Scenes from the Crypt

Some of the most memorable scenes that I’ve ever witnessed are from horror movies. In a way, that’s not much of a surprise, as a good horror movie is meant to linger with you, feeding your imagination as you fight the urge to leave the light on for the night. In honor of one of my personal favorite days of the year, Halloween, I have collected four horrifying scenes that I consider to be truly memorable. Mind you, these aren’t the top four horror scenes of all time, and there are plenty of other scenes I would have loved to include, but I decided to stick with these four that first sprung to mind. Be warned, spoilers might follow in the description of the scenes! I’ll try to be very clear before I spoil anything plot related, so you can skip that part if you haven’t seen the movie yet. You have been warned…

So, please… Come in. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. The lights are off. Nobody else is around. Turn up the sound… And without further ado, I present… the list.

1) The Gift (2000) by Sam Raimi

I’m starting off with a lesser known film. To be honest, I hadn’t really even heard of this film before my friend showed it to me recently, which was all the more surprising when I noticed that it’s directed by the legendary Sam Raimi of Evil Dead and Spiderman fame. The film stars Cate Blanchett as a possible psychic who becomes tangled up in a mysterious disappearance. The film, in some ways, is not a traditional horror film, but there was one scene in particular that left me with massive goosebumps.

The scene occurs in the second half of the film, turning out to be a dream had by Annabelle (Cate Blanchett) after she has started to become involved in the disappearance of a local woman. The music is light and soothing, with Annabelle walking across an empty street like a specter. There’s a brief scare when she picks up a beautiful flower that suddenly wilts in her hand. As she continues to wonder around the dreamscape, she hears the sound of a violin before coming across a swamp area with a lone violinist calmly playing music in the distance. There is nothing particularly strange about it; in fact, it’s rather soothing… Until the camera suddenly cuts to a close-up of the violin player, and we see that his movements are erratic and jilted.

It’s a cut that made me react the way I usually do if something that scares me suddenly pops up on screen: I sat up and went “what the fuck!?” It’s a strange scene, because the violinist himself does not look antagonistic or threatening. But it worked as a jump scare because the dreamlike and soothing quality of the scene before the cut lured me into a sense of calm. At first, the violinist appears to be as peaceful as the music that he is playing. But when the cut happens, the music becomes as erratic as he does. In a way, the most horrifying part is how blank his expression is, as if he’s unaware of how much he’s freaking me out.

2) The Babadook (2014) by Jennifer Kent

The Babadook 2

There are a lot of clips of scary scenes from The Babadook floating around on the internet, yet I couldn’t find the precise scene that I was looking for. That probably already says a lot about the amount of spooky and memorable scenes in the film, but it also says something about how low-key this particular scene is. Still, I found it to be incredibly creepy.

First off, if you want to know more about The Babadook, you can find my article about it on this very website (or through this link: http://goo.gl/l7mLfy). Long story short, The Babadook is about a single-mother caring for her troubled son as a mysterious presence known as Mister Babadook starts to affect their lives.

About a third of the way through the movie, the two, Amelia (Essie Davis) and Sam (Noah Wiseman), attend the birthday party of Sam’s cousin. After an ugly confrontation between the two children, Sam accidentally breaks his cousin’s nose. The scene I want to talk about happens immediately after this moment. We cut to Amelia driving away from the party with Sam kicking and screaming in the backseat. Amelia, clearly on the edge of a nervous breakdown, attempts to drive while Sam screams “mommy, mommy, she wouldn’t believe me!” Suddenly, she stops the car and turns around to yell “Why can’t you be normal!? There is no Babadook!” as Sam continues to scream.

Suddenly, everything goes quiet as Sam stops to look outside of the window. A moment later, he starts yelling “get out! Get out!” at some invisible presence before letting out an ear-piercing shriek and collapsing into a seizure. Amelia jumps out of the car and takes Sam into the street, asking a passing-by couple to help her. Cut to a doctor’s office.

The scene is a bit low-key compared to some of the other scares throughout the film, but it’s a scene that sticks with me for several reasons. For one, the performances are positively amazing. Noah Wiseman gives one of the best performances that I’ve ever seen, let alone by a child. When he spots the invisible presence, you fully believe that he’s looking at something and is utterly distressed by it. When his eyes roll back into the top of his head and his mouth goes into an ugly grimace, your heart sinks. Essie Davis is also thoroughly believable in her frustration, confusion, and eventually, panic.

The other thing that makes the scene so scary is how realistic it is. It’s a scene that could happen to you in real-life, and the thought of seeing your child convulsing in the backseat is terrifying. Of course, what makes it even worse in this case is that there seems to be an ominous invisible presence in the car with them… Nothing scares me more than one person seeing something there that nobody else can see…

3) The Exorcist (1973) by William Friedkin

The Exorcist is one of the most legendary horror films of all time, and it is one of the first to leave me feeling thoroughly unsettled as an adult. Throughout my initial viewing experience, I became increasingly paranoid and skittish, leading to an unfortunate incident where I accidentally kind of punched my friend in the boob when she tried to scare me.

However, for such a legendary film, the scene I want to talk about wasn’t even in the original theatrical cut. It was cut from the scene shortly before the premier due to technical reasons. In 2000, however, Friedkin’s The Exorcist was rereleased in theaters with several changes made by the director, one of which was the addition of this now legendary scene. Promoted as The Exorcist: The Version You’ve Never Seen, this version of the film is considered by many, including the director himself, to be the definitive one. Personally, I wouldn’t watch any other version of it either, because of the addition of this one particular scene…

The Exorcist is a slow-build of a horror movie, featuring many sequences of Regan (Linda Blair) being analyzed in the hospital. As a result, when something fantastical suddenly happens, it’s all the more surprising. The scene begins with Regan’s mother, Chris (Ellen Burstyn), storming down to confront Regan’s tutor for going up to her room alone and leaving the windows open. By this point, Regan is fully ill though Chris still has no idea what is wrong with her. A man at the door interrupts their argument to inform Chris that her director, Burke, is dead, having fallen down a flight of stairs and broken his neck. Chris, aghast with this news coupled with the stress from her daughter’s condition, tries to stifle her cries and keep her composure. She turns back around to face the stairs, when her beloved daughter suddenly comes down them backwards, moving like a spider.

It’s a jump scare that could have easily been spoiled (and probably would have been in a more recent movie), but there’s a subtle thing that makes the scene work so effectively. Many awful jump scares appear to come out of nowhere. In some respects, this scene does certainly come out of nowhere, appearing at the end of a scene where the point is to inform the audience that someone close to Chris has mysteriously died. However, what makes the scare feel less cheap and more real is the use of sound. Moments before we actually see Regan coming down the stairs, we hear her movement first. That works not only to make the scene feel more realistic, but it also places the audience better into the perspective of Chris, since it would only make sense that she would hear Regan moving before seeing her. Coupled with the disorienting image of Regan moving down the steps backwards, the scene manages to feel realistic and nightmarish at the same time, creating a truly memorable moment.

4) Mulholland Dr. (2001) by David Lynch

I have a bit of a strange relationship when it comes to David Lynch. I seem to be one of the select few that wasn’t a fan of his legendary TV show, Twin Peaks. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I didn’t like it much at all, having to basically force myself to watch the whole show. I also haven’t seen many of his films. However, he is also responsible for one of my favorite scenes of all time, bar none. This scene was the inspiration for this article.

Mulholland Dr. is a strange film, but I won’t waste time explaining it, because this scene from the film essentially works as a stand-alone short movie. It begins in a diner, with two characters talking. We haven’t seen either character up until this moment, and are given no introduction to them, but one of them is clearly nervous. “I just wanted to come here,” he says, before beginning to recount a recurring dream he has had that takes place in that specific diner, with these specific people, at this specific time of the day. He’s sitting in the exact same place as in the dream, and he describes his dream-self as being “scared like you wouldn’t believe.” His friend is there too, just as terrified as he his. The reason why, as he describes, is that there’s a man in the alley behind the store with a peculiar face. “I hope that I never see that face ever outside a dream,” he says. That’s the clincher.

The description of the dream is creepy enough, but then the friend starts recreating the dream. And as we see moments of the dream start to happen before us, the tension slowly becomes unbearable. The dreamer starts becoming noticeably more scared, as they head outside and start to approach the alley. All we can do is sit and wait to see if the face appears. The face that you would never want to see outside of a dream.

I’ve heard some people say that the final pay-off of the scene is a bit lackluster, and I could certainly see why people feel that way. For me, however, the scene is all about the journey towards the final moment, rather than the moment itself. This bizarre idea of recreating a dream, like a self-induced déjà vu, becoming increasingly more terrifying as it unfolds before us. We saw the look on his face when he said that “I hope that I never see that face ever outside a dream.” His expression says it all. We don’t ever want to see that face either.

That’s it for this list. Again, this is not a definitive list by any stretch of the imagination and I can see myself wanting to make another of these in the future. However, as the horror mantra goes, less is more. So, for now, give yourself a moment and let these scenes seep into your head as you lay yourself down to sleep. Sweet dreams…