Jen’s 5 Scariest Film Moments

Happy Halloween!

As it’s Halloween, I thought it’d be fun to share with you my top 5 scariest film moments. This isn’t necessarily a list of my “favourite” horror films, but these are some of the most disturbing / effective film moments I can recall from memory. They aren’t in any particular order, but if you haven’t seen any of these films, I hope these clips inspire you to check them out. 

5) Headless Dance, Evil Dead 2 (1987)

I was allowed to watch Evil Dead 2 at far too young an age, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that fact. I think nowadays, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy are looked back upon as campy, roller coaster popcorn movies (which they are) but we sort of forget just how disturbing they could be. When I first saw this scene at 11 years old, I struggled to get the image of a dancing, headless torso out of my dreams for weeks - it’s emaciated, claymation body frolicking with glee in the moonlight, to Ash’s abject horror. Of course, later on in that same headless torso bursts into the wood shed flailing a chainsaw around, before mistakenly tearing itself in half right down the middle of its body - truly the stuff of nightmares. My nightmares, specifically. 

4) The House, The Blair Witch Project (1999)

 I think it’s understandable that a kid these days might watch The Blair Witch Project and wonder how anyone could have been so affected by it. In a lot of ways, it is just a group of kids walking around in the woods with video cameras. But context is everything. Perhaps better even than the film itself, was the Blair Witch’s marketing campaign, which went to the effort of creating a website and actual “documentaries” cementing the legend of these missing backpackers. Also, the actors were paid to go into hiding after the film’s release, further adding to the mystery of whether or not it was “real”. For an impressionable 10 year old like me at the time, I was all in - and the ending scene, showing two lost friends hearing each other scream around an abandoned, wooden house in the middle of nowhere still sends chills down my spine. Without showing any sort of “monster” at all, the film instead uses the shifting, confusing placement of time and space, along with the eerie setting to create the feeling of being tracked by some paranormal, unknowable entity - a witch. I do remember some people at the time talking about it being an “anticlimax” but for me, it lodged itself deep within my psyche. 

3) Chop! Chop! (The Wicker Man, 1973)

 The Wicker Man is one of my favourite films, period. It’s a folklorish, brooding, mystical horror that builds and builds to a point of claustrophobic hysteria. If you haven’t seen it, you owe it to yourself. In this scene, we know that the “Jester” is actually the Scottish policeman, sent to investigate a missing girl, in disguise. He, thinking he has the upper hand on the townsfolk, goes along with their ritual - and up to now it is unclear whether or not their traditions are just pageantry, or something much darker. It’s tense, and when you re-watch it with the knowledge of what the film is building to, the foreboding feels even worse. I’ve seen The Wicker Man literally heaps of times, and still - every time this scene comes on, I wonder whether or not someone is going to lose their head. 

2) The Cowboy (Mulholland Drive, 2001) 

There are so many David Lynch moments I could have picked for this list, as all of his work is covered in truly horrific imagery and nightmare aesthetic. But for me, the horror of this scene goes much deeper. A film director is seemingly having his film meddled with by executives, who insist he put a particular actress in the lead role - why exactly, it isn’t clear. What is clear though, is the seemingly calm menace with which this “request” is delivered. Mulholland Drive is a wild movie, with many terrifying scenes that I could talk about for days, and is somewhat impossible to completely give context to - it’s probably best if you just watch it for yourself. 

1) Eggs (Funny Games, 1997)

 Funny Games is a film about two boys, who turn up to a family’s holiday home - and proceed to psychologically & physically torture that family. In this scene, the boys make out that they need to borrow some eggs, however they intentionally drop them on the floor. Anyone who has been bullied can appreciate the horror of a scene like this. The film taps into a deep fear most of us have to being messed with, and how sometimes you simply can’t reason with cruelty or insanity. The two boys in Funny Games are seemingly devoid of any empathy, and although the physical torturing they dole out is horrific, it’s the psychological stuff that really hurts.