# Scariest elements in a movie--spoilers maybe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 28, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109 "2010-03-28T16:23:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/41 "2010-03-30T14:11:54Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Was it an Indian that got slowly sucked in and at the end you saw his skull sticking out of the ground? That doesn’t ring a bell, although I might have seen such a thing. Best I can recall this was in Africa or Asia and it was somebody on horseback maybe. The old Indian trick of burying folks up to their necks is another icky idea but not so much scary. Impalings are nauseating, too. But they used to construct the lead-up to the quicksand thing with about the same amount of telegraphing they do with somebody walking down a dark hallway with nothing but a candle, only to have something jump out at them from a dark place. Only it would be quicksand. Tarzan had to deal with a large share of quicksand over the years. That and big-ass spiders. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/42 "2010-03-30T14:22:54Z")
> [@Amber\_in\_Treasury](#): > > _Mrs Bates?..Mrs Bates!.._ I meant to comment on this earlier. It wasn’t the disfigurement of Mrs. Bates so much as the way the light was swinging and the suddenness of her appearance. Yes, the grotesque appearance had to be a factor, but it was more the abruptness that got to me. And yet, if they had turned around a perfectly charming and sweet old lady (say Owen’s mom in _Throw Momma From The Train_) I suppose the fright would have been less. Hard to weight the factors, I’ll give you that. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/43 "2010-04-04T07:49:59Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > I think the worst case was in some thing taking place in the Sahara or other big desert and right out in the middle of all these sand dunes for miles in all directions some character got swallowed up in quicksand. I had always thought of swamps and wet places as where the quicksand threat would lurk. Not deserts. Lawrence of Arabia maybe? I think he loses his “special friend” that way. (I have got stuck in quicksand myself, so that fate holds an extra special fear for me.) ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/44 "2010-04-04T08:38:52Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > You don’t see it all that much anymore, but I used to be afraid of quicksand in movies. I think the worst case was in some thing taking place in the Sahara or other big desert and right out in the middle of all these sand dunes for miles in all directions some character got swallowed up in quicksand. I had always thought of swamps and wet places as where the quicksand threat would lurk. Not deserts. > > But, as I said, I can’t recall a recent movie with a quicksand event. Good thing. How about The Mummy, where they’re all in a biplane being persued by a Mummy-induced sandstorm, and crash-land relatively safely, only to see the plane and pilot (Dr. Bombay) swallowed up by dry quicksand. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/45 "2010-04-04T12:02:05Z")
American Werewolf In London: David has one of his hospital dreams (3rd one I think) where he sees himself lying on a hospital bed in the woods. His nurse taps his shoulder to wake him up. He suddenly reveals white fangs, yellow eyes and a screeching growl. I just watched that last month and I forgot about it at the moment. BOOM, went my head against the headboard. 😃 Also, the fourth dream with the aliens that burst into his house, shoot his family, THEN cut his throat? That leads to him “waking up” in the hospital, nurse opens window and another alien stabs her brutally. David wakes up again saying groggily, “Holy, shit!” ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/46 "2010-04-04T12:09:39Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Lawrence of Arabia maybe? I think he loses his “special friend” that way. (I have got stuck in quicksand myself, so that fate holds an extra special fear for me.) I do believe you’re right about it being in _Larry the Arab_ (pronounced as Ray Stevens did for Ahab the Arab) although it has been quite a while since I saw that magnificent movie. I’m 90% sure you’re correct on it. Okay, **jjimm** , what technique did you use to free yourself? I’ve heard several urban legend styled methods and for all I know any one of them could work. (Or none.) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/47 "2010-04-04T12:11:16Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > How about The Mummy, where they’re all in a biplane being persued by a Mummy-induced sandstorm, and crash-land relatively safely, only to see the plane and pilot (Dr. Bombay) swallowed up by dry quicksand. I didn’t see The Mummy, so I can’t say one way or the other. Sounds fun though! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/48 "2010-04-04T16:59:07Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Okay, **jjimm** , what technique did you use to free yourself? I’ve heard several urban legend styled methods and for all I know any one of them could work. (Or none.) I’d love to be all Bear Grylls about it, but in reality I just asked for help. I was on a gypsum (I think) beach on an underground river in Vietnam. Stepped into a patch of the beach down on the water’s edge, and it was very waterlogged. My foot sunk in up to the knee, so in a classically stupid move, I tried to use my other foot to get the first one out - and that one went in up to the hip. Further movement ended up working my first leg further into the sand up to the thigh, so I stopped moving. I didn’t panic, though I could feel panic brewing. I knew that if the worst came to the worst, I should lie back and “swim” in it, and be patient and allow my legs to float to the top, but there were a few people standing around on the firm sand, including the boatman, and I just motioned to them what was happening, and about three or four people grabbed my arms and pulled me out. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/49 "2010-04-04T17:08:39Z")
Sounds scary to me, **jjimm** , and I know you must have been glad to have those other people around. For the benefit of the others who were into the quicksand thing upthread, I found an old thread [Quicksand](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=380235) I started 07-18-2006, 12:12 PM and which accumulated 9 Replies and 148 Views by 07-18-2006 01:00 PM when **Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor** posted the last post. Amusing parallels in that thread. Also shows my weak memory for things! ---
**Author:** ![Goblin\_Queen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Goblin\_Queen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Goblin_Queen)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/50 "2010-04-04T22:42:12Z")
> [@stanger](#): > > A technique that always gets to me is the inanimate object that only moves, and moves closer, when you take your eyes off of it for a second. Knowing that you can’t possible watch something constantly, and knowing that as it gets closer you are soon going to die, is a very creepy feeling. > > I have seen this done with something as small and innocent as a childs doll, or a large stone statue. Always scares the hell out of me. You probably wouldn’t like SCP-173 then. [SCP-173 - SCP Foundation](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-173) Warning: there’s an image, and reading the accompanying text only makes it worse. For me, I get creeped out in movies by things mentioned above like mirrors and the guy behind the diner in Mulholland Drive (seriously, what was up with that?). Also scary: Absence of eyes. Examples include the Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth and a being in Jacob’s Ladder. Oh, and Jacob’s Ladder also had the lovely deserted subway…where nothing happens. Deserted public transport is terrifying to me for some reason. The movie also had horrible…things…filmed using the technique of undercranking, so that it looks like they move unnaturally fast. This lights up all the Very Bad Thing alarms in my brain. Finally, I don’t know if this is more disturbing than scary, but things being biological when they shouldn’t be. Things like guns, videotapes, and videogame consoles. Dear David Cronenberg: F U. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/51 "2010-04-04T23:15:42Z")
Pictures/paintings changing as you look away and look back always creep the fuck out of me. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/52 "2010-04-04T23:21:31Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Pictures/paintings changing as you look away and look back always creep the fuck out of me. In that case, don’t watch [The Night Gallery The Cemetery Part 1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL2MugYVUqo) and follow-up clips. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/53 "2010-04-05T00:04:06Z")
I definitely agree that “atmospheric” horror is definitely scarier than gratuitous blood n’ guts. **Mulholland Drive** is probably one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in this regard. The Winkies scene is definitely scary, but another one that I find creepy is the scene leading up to the Club Silencio. Rita voice when she was chanting “silencio” over and over again just got to me for some reason. It was so scary and unnatural that I’m getting chills just thinking about it. I think realism in death is pretty frightening to me too. Scenes like that are scary because there’s always a possibility that that sort of thing could happen to me. There was a scene in **The Pianist** where a group of men were made to lie on the ground in a line. A Nazi soldier then came and shot them all, one by one. The fact that stuff like that actually happened is something I find intensely terrifying. ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f08c70/32.png) [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/54 "2010-04-05T03:13:53Z")
It’s more recent than LoA, but there was a quicksand scene in _Southern Comfort._ ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/55 "2010-04-05T03:46:09Z")
When an actor can convincingly pull off a reaction of mortal terror it really helps, too; I’m thinking of the cop’s reaction to the reveal of his fate near the end of the original Wicker Man, and the Spanish actress in [REC]. ---
**Author:** ![Wheeljack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@Wheeljack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheeljack)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/56 "2010-04-05T04:08:20Z")
> [@Maiira](#): > > I think realism in death is pretty frightening to me too. Scenes like that are scary because there’s always a possibility that that sort of thing could happen to me. There was a scene in **The Pianist** where a group of men were made to lie on the ground in a line. A Nazi soldier then came and shot them all, one by one. The fact that stuff like that actually happened is something I find intensely terrifying. This gets to me too. A similar scene in **Schindler’s List** bothers me every time I think about it; several people are standing single file and a rifleman tries to shoot through them all with one bullet. The last couple of people in line aren’t hit, so they’re killed with a pistol, IIRC. That sort of “efficiency” in murder turns my stomach, because I know that things colder than that were done to people every day; people just like you and me. In fact sometimes I wish I could just blot that whole movie out of my head. What startles me the most, though, is when a threat is suddenly revealed to have been in the frame the whole time, unnoticed by the viewer, sort of like those “you’ll shit bricks” pictures. Anybody who’s seen **Twin Peaks** knows exactly what I’m talking about. **First Blood** even had a scene like this that scared the hell out of me, and it probably wasn’t supposed to. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/57 "2010-04-05T04:48:53Z")
I feel that “Paranormal Activity” plays strongly into very base, childhood fears. I’ve only seen a clip, and I feel comfortable saying that. Said clip was of a shot of a bedroom, with a handheld camera aimed through and open door and down an ink black hallway. I was instantly tense at this clip. It brought back years of fear. Because, as a child, is there anything more terrifying than what is about to burst free from the darkness of the hallway? In that vein, I agree with those who have said that anticipation, and release of that tension, make for the most frightening films. To use an unpopular film as an example - there’s a scene in the movie Signs where Mel Gibson knows that an alien is trapped in a man’s cupboard. He doesn’t want to see. He has to see. Slowly, he creeps up on his hands and knees with a knife as a mirror. He wants to leave. He doesn’t. He slips the mirror-knife under the door. He breaths. Nothing. Suddenly, a screech, claws. He shrieks. The gum in my mouth dissolved into mush at my terror. That had never happened before, nor has it happened since. ---
**Author:** ![malkavia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malkavia/32/5621_2.png) [@malkavia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/malkavia)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/58 "2010-04-05T04:56:11Z")
I agree with the poster who mentioned Jacob’s Ladder. There’s this unnaturally jerky movement that we saw a few times in that movie (and in every Tool video I’ve ever seen) which literally makes my stomach fall through my butt. Haaate it. I’m also especially susceptible to apparitions appearing in a frame where they weren’t before. For example, when someone closes a medicine camera and there’s someone behind them. Or in Stir of Echoes (my neck hair is on end just typing out the title of this movie) where he’s sitting on the couch and looks over and she’s just, there. She wasn’t there before, but now she is. AAAAGH. _pant pant pant_ I really cannot stand scary movies. And forget about Paranormal Activity. There were scenes that made me insist that my boyfriend walk me TO THE BATHROOM AND BACK for the rest of the night. I’d also like to nominate the scene in Exorcist 3 where the nurse passes through the hallway and something in white (holding a knife, iirc) follows her. Hate scary movies. _shudder_ ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/59 "2010-04-05T05:21:02Z")
> [@malkavia](#): > > I’m also especially susceptible to apparitions appearing in a frame where they weren’t before. For example, when someone closes a medicine camera and there’s someone behind them. Oh god, I am too. It’s one of the oldest horror movie tricks in the book, but it’s so, so very effective. Makes me think I’ll see something in the mirror that I shouldn’t whenever I’m washing my face or brushing my teeth. Shower horror, a la **Psycho** , is also very effective. Definitely plays on your sense of vulnerability. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109/60 "2010-04-05T11:27:17Z")
> [@malkavia](#): > > I’d also like to nominate the scene in Exorcist 3 where the nurse passes through the hallway and something in white (holding a knife, iirc) follows her. [YouTube link to the scene](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH8ynu0jRvY). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-elements-in-a-movie-spoilers-maybe/534109.md?page=4)