The scene in Final Destination when the girl steps off the curb into the street and WHAM!
Holy Shit!
The shot in Jaws when Hooper is underwater, looking at a sunken ship, and a head floats out of a hole in the hull of the boat. I still jump a little, having seen the movie maybe dozens of times…
hrh
hrhomer: Yes, totally agree! That would be my pick. That scene near scared me to death when I first saw it. OK, I was only a kid, but even now it still makes me jump.
I’d heard that too, originally, but it seems that’s not entirely accurate.
They all knew something was gonna rip out of his chest*, but they didn’t know the specifics, in advance.
I seem to recall hearing someplace that Veronica Cartwright tripped backwards over her chair just after her reaction shot, and mildly injured herself, but I’ve never heard a verifiable cite for this.
*[sub]While the guys under the table operating the hand puppet and fake blood were hidden or cropped out for the cameras, the cast on the set were well aware that they were down there.[/sub]
Still, it was a damn good “gotcha” for the audience.
The thing that I love the most about this one is that the movie actually gives you a HUGE clue to this revelation RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE. You’re not meant to notice it, of course, but the fact that it’s there is, I think, wonderful. 
When my parents were watching Carrie for the first time on TV, the scene that japatlgt mentioned caused my mother to jump so badly, she doused my father with coffee (she got me with tea during a similar scene in another movie). Ever since then, if a scene started to get tense, we had to say “put your coffee down, mom” just for our own protection.
The first time I saw Fight Club, I thought the ending was pretty shocking
I mean, movie bombs are never supposed to go off! They’re almost always supposed to be duds, or get stopped with 1 second left on the timer. Even the book version of Fight Club ended this way!
The second Indiana Jones movie. Yes, I was a kid at the time. Remember that scene with MANY inscects and bugs? Right then was when my father, and his dubious sense of humor, reached over and lightly tickled my shoulder, up near my EAR!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
insects, even.
The part in Eraserhead where
he cuts open the baby. Really the whole movie is too surreal to be truly surprising, but when that happened I was truly shocked.
That scene in Friday the 13th. You know the one.
Also, shocking in a very different way (and in a very different movie):
“She’s my daughter…(slap)…my sister…(slap)…my daughter…(slap)…my sister…She’s my daughter and she’s my sister”
Yes, this has been the only movie I’ve watched where I had to force myself not to just turn it off, because of the shock/violence factor. This movie also contains the best “jump moment” I’ve ever experienced. It comes well before the ending sequence. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know.
So maybe I’m dense, but I didn’t spot this clue. Care to share?
The scene in The Shining where Wendy reads the sheet on Jack’s typewriter, and then goes through the whole box of sheets on the desk.
The part at the end of Kids where Casper wakes up and rapes a comatose Jenny… EWWWWW…
The end of The Devil’s Advocate, with Keanu blowing his brains out (although it was oddly satisfying)
The opening of Ghost Ship and the rope that cheese slices almost everyone on board…
Nearly forgot this one… the home video being shown on the news about midway through Signs, just for sheer “Holy shit! My disbelief is suspended!” value…
I recall hearing that even though the actors were aware of the subject of the scene, and the effects were planned in advance, that the specifics of the floor effects surprised Veronica Cartwright. There was a blood tube that’s supposed to spurt stage blood at her, but instead, made a direct hit at her face. You can see she reacts instead of acts at first.
It’s something I only realized upon thinking about it afterwards, which is why I love it so much:
[spoiler]In the very first scene of the movie, Jody and Jude are in an amusement park, holding hands. At one point, he even steps into a tent to pee, still holding her hand. It’s around this time that he tells her (and I paraphrase), “I’ve never held a woman’s hand before, but it feels really good.”
When you find out that Jody supposedly has a longtime girlfriend, this statement suddenly makes absolutely no sense. How could he NOT have held her hand, considering that they were close enough for Jody’s last thoughts to be of her? And it’s certainly not the kind of thing one would lie about off the top of your head.
Ahh, but when Dil’s gender is revealed, then the statement makes a whole lot more sense. But it’s certainly the kind of subtle clue that I love.[/spoiler]
Hope someone can confirm that I’m just not imagining this.
It’s something I only realized upon thinking about it afterwards, which is why I love it so much:…
Hope someone can confirm that I’m just not imagining this. **
[/QUOTE]
Good job, Leaper! I wondered why that scene felt so odd, like there was an undercurrent there.
Here’s my contribution: The Last Emperor
The boy emperor Pu Yi is under house arrest, and one day runs to the heavy doors of the palace and watching them close as he reaches them, screams “I want to go out! I want to go out!” He then hurls his pet mouse against the doors in frustration where it hits with a bloody smack.
Not huge, not like Alien, but I just jumped when that happened.
Can’t remember all the moments, but the most recent has to be the Wolveerine/Deathstrike fight from X2. It was rather over-the-top, at least compared to the fight scenes in the first movie, and I wasn’t quite expecting that.
Earliest moment is probably from Robocop, when the outlaw gang has Officer Murphy pinned down and proceeds to turn him into a quadraplegic… ick.
Someone spoil ‘Carrie’ for me…
“with the you know what coming out of you know where.”