Halloween is a time of year when you get close to some one you care about, turn off all the lights and put on a movie that will give you nightmares. The best way to ensure a night of tossing in your sleep is to find a scary movie with powerful visuals that will stick with you and keep you up for hours. Good horror movies have at least one intense scene that appears back in your mind whenever you close you eyes and makes you shiver when you think about it. Here are a group of the finest scenes horror movies have to offer, in no particular order.
1. Night of the Living Dead (1968) -- One of the first gore and violence horror flicks still has one of the most disturbing scenes in scary cinema. As the film's title zombies burst into a house filled with terrified people, an injured girl becomes one of the living dead and murders her parents. The action is shown with shadows and the sound is utterly disturbing.
2. Psycho (1960) -- The shower murder scene is one of the most classic sequences in the history of horror. A series of quickly-cut camera shots show us a knife, blood rolling down the shower drain and a woman screaming but leave all the real violence to the viewer's imagination. But that's where most of the real fun in horror movies takes place.
3. Jaws (1975) -- The movie begins with a girl going out to skinny dip while her drunken boyfriend lies passed out on the sand. The girl moves through the water and smiles-- everything seems fine. Then her face changes, and she suddenly gets pulled under the water. The screaming starts and the girl is pulled all over the screen by an unseen attacker from below the water. She gets a moment's reprieve before being pulled underwater forever. The key to showing the best shark attack in movie history is that the viewers never see the shark.
4. Halloween (1978) -- Michael Myers (Tony Moran) is the serial killer who won't die. He has stalked through innumerable sequels hunting Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), but Myer's creepiest actions are in the original. As the movie draws to a close, Jamie Lee Curtis thinks she killed Myers and rests against a staircase. Looming over her shoulder, Myers rises up and the audience knows the movie is far from over.
5. The Exorcist (1973) -- This movie shows a little girl possessed by the spirit of the devil. When two priests come to exorcise the evil spirit, the girl's room has become a den of evil. The spirit splits the girl's skin and turned it green so that she resembles a monster instead of a child. When the priests begin the exorcism, the girl's head spins 360 degrees, creating a classic and terrifying scene.
6. Carnival of Souls (1962) -- In this black and white cult favorite, a church organist survives a brutal car crash only to be haunted by ghostly figures. As the heroine follows these phantoms to their source in an abandoned carnival, she finds herself at a gala for the undead. The images of sallow faces dancing amongst decaying carnival ruins and chilling music will definitely stick with you long after movie ends.
7. Evil Dead II (1987) -- Part comedy, part horror movie, all insane. The main character, Ash (Bruce Campbell), goes to a deserted cabin with his girlfriend and unleashes an ancient evil. Now demons are possessing everyone and Ash's only way out is to chop everyone into little tiny pieces. The movie is positively crazy, but no one should go through life without watching a man hunt for his own demonically possessed severed hand with a shotgun.
8. Nosferatu (1922) -- The first vampire film is still probably one of the best. This German silent film looks fantastic, thanks to the skilled direction of F.W. Murnau and the horrifying appearance of actor Max Shreck. When vampire Count Orlock (Shreck) goes to America to seek new victims, he starts with the crew of the ship on which he is traveling. As night falls Orlock awakes, throwing aside the lid of his coffin and rising up motionless and menacingly with his eyes glaring. This image is one of the most immitated moments in cinematic history.
9. The Omen (1976) -- The antichrist is on Earth and he looks like the sweetest little boy you'll ever meet. This movie about the son of the devil is great because you get to see the boy mature in the care of unknowing and loving parents. Then when the boy grows older, stranger and stranger things begin to happen. Finally the boy "accidentally" knocks his mother over the railing of a high staircase. She manages to grab the rail as she falls and hangs helpless. The young antichrist just watches her with a cold stare as she hangs and begs for his help. The combination of the circumstance and the boy's expression are positively chilling.
10. The Ring (2002) -- This movie is about a videotape that kills you if you watch it. The finest scene in the film is also one of the scariest moments in recent cinema. Shortly after the movie begins, the audience is shown what the tape does to its victims in a short clip that is executed to make most people jump in their seats.
11. The Shining (1980) -- Stanley Kubrick's eerie masterpiece comes to a climax with one simple word. Little Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd) has psychic powers, and he begins to get visions of murder as Danny's father starts going insane. When Danny writes ??"RedRum' on the wall of his mother's bedroom and begins screaming everything goes crazy. Danny's mom has just enough time to notice that ??"RedRum' is murder spelled backwards before Danny's father bursts in with an ax. The scene has a great buildup and an even better delivery thanks to the fantastic acting of Jack Nicholson, who plays Danny's father.
12. Rosemary's Baby (1968) -- When a woman moves into a new apartment with her husband, she finds herself surrounded by a cult who wants to impregnate her with the son of Satan. Director Roman Polanski creates a fantastically creepy atmosphere that climaxes with a scene where the woman, drugged and in a haze, sees the devil himself. The scene is eerie and puts the viewer directly into the perspective of the drugged woman. The audience experiences the same disorientation and horror that the main character feels and this makes the film extremely memorable.
13. Pet Semetary (1989) -- Burying anyone in an Indian burial ground is never a good idea. Burying your dead infant son in hopes of resurrecting him is just a horrible idea. Though the movie is terrible, nothing is creepier than a re --animated toddler holding a razor blade. The ending alone is definitely worth watching.
Any of these movies will be a good choice for Halloween night. Whether you watch them with a group of friends or watch them alone, good luck trying to get to sleep on October 31st.
