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“What’s A Single Shot From A Film That Will Haunt You Forever?”: 30 People Reveal The Scariest Single Shots In Films They Will Never Be Able To Shake Off
Oftentimes, a horror movie is nothing but a bunch of cheap jumpscares. You know how it goes, the character is slowly walking into a quiet dim room, then they look at the mirror and bam, a loud, jarring sound blasts from the speakers as a ghost suddenly appears in the reflection. It's an effective technique if you want to spook the audience for a second.
But to truly traumatize them, to plant a nightmarish seed into their mind, filmmakers need to craft a tension that lasts for the entire script, chilling set design, costumes, and make-up as well as plenty of other details. It's difficult and expensive, but every now and then we get such a gem.
Interested in which productions have frightened people the most, actor Elijah Wood recently tweeted a question, asking everyone to share stills from the screen that continue to terrify them long after seeing the credits. Here are some of the replies he has received.
Image credits: elijahwood
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#2
tuzdayschild 3 years ago
This is from Jojo Rabbit. He knows this is his mom by the shoes. She actively resisted the Nazis and this was herpunishment.
But have you wondered that what makes horror movies scary might be... us?
"We are the monster," said James Kendrick, Ph.D., associate professor of film and digital media in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences. Kendrick has authored three books: Darkness in the Bliss-Out: A Reconsideration of the Films of Steven Spielberg; Hollywood Bloodshed: Violence in the 1980s American Cinema; and Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre.
He believes that the themes of horror films have changed and developed over the years to capture the zeitgeist and adapt to societal fears.
#4
Bobby 3 years ago
Elephants on parade is one of the biggest wtf moments in children's movies. Right up there with the alligator in all dogs go to heaven or those weird puppets in labyrinth that play catch with their heads
GoGoPDX 3 years ago
I forgot about the weird pull apart Labyrinth birds. Those freak me out still.
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Bonni Poch 3 years ago
My mom wouldn't let me see it. I couldn't understand how a Disney movie wouldn't be suitable for a kid. Now I understand that it's hardly suitable for an adult!
Serene Johnson 3 years ago
Yup. This gave me nightmares as a kid, and I still can't watch Dumbo
LoudMansLover 3 years ago
It's "pink elephants on parade" from Dumbo - look it up on youtube it's creepy as heck!
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Ginger Burns 3 years ago
This song is just one of the many reasons I hate “Dumbo,” and won’t watch it.
#5
"Character and story, atmosphere and the monster. That’s all you really need," Kendrick said.
"Interesting, engaging characters in an effective setting pitted against some kind of monstrosity. That is the core of the genre, and anything and everything else grows from and functions to support those three elements."
The audience must be able to relate to characters and empathize with them. The atmosphere must engage the audience and provide an effective platform for fear.
According to the professor, the 2017 film “Get Out,” written and directed by Jordan Peele, is a good example.
#9
Sally Horrocks 3 years ago
For me it's the scene just after this. Once of the best film endings of all time.
#10
#11
Deborah Harris 3 years ago
This was pretty ewwwy but the part that creeped me the most was her in her nightgown saying to the astronaut 'You're going to die' and then peeing herself
“The film intelligently mixes its various horror conventions, including stalk-and-slash scares, fears about secret cults and medical horror, with both comedy and social satire to make a point about troubled race relations in our ‘post-racial’ nation,” Kendrick explained.
"The protagonist is an African-American who finds himself increasingly concerned about the intentions of all the white people around him. In effect, polite, wealthy white society becomes the film’s raging monster."
#12
Rachel Peterson 3 years ago
ugh! I'd forgotten this one... now will have a nightmare tonight...
#13
ComfyPanda 3 years ago
Nope. I had nightmares of this movie as a child. That sound he made when he screamed. Still can't watch it as an adult. Please don't down vote me for this. Just relaying an experience I had as a small kid that to me was very traumatic.
In the same way that characters and settings have developed throughout history, so has the monster. Kendrick pointed out that a great monster will capitalize on the existing fears of society and use these for a greater scare factor.
"The monsters are more often than not simply an extension or elaboration of what we fear due to our mortal condition. At the heart of horror is always the fear of death – physical or spiritual."
#18
Deborah Harris 3 years ago
Isn't this return to Oz? If so yep made me feel freaked and I was watching it with my daughter who was younger then.
Fear is so effective because it is able to play with human empathy, Kendrick said. By using current trends, directors and producers are able to generate characters and settings that their audience can relate to.
"The best films, the ones that really stand out in our memory, are the ones that we connect with emotionally through characters and that we sense have a deeper purpose than just causing anxiety," Kendrick said.
Consider the 2014 film 'The Babadook.'
"‘It is grounded in real, recognizable human emotions, which makes it as dramatically compelling as it is scary," Kendrick said. "The film is not so much about a shadowy supernatural figure lurking in the corner as it is about very real parental fears about inadequacy and conflicted love."
#27
Gemma jones 3 years ago
that makes me question every time i watch it, so say you have a bit of skin you peel it off are you really going to carry on and oops my face is in the sink lol
Also, despite the few successes in recent years, Kendrick believes today’s horror films are often dull and one-dimensional, relying on an increasingly tired set of visual and audio clichés.
According to him, they lack connection to the characters, the circumstances in which those characters find themselves, and any sense of social or cultural meaning.
#29
#30
Malus Darkblade 3 years ago
Watched this age 10. Scared the bejeezuz out of me. watched as an adult. Actually quite funny.
"If you don’t care for or identify with the characters whose mortality is at stake, it is just a hollow exercise in style," Kendrick said.
"We all fear death and are aware of our human mortality, and the best horror films engage that fear in complex and challenging and – yes – artful ways."
#31
#45
#49
Java Addict 3 years ago
Watched this when I was a kid. Have been afraid of dummies ever since. Anthony Hopkins is brilliant in it though.
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Gemma jones 3 years ago
when Christopher Lloyd had the googly eyes in Roger Rabbit i hid behind my hands
Sarah Jane 3 years ago
I came here to say I can't believe the scene where he lowers that poor shoe into the acid isn't on here!!! My mom had to carry me, screaming at the top of my lungs, out of the theater. I still haven't finished that movie. RIP, poor little shoe, you deserved better.
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Nicola Roberts 3 years ago
No one mentioned Watership Down. It's more than 40 years since I watched the cartoon, but nothing in the world would make me watch it again.
Sam Cook 3 years ago
It’s a beautiful film. Been meaning to watch it again recently. Love the novel, too.
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DuchessDegu 3 years ago
Psycho. No, not the shower scene. When mother's face is revealed. I watched the film just yesterday for the umpteenth time and I STILL hid my face under the blanket!
Dodo 2 years ago
For me it's the end shot of Norman smiling. Makes me shiver.
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Anon822209 3 years ago
I can't watch that movie. Can't do it. I know it's a good movie with a great story, but the violence and cruelty makes me wanna puke
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Karen Bryan 3 years ago
For me (please allow for the fact that I was born during the Truman administration), none of these comes within a mile of Vera Miles descending into the cellar and calling out, "Mrs. Bates? Mrs. Bates?". Then Mrs. Bates turns around, with that bare lightbulb swaying overhead...for me, much scarier than the shower scene. And in case you young people have all been living on Mars, the movie is "Psycho". 1960.
Tiny Dancer 3 years ago
"Trilogy of Terror" with Karen Black. The Doll. Those who are old enough to have seen this thing on TV back in the '70s, like me, will attest to its horror! Trilogy-of...d5b38f.png 
Amy Taylor 3 years ago
They have it on display at one of the movie studios. I was working there and it's under glass. Still scared the s**t out of me, lol
Load More Replies...
Wysteria_Rose 3 years ago
I was a kid when this came out so I know it's not the scariest film but the suspense jumps really got to me: M. Night Shymalan's Signs, like any shot that showed the alien, especially the news report birthday scene when you just see the thing stride across the alleyway.
Trash (she/her) 3 years ago
The IT scene when Georgie's arm gets ripped off. The eyes and the teeth just freaked me out. Also in the second movie when Patrick's zombie comes crawling out from under the bed at the camera.
Helen Waight 3 years ago
The resconstructed final log from the Event Horizon (film name the same). That shot of a guy holding out his own eyeballs…
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
Do any of the State of the Union speeches from the previous administration count?
Moosy Girl 3 years ago
I came here to say that. Even after having seen it many times, even knowing what the actress (Bonnie Aarons) normally looks like and knowing it’s her, I still feel like I’m going to get a heart attack together with the guy during that scene.
Load More Replies...
Leo Domitrix 3 years ago
Mine will always be the sequence in original Toy Story film at Sid's bedroom. Those toys gave me horrors.
gibsonpic 3 years ago
For me it was W***y Wonkas boat ride through hell...my god it still makes me cover my eyes!!
Jiji The Cat 3 years ago
thank you bp for censoring a famous kid's book character's name, we would have been traumatised without you
Load More Replies... Wintermute 3 years ago
A lot of great entries here, and a few more for my queue. A couple not mentioned. When they found the dead girl in the closet from The Ring. When Billy Crystal's hand became a monster and ate Fred Savages homework in Little Monsters. I'll remember those forever. Oh, and Little Foot finding the body of... no, no I can't relive that. Too soon...
Equine_Ravenclaw_Directioner 3 years ago
Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Last ark - melting nazi faces
Linziaj 3 years ago
Mines the bugs carrying the man off in crystal skull I think. Gives me shivers
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Kantami Blossom 3 years ago (edited)
The bird getting its head chopped off during the boat ride scene in W***y Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, that scene literally traumatised me for life (I was watching it whilst eating mashed potatoes when I noticed the bird for the first time and had to run to the toilet as I started throwing up, to this day 30 odd years later I can't even be in the same room as someone eating mashed potatoes without me being physically sick).
ToyWyvern 3 years ago
My condolences, that's a serious bummer of a fear trigger. Mashed potatoes are one of my favorite easy-to-make side dishes.
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Casey Payne 3 years ago
Salem's Lot: the scene with the brother floating just outside the window, scratching at the glass asking to be let in. I was about 8 when I saw it. (My babysitter let me stay up to watch it, and no, my mother was not pleased.) glick-6312...0b80ab.gif 
Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 3 years ago (edited)
Because I am a total wimp I am going to add any scene where Vecna is killing one of their victims in Strange Things Season 4. I know that the show is "horror light", but I was not prepared for the amount of pretty graphic body horror in this season, especially considering they are teenager.
Potato 3 years ago
The one in the original tweet? It's from the film "begotten" https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0101420/
Load More Replies...
PattonPawter 3 years ago
for me it’s more like sad than scary: the ending of The Book Thief. I’m not going to spoil it though, so read the book or watch the movie. (Fellow pandas, PLEASE DO NOT SPOIL IN THE REPLIES. There may have been people who haven’t read the book and don’t want spoilers.)
Sunshine Daydream 3 years ago
The Looney Tunes portion of the Twilight Zone movie. I cannot watch any old Bugs Bunny type of toons anymore, even decades later
Sam Cook 3 years ago
One that haunts me still isn’t because it’s scary (at least, not in a horror film way), but because it’s so sad. Titanic still hits me hard during the “Nearer My God to Thee” scene, where you see Isidor and Ida Strauss holding each other close as their room fills with water and the mother telling her children a story, knowing they won’t be able to make it, and when the lifeboats return and Fifth Officer Lowe sees the mother and her baby who have frozen in the water and he says, “We waited too long.”
Jiji The Cat 3 years ago (edited)
That scene in Coraline(The whole movie).
This scene in hereditary horror-631...219bac.jpg 
The babadook
LuLuShenanigan 3 years ago
Large Marge from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. I'm in my 40's and I still can't handle seeing her. 👀
Valerian Haven 3 years ago
Honestly. I'm gonna go old school and it's the alien out if the toilet in Species. Relieved when watching DreamCatcher and they had one of the worms trapped in the toilet.
Scarlett 3 years ago
Never actually seen the movie but clicked on one of those movie scene things about it, mistakenly thinking there’d be a demon or something scary. Nope. Dude got his toes cut off with a wire cutter and projectile vomited with a ball gag in. Still have nightmares about that one. (This was Hostel)
Amy Taylor 3 years ago
Sadako's freaky looking eye in Ringu in that single closeup frame with it all twisted. Yikes.
Bob La Capra 3 years ago
The Birds (1963). The lifeless, eyeless body of the farmer on his bedroom floor.
Tree P 3 years ago
I saw that as a child and even today that part creeps me out!
Load More Replies... 
Jordi Sharpe 3 years ago
Grendel's reveal in the CGI Beowulf. That scene took something from my soul, and I'm pretty sure Crispin Glover has it hidden in an amulet somewhere.
Lara Verne 3 years ago
That dog from Invasion of Body Snatchers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2ah2mwo1oM
Aidan Pite 3 years ago
The little smirk on Elijah Wood's face when he's being strapped up with barbed wire in that scene of Sin City will haunt me until the end of time.
Christian Fuller 3 years ago
Haunting in a scary way: When the Pale Man reveals his eyes in Pan's Labyrinth. That, or when Coraline's parallel-world mother reveals her true nature. Haunting in a good way: Just after, "On your left," when the first portal opens on the battlefield in Avengers: Endgame
Melanie Filmer 3 years ago
One of the Freddy Kruger when all the veins come out like a puppet 🙈🙈
UpQuarkDownQuark 3 years ago
There were a half dozen scenes in Poltergeist that scared the bejeebus out of me when I was a kid. A few years ago my wife and I saw it at a kind of pop-up drive-in theater, and the kids watching were laughing at it. Times change.
LapCat 3 years ago (edited)
Hey Pandas! I need your help trying to remember the title of a movie - it came out in the early 2000s I believe. The scene I remember took place at night in a bedroom, the protagonist was in some sort of a panic (can’t remember why) and he fell somehow and ended up lying at the side of the bed, face up. The scene cuts to his point of view - looking up from where he fell - and this ghost/scary thing sloooowly starts to appear from over the bed looking down at him. The scene scared the shït out of me. I cant remember the title of that movie!
Benita Valdez 3 years ago
Do you have any more details? Anything else you remember? Honestly for a moment there I was thinking of Trainspotting but that was '96 and it was a baby/doll on the ceiling while he was going through dt's from heroin
Load More Replies... 
H M 3 years ago
Horror, meh. Worst scene for me , in GOT when The Mountain chopped his horses head off.
Helen Morgan 3 years ago
Sounds like The Godfather, the movie producer waking up to a horse head in his bed.
Load More Replies...
Gemma jones 3 years ago
when Christopher Lloyd had the googly eyes in Roger Rabbit i hid behind my hands
Sarah Jane 3 years ago
I came here to say I can't believe the scene where he lowers that poor shoe into the acid isn't on here!!! My mom had to carry me, screaming at the top of my lungs, out of the theater. I still haven't finished that movie. RIP, poor little shoe, you deserved better.
Load More Replies... Nicola Roberts 3 years ago
No one mentioned Watership Down. It's more than 40 years since I watched the cartoon, but nothing in the world would make me watch it again.
Sam Cook 3 years ago
It’s a beautiful film. Been meaning to watch it again recently. Love the novel, too.
Load More Replies... DuchessDegu 3 years ago
Psycho. No, not the shower scene. When mother's face is revealed. I watched the film just yesterday for the umpteenth time and I STILL hid my face under the blanket!
Dodo 2 years ago
For me it's the end shot of Norman smiling. Makes me shiver.
Load More Replies... Anon822209 3 years ago
I can't watch that movie. Can't do it. I know it's a good movie with a great story, but the violence and cruelty makes me wanna puke
Load More Replies... Karen Bryan 3 years ago
For me (please allow for the fact that I was born during the Truman administration), none of these comes within a mile of Vera Miles descending into the cellar and calling out, "Mrs. Bates? Mrs. Bates?". Then Mrs. Bates turns around, with that bare lightbulb swaying overhead...for me, much scarier than the shower scene. And in case you young people have all been living on Mars, the movie is "Psycho". 1960.
Tiny Dancer 3 years ago
"Trilogy of Terror" with Karen Black. The Doll. Those who are old enough to have seen this thing on TV back in the '70s, like me, will attest to its horror! Trilogy-of...d5b38f.png
Amy Taylor 3 years ago
They have it on display at one of the movie studios. I was working there and it's under glass. Still scared the s**t out of me, lol
Load More Replies... Wysteria_Rose 3 years ago
I was a kid when this came out so I know it's not the scariest film but the suspense jumps really got to me: M. Night Shymalan's Signs, like any shot that showed the alien, especially the news report birthday scene when you just see the thing stride across the alleyway.
Trash (she/her) 3 years ago
The IT scene when Georgie's arm gets ripped off. The eyes and the teeth just freaked me out. Also in the second movie when Patrick's zombie comes crawling out from under the bed at the camera.
Helen Waight 3 years ago
The resconstructed final log from the Event Horizon (film name the same). That shot of a guy holding out his own eyeballs…
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
Do any of the State of the Union speeches from the previous administration count?
Moosy Girl 3 years ago
I came here to say that. Even after having seen it many times, even knowing what the actress (Bonnie Aarons) normally looks like and knowing it’s her, I still feel like I’m going to get a heart attack together with the guy during that scene.
Load More Replies... Leo Domitrix 3 years ago
Mine will always be the sequence in original Toy Story film at Sid's bedroom. Those toys gave me horrors.
gibsonpic 3 years ago
For me it was W***y Wonkas boat ride through hell...my god it still makes me cover my eyes!!
Jiji The Cat 3 years ago
thank you bp for censoring a famous kid's book character's name, we would have been traumatised without you
Load More Replies... Wintermute 3 years ago
A lot of great entries here, and a few more for my queue. A couple not mentioned. When they found the dead girl in the closet from The Ring. When Billy Crystal's hand became a monster and ate Fred Savages homework in Little Monsters. I'll remember those forever. Oh, and Little Foot finding the body of... no, no I can't relive that. Too soon...
Equine_Ravenclaw_Directioner 3 years ago
Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Last ark - melting nazi faces
Linziaj 3 years ago
Mines the bugs carrying the man off in crystal skull I think. Gives me shivers
Load More Replies... Kantami Blossom 3 years ago (edited)
The bird getting its head chopped off during the boat ride scene in W***y Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, that scene literally traumatised me for life (I was watching it whilst eating mashed potatoes when I noticed the bird for the first time and had to run to the toilet as I started throwing up, to this day 30 odd years later I can't even be in the same room as someone eating mashed potatoes without me being physically sick).
ToyWyvern 3 years ago
My condolences, that's a serious bummer of a fear trigger. Mashed potatoes are one of my favorite easy-to-make side dishes.
Load More Replies... Casey Payne 3 years ago
Salem's Lot: the scene with the brother floating just outside the window, scratching at the glass asking to be let in. I was about 8 when I saw it. (My babysitter let me stay up to watch it, and no, my mother was not pleased.) glick-6312...0b80ab.gif
Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 3 years ago (edited)
Because I am a total wimp I am going to add any scene where Vecna is killing one of their victims in Strange Things Season 4. I know that the show is "horror light", but I was not prepared for the amount of pretty graphic body horror in this season, especially considering they are teenager.
Potato 3 years ago
The one in the original tweet? It's from the film "begotten" https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0101420/
Load More Replies... PattonPawter 3 years ago
for me it’s more like sad than scary: the ending of The Book Thief. I’m not going to spoil it though, so read the book or watch the movie. (Fellow pandas, PLEASE DO NOT SPOIL IN THE REPLIES. There may have been people who haven’t read the book and don’t want spoilers.)
Sunshine Daydream 3 years ago
The Looney Tunes portion of the Twilight Zone movie. I cannot watch any old Bugs Bunny type of toons anymore, even decades later
Sam Cook 3 years ago
One that haunts me still isn’t because it’s scary (at least, not in a horror film way), but because it’s so sad. Titanic still hits me hard during the “Nearer My God to Thee” scene, where you see Isidor and Ida Strauss holding each other close as their room fills with water and the mother telling her children a story, knowing they won’t be able to make it, and when the lifeboats return and Fifth Officer Lowe sees the mother and her baby who have frozen in the water and he says, “We waited too long.”
Jiji The Cat 3 years ago (edited)
That scene in Coraline(The whole movie).
This scene in hereditary horror-631...219bac.jpg The babadook
LuLuShenanigan 3 years ago
Large Marge from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. I'm in my 40's and I still can't handle seeing her. 👀
Valerian Haven 3 years ago
Honestly. I'm gonna go old school and it's the alien out if the toilet in Species. Relieved when watching DreamCatcher and they had one of the worms trapped in the toilet.
Scarlett 3 years ago
Never actually seen the movie but clicked on one of those movie scene things about it, mistakenly thinking there’d be a demon or something scary. Nope. Dude got his toes cut off with a wire cutter and projectile vomited with a ball gag in. Still have nightmares about that one. (This was Hostel)
Amy Taylor 3 years ago
Sadako's freaky looking eye in Ringu in that single closeup frame with it all twisted. Yikes.
Bob La Capra 3 years ago
The Birds (1963). The lifeless, eyeless body of the farmer on his bedroom floor.
Tree P 3 years ago
I saw that as a child and even today that part creeps me out!
Load More Replies... Jordi Sharpe 3 years ago
Grendel's reveal in the CGI Beowulf. That scene took something from my soul, and I'm pretty sure Crispin Glover has it hidden in an amulet somewhere.
Lara Verne 3 years ago
That dog from Invasion of Body Snatchers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2ah2mwo1oM
Aidan Pite 3 years ago
The little smirk on Elijah Wood's face when he's being strapped up with barbed wire in that scene of Sin City will haunt me until the end of time.
Christian Fuller 3 years ago
Haunting in a scary way: When the Pale Man reveals his eyes in Pan's Labyrinth. That, or when Coraline's parallel-world mother reveals her true nature. Haunting in a good way: Just after, "On your left," when the first portal opens on the battlefield in Avengers: Endgame
Melanie Filmer 3 years ago
One of the Freddy Kruger when all the veins come out like a puppet 🙈🙈
UpQuarkDownQuark 3 years ago
There were a half dozen scenes in Poltergeist that scared the bejeebus out of me when I was a kid. A few years ago my wife and I saw it at a kind of pop-up drive-in theater, and the kids watching were laughing at it. Times change.
LapCat 3 years ago (edited)
Hey Pandas! I need your help trying to remember the title of a movie - it came out in the early 2000s I believe. The scene I remember took place at night in a bedroom, the protagonist was in some sort of a panic (can’t remember why) and he fell somehow and ended up lying at the side of the bed, face up. The scene cuts to his point of view - looking up from where he fell - and this ghost/scary thing sloooowly starts to appear from over the bed looking down at him. The scene scared the shït out of me. I cant remember the title of that movie!
Benita Valdez 3 years ago
Do you have any more details? Anything else you remember? Honestly for a moment there I was thinking of Trainspotting but that was '96 and it was a baby/doll on the ceiling while he was going through dt's from heroin
Load More Replies... H M 3 years ago
Horror, meh. Worst scene for me , in GOT when The Mountain chopped his horses head off.
Helen Morgan 3 years ago
Sounds like The Godfather, the movie producer waking up to a horse head in his bed.
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