery+pilot&espv=2&biw=1274&bih=682&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMI8eTZjNekyAIVzjWICh0qpA5B&dpr=1.25)”) I don’t know how you’d use this, but there was a movie in the late '70s–“[Burnt Offerings](https://www.google.com/search?q=burnt+offerings+movie&espv=2&biw=1274&bih=682&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMIt4XextekyAIVTTuICh3REwRW#imgrc=_)”-- about a vampire house and anyone who died there joined the creepy gallery of pix on the walls. Also has a great pic of Karen Black–and her bridgework–from “Trilogy Of Terror.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/33 "2015-10-03T02:16:42Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Was it a Night Gallery or Twilight Zone with, I believe Roddy McDowell, who scared his parents to death by changing the painting of the graveyard outside the house? Oh and the one with the Nazi who wished himself inside the painting. > > These are coming out of my fading memory. I don’t recall those, but I do recall a _NG_ ep where a painting was a portal into a dinosaur-filled jungle. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/34 "2015-10-03T02:42:17Z")
Not from a film and more funny than scary, but how about the “[stretching portraits](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/140526450848138824/)” from Disney’s Haunted Mansion? ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/35 "2015-10-03T04:30:12Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Hope this helps: (pix from “[Escape Clause](https://www.google.com/search?q=night+gallery+pilot&espv=2&biw=1274&bih=682&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMI8eTZjNekyAIVzjWICh0qpA5B&dpr=1.25)”) > > I don’t know how you’d use this, but there was a movie in the late '70s–“[Burnt Offerings](https://www.google.com/search?q=burnt+offerings+movie&espv=2&biw=1274&bih=682&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMIt4XextekyAIVTTuICh3REwRW#imgrc=_)”-- about a vampire house and anyone who died there joined the creepy gallery of pix on the walls. Also has a great pic of Karen Black–and her bridgework–from “Trilogy Of Terror.” That google page shows a mausoleum instead of a graveyard in that pilot episode. Which contradicts my memory of people clawing themselves out of graves. Seeing as how I was a pre-schooler at the time (so little supervision on my TV watching) I can see how I got it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/36 "2015-10-03T14:30:24Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > And how could I forget about [Barnabas Collins](http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/darkshadows/images/1/11/Barnabas_Collins_2.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20061021030130) !:smack: Not just Barnabas - I know there were a number of important paintings on the show (my husband runs a huge fan site) but another that comes to mind is from the Phoenix story line pre-Barnabas - David’s mother comes back from “Arizona”, meanwhile iirc the local artist? Can’t stop painting a portrait where she’s surrounded in flames. Genuinely creepy stuff. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/37 "2015-10-03T14:42:48Z")
Not from a movie, but the first thing I thought of was that spooky, supposedly haunted painting being sold on eBay in the early 2000s called “The Hands Resist Him” that became an internet meme. Another thing I thought of is those very creepy old-time photos of dead children (some grownups as well) who are propped up to look like they’re still alive. Some even have eyes painted over their closed eyelids. There’s a movie connection there-- in the Nicole Kidman movie “The Others” she finds several of those types of photos stashed away in an old house. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/38 "2015-10-03T16:03:06Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Well, if you’re going to go literary, you have to consider **Pickman’s Model** by H.P. Lovecraft. See also [“The Picture in the House.”](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Picture_in_the_House) ---
**Author:** ![TCMF-2L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tcmf-2l/32/16553_2.png) [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/39 "2015-10-03T19:11:24Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > In one of the _Damien: The Omen_ movies, a man becomes convinced that Damien is the antichrist because of a centuries-old mural with Damien’s face. > > When I was a kid, the word ‘antichrist’ was scary in itself. But having heard that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are antichrists, it’s lost its sting. The more obvious example is in the original **Omen** (and the later remake) the photojournalist Keith Jennings (played by David Warner in the original) develops his photographs and sees they have mysterious lens or film aberrations which represent how various characters will die. TCMF-2L ---
**Author:** ![TCMF-2L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tcmf-2l/32/16553_2.png) [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274/40 "2015-10-03T19:20:32Z")
> [@TCMF-2L](#): > > The more obvious example is in the original **Omen** (and the later remake) the photojournalist Keith Jennings (played by David Warner in the original) develops his photographs and sees they have mysterious lens or film aberrations which represent how various characters will die. > > TCMF-2L The very same idea was also used in **Final Destination 3**. The one where characters are at a fair taking photographs and some of the characters die on a roller coaster. The characters that didn’t die on the roller coaster later expire in ways foretold by the photographs taken that fateful night. TCMF-2L [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paintings-or-photos-that-play-a-major-part-in-horror-movies/733274.md?page=3)