6 Genuinely Scary Movie Scenes

It's fun to be scared. No, really, it is one of the few emotions that remind us we still have a heartbeat. That feeling of anxiousness growing in your chest when you know something f*cked up is about to happen in a movie is the same feeling you get when that massive roller coaster you are on is slowly climbing up to its first drop. You know it's coming, you know it is going to be intense, but you also know there is nothing you can do but buckle in and enjoy the ride. While a list of genuinely scary moments may seem sort of general, there's more to this article than just that. It's important to realize that nowadays, horror movies just aren't that scary. That is not to insult the slew of awesome horror that is still coming out, month after month, but to say it has been "scary" would be a stretch. But, let us not forget, there are still some very scary movie scenes in existence, so let us not think that the idea of a movie scaring us is extinct. It just doesn't happen all that often anymore. So, on that note, let's take a look back at 6 genuinely scary movie scenes. 1) Poltergeist - Toy Clown Scene I don't care who you are, where you're from or what you've done, as long as this scares you (I really hope you DIDN'T see what I just did there). The best part is, this scene is from a PG movie. Though Poltergeist is filled with many genuinely frightening scenes (getting sucked into closet, face tear away, demon in hallway), I think the scariest scene (and tend to think many agree with me) was when the son Robbie starts looking at the toy clown at the end of his bed with apprehension (what sick kid would want this fucking toy in the first place?), and you can tell from the tension that something IS going to happen. You just don't know when. The tension in the scene mounts and mounts until finally, the clown is missing from where it was. For Robbie (and the audience), this is when the terror begins, and it just doesn't let up. The killer toy clown fucks that kid up pretty badly. 2) The Exorcist - Pazuzu Flash For me to choose one scary scene from The Exorcist is like choosing my favorite aspect of bacon (it's bacon, I love the entirety of it). So to say one scene is scarier than the other in a movie that is, frankly, filled with scares, is tough. At first, I thought my vote might go to the scene when Regan talks to the priest as his dead mother, or the "crabwalk scene" from the re-release, which was also creepy as hell. But, the clincher for me was those very subliminal shots we would get of Pazuzu, the demon who was actually inside the little girl. The funny part is, you can tell it is just some basic face paint, fake eyes and fake teeth when they flash the demon, but even in a still frame, as seen above, it is incredibly effective (AKA scary as fuck). At least for me, anyway. Sometimes, when I want to be scared, my mind will just flash that face into my head and it will be like an instant horror fix. On the other extreme, the headspin scene was always ridiculous to me (possession doesn't mean that the basic laws of how bones work change) and the vomit scene I've always found hilarious. So in the end, Pazuzu wins. 3) Martyrs - The Bathroom Scene You didn't think I was just going to fill the list with classics, did you? Oh no, there is modern horror that is still scary. Just, more often than not, it comes from somewhere other than America. This is not to insult American screenwriters or directors. Rather, it's more because of the higher ups in Hollywood who force some genuinely sick minds to water down their material for mass consumption, and that problem has not yet touched other shores. I knew I had to have Martyrs on this list somewhere, but the problem was, most of the film is not so much scary as it is unsettling and brutal. Then, I remembered the beginning of the movie, and how creepy it was before we knew what was going on. So, what really stuck out to me? The bathroom scene. At this point in the film (slight spoiler alert), I had no idea if Lucie's demon was literal or not, so seeing this twisted, terrifying beast pursuing this girl while she was alone in the bathroom was, in my opinion, terrifying. You can check it out for yourself in the video below to see what I'm talking about. 4) Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Judge Doom Final Reveal Oh man, I am going to get shit for this. I just went from Martyrs, one of the most EXTREME horror films ever made, to a half cartoon movie by Disney. But let's be real for a second here, Disney knows how to scare people. They have always been amazingly effective at creating villains that we all love and fear. However, when they created Judge Doom from Roger Rabbit, I don't think they realized just how many people (especially kids who went into it thinking it was somewhat safe) were messed up by the final reveal. From the red eyes to the way he brags about killing Eddie Valient's brother to the freakish way his voice keeps climbing higher and higher, it is a surprisingly scary moment in an otherwise...ah, who am I kidding. Disney is mad fucked up and knew just what they were doing. Huge props to Christopher Lloyd as well, who just went all-in on the bat shit scariness of this character. Some may scoff that this movie is on the list, but that's okay. This shit was scary, and I like tossing curveballs. You should know that about me by now. 5) Funny Games - Kid Hiding In House Scene Funny Games is one of the greatest horror films (and meta films) ever made. It deconstructs the genre while hypothetically (and almost literally) asking the audience why we like it. Though the film has a relentless sense of tension throughout its entirety, the scene when the son thought he had gotten away, only to see that the neighbors (who he went to seek refuge with at the time) had all already been butchered, was scary as hell. As if that isn't bad enough, then he gets discovered and things get a whole lot scarier. The scene culminates with one of the antagonists finding the boy and, well, just see for yourself: - The Final Scene The Spanish movie might just be the best found-footage horror movie of all time. I really stand behind that. It is so fucking good that I watched it without subtitles and no ability at all to speak the language and was still utterly enthralled by the entire thing. While many thought this was a "zombie" film (as it does appear as one), I kinda thought it was a "people with rabies" film, which was fine by me. But the final moments in the movie revealed there was something more afoot here. While some people just saw it and assumed the thing in the apartment at the end of the movie was a nasty, gangly old person, there were things about it that indicated something inhuman. The extra long limbs, the size and shape of the head and body, and the noises it made. Truly a genuinely scary moment in a film that was full of them. By the series had gone a little off-the-rails, but the ending of the original was just about perfect when it comes to scaring your audience and sending them away with an uneasy feeling, which is a sign of success for a good horror film.