Scariest Scenes in Non-Horror, Non-Monster Movies

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by JediJones, May 2, 2021.

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  1. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    A lot of times these are scenes that traumatize you when you were a kid in movies where were you weren't expecting it to happen. Sometimes it seems like the filmmakers had no idea the scenes would be as scary as they were.

    I'm not going to count horror-comedy hybrids like Gremlins, Ghostbusters and Tremors because they still acknowledge themselves as being part horror. These are going to be movies that are generally not described as being in the horror genre at all.

    A big one I've seen a lot of people comment about on YouTube is when Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit comes "back to life" after getting run over by the steamroller. I think especially the part where his voice goes high-pitched and he screams at Eddie. I was 11 when I saw it, so probably old enough that it didn't bother me. Although I was actually scared earlier in the movie by the big ape bodyguard with the deep voice who throws Eddie out.

    Another big one that did freak me out is in Superman 3 when the villain lady gets sucked into the giant computer and screams and moans while metal plates are fused to her body, turning her into a robotic avatar of the computer. Looks pretty silly now, but it was very creepy for a kid. I was 6 at the time.

    Frankly, even watching Superman 1 on TV around the time, I was scared at some of the scenes. Lois' car sinking into the earthquake crack as dirt covers her up. The school bus almost falling off the Golden Gate bridge. The dam bursting.

    I think Lindsey's drowning scene in The Abyss qualifies.

    I remember as a kid being scared or "freaked out" by some of the hospital scenes in E.T. Not sure if it was E.T.or Elliot who was dying as I don't remember the movie that well. I remember the big plastic tubes and men in breather masks were scary.

    The scene in Short Circuit 2 where Johnny 5 is attacked and dismembered by the crooks was definitely traumatizing.

    Also several Indiana Jones scenes, which certainly individually were intended to be scary or horrific...the snakes in the Well of the Souls, Marion getting stuck in the corridor with the skeletons, Short Round in Temple of Doom triggering the corpses to spring out of the wall, the heart-ripping scene, Donovan's rapid aging death by "poorly chosen" Grail in Last Crusade.

    The first sight of the Gamorrean Guards in Return of the Jedi was scary as was Luke about to get tossed into the Sarlacc Pit.

    And some things from The Goonies. Hearing Sloth and seeing parts of him in shadow. Chunk getting caught on the road by the Fratellis and later having his hand put in the blender. Chunk in the freezer with the stiff. Maybe some more of the booby traps in the caverns.
     
  2. Shoes1916

    Shoes1916 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    The number one scariest scene in any movie ever is when Michael reintroduces himself/proposes to Kay in The Godfather.

    Nightmare time...
     
  3. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I figured some mob/crime movies would make the list. I'm not a big connoisseur of those to know.

    A big one I forgot...the Large Marge scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Also the "devil" dream from that movie. I'm sure Burton has done others that qualify.

    I think scenes in The Wizard of Oz and Return to Oz have been cited for scariness, but I don't know those movies well enough.

    I also think some scenes in certain Disney animated features are considered scary. Have some vague memories of Pinocchio having scary stuff in it.

    Why are connoisseur and Pinocchio so hard to spell?
     
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  4. Brian Lux

    Brian Lux One in the Crowd

    Location:
    Placerville, CA
    Alex Honnold free climbing El Capitan in the documentary, "Free Solo". Both scary and awesome!
    [​IMG]
     
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  5. PapaMuerte

    PapaMuerte Zappatista

    Location:
    Neverland
    The ending of Requiem for a Dream was scary
     
  6. Onkster515

    Onkster515 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    The wire-walking scenes in Man On Wire—even though they were stills.
     
  7. BSU

    BSU Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis
    Multiple scenes in The KIlling Fields.
     
  8. mmars982

    mmars982 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    The plane crash in Cast Away
     
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  9. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    When I saw ' Pinocchio ' when I was a kid I almost pissed myself when he started to turn into a donkey.
     
  10. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    platoon - charlie sheen sitting in the rain in the dark with vietnamese soldiers coming towards him and he can' even move.
     
  11. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    This whole movie:
    [​IMG]
     
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  12. Glaeken

    Glaeken Forum Resident

    Location:
    OH
    The opening scene in CLIFFHANGER is nightmare fuel.

    The last 20 minutes of STRAW DOGS likewise.

    NO ESCAPE with Pierce Brosnan - the entire movie.
     
  13. Cable TV series FARGO, season 3, when actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Nikki Swango) is overtaken by the thugs and beaten...badly.
    There is no visual other than her intial capture, the rest of the scene is the sound of them beating her brutally, while we see the face of the person watching the beating.
     
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  14. TheNightfly1982

    TheNightfly1982 Forum Resident

    Location:
    The New Frontier
    This film will definitely give one second thoughts on ever becoming a landlord.
     
  15. Saving Private Ryan - Beach landing scene.
    Just imagine being in the landing craft?...........Running over your dead buddy to get to a safe position.....Realizing the "safe" position is really only slightly less dangerous than being IN the line of fire....Seeing your object, or not, and knowing you can't run fast enough to make the cover before they WILL be shooting at you.....
    Now understand our Fathers, Grandfathers, and Great Grandfathers literally did this......
     
  16. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Another vote for the Lampwick transformation in "Pinocchio"!

     
  17. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    Yeah, good call. That was horrifying. But even moreso are movies about the Holocaust, particularly The Pianist, where you see the horrors of Nazi atrocities against normal citizens. It's one thing to be a soldier in the line of fire, but for a mother to be walking down the street carrying her baby, and have a German soldier rip the baby from the mother's arms, swing it like a rag doll to smash it's head into the side of a building--this takes the horror to an altogether different level I think. The image in Schindler's List of the defenseless girl who was highlighted in color walking through the streets was terrifying in a more abstract way.

    My kid was horrified at the end of Avengers Infinity War, when Thanos snapped his fingers and people turned to ash and blew away. It was a horrible image to see characters that the audience grew to love destroyed like this. My kid refuses to watch that movie again. I actually had a nighmare about it myself, but of course no Thanos and it was a lot different.
     
  18. vegafleet

    vegafleet Forum Resident

    The flying monkeys from the original Wizard of Oz were very scary to me. Felt like I was watching a nightmare.
     
  19. The Wanderer

    The Wanderer Seeker of Truth

    Location:
    NYC
  20. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    The jerky animation of the shriveling up of the witch's legs dressed in creepy red and white striped socks that Dorothy's house landed on when the ruby slippers were transferred to Dorothy's feet in the 1938 version of the Wizard of Oz. That has stuck in my head for over 40 years as a weirdly disturbing looking scene.

    Why couldn't the the slippers just come off and left the feet and legs with socks as they were? Made me wonder as a kid what the witch was made of. But then the wicked witch of the west melted with just water thrown on her which was more disturbing than how the devil is portrayed in the Bible.

    Kept thinking that's been her vulnerability for this long and no one figured it out, not even the Wizard?
     
  21. skinnyev

    skinnyev Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    I thought that every scene with Ellen Burstyn was horrific in that movie, she played those scenes too well.
     
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  22. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Yes, yes yes! The first time my family watched that on teevee, I actually ran from the living room, and had to hide in my parents' bedroom, just from the trumpet soundtrack's "whaaaaaaah-dad-dah-dah-dah...!", and Dorothy staring at that hourglass!

    Hella traumatic for a five-year-old! :mudscrying:
     
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  23. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    This moment actually preceded, "The horror...the horror..." in Apocalypse Now.
    [​IMG]

    Oh - sorry..."spoiler alert"...too soon...?
     
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  24. irong

    irong Forum Resident

    Location:
    Quebec, Canada
    You've woken up some childhood traumas of mine there. That Superman 3 scene was the stuff my nightmares were made of (I've just rewatched it on youtube and it's indeed not that great nor terryfing by today's standards)

    As an adult, 2 things that scared me a lot were 1. The failed electrocution scene in The Green Mile (I almost puked in the theatre) 2. The sequence building up to Brandon's rape and murder in Boys Don't Cry (because you know it's gonna happen, it makes it psychologically unbearable)
     
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  25. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I thought of another big one. The boat scene in Willy Wonka with the random videos of things like a chicken getting its head cut off is often said to have traumatized people as kids. Still works as a creepy scene.

    People also comment on YouTube a lot that when Judge Doom burns the cartoon shoe alive with dip near the beginning of Roger Rabbit, it was traumatizing.

    I once saw someone say as a kid he was terrified by one of the Austin Powers movies at Fat Bastard saying "I'm going to eat ya," "Get in my belly" and so forth.

    I'd say the skydiving scenes and the foot chase in Point Break were pretty tense and scary.

    The Superman 3 scene where "Ricky" is unconscious in the field with blood on his head as the thresher is approaching him was also a bit too much to handle as a kid.
     
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