22 replies to this topic

[Melange]

Not related to Mr Williams of course

AOL NEWS ON THE SCARIEST FILM SCENE :

'Here s Johnny!' scene is scariest

Jack Nicholson's crazed cry of "Here's Johnny" as he axes his way through a door in pursuit of his wife has been named the most terrifying screen moment of all time. The chilling scene in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining topped a poll for a Channel 4 special The 100 Scariest Moments. It beat other movie horrors such as the spinning head in The Exorcist and the heart-stopping moment in Jaws when a severed head tumbles from a hole in a boat.  

Viewers voted for their top hair-raising scene over a number of weeks this summer from a shortlist from film and TV drawn up by a panel of experts. In the 1980 film The Shining, based on Stephen King's novel, Nicholson is widely regarded to have given one of his most manic performances in a career packed with off-kilter roles. He plays author Jack Torrance who is suffering from writer's block and becomes caretaker of the empty Overlook Hotel - taking his wife and son with him - in the secluded mountains of Colorado in order to let his creative juices flow. Jack, affected by both his inability to write and supernatural forces within the hotel, suffers a mental breakdown, prompting him to try to kill his wife.  

Wild-eyed and grinning he pokes his head through a door panel he has splintered with an axe to utter his notorious line "Here's Johnny", which he actually ad-libbed during filming. Set designers had created a false door of thin wood fearing the actor would not be able to break it, but his powerful technique shattered it into tiny pieces so a real door was eventually used. The scene pushed The Exorcist (1973) into second place for the stomach-churning moment when Linda Blair's head spins round and she projectile vomits. The underwater head scene in Jaws (1975) was third.

Copyright © Press Association Ltd 2003, All Rights Reserved.
 
27/10/2003 08:52

I'm sure i can think of tenser scenes though. And quite a few have come from the Lecter movies. Perhaps when Dr Lecter first handcuffs that security guard to the cage bars in Silence of the Lambs. The suprise moment of Lecter's hand leaping from the right of the screen and the grinning look on Lecter face. Omg. Another one was from Red Dragon, where the reporter is taped to the chair and old Fiennes is going off on one about Red dragons and ultimate power. Combined with Elfman's wonderful scoring, i remember being incredibly tense during that scene, wondering what he was going to do to him. Nail biting stuff indeed. Both those scenes are ones in which the victim is trapped and the terrifying potential of what could happen next is the nail biting key to it's sucess. It gets your imagination working immediately before the actual event is shown. Being "trapped or cornered" is always a great film making method i guess. All very interesting.

[Marian Schedenig]

The "Here's Johnny" scene is great of course, but not particularly scary IMHO. Of the three listed in your quote, I find the Jaws one the only really scary bit.

Random scarier (to me) bits than "Here's Johnny":

• The hotel in 2001.
• The girl with the old hand in The Others.
• The final scream in Body Snatchers.
• Lots of scenes in Repulsion and The Tenant.

Marian - who can't easily watch these alone.

The Matrix Revolutions (Don Davis)

[Melange]

I'm curious which part of the hotel scene you find scary in 2001 Marian?. I find it quite surreal, but not particulary scary. Of course, that gruesome scene with the policeman taped to the chair in Reservoir Dogs while the guy is dancing around to the music and holding the knife in his hand (although it's a film that i think is overly glorifying of violence and one i only watched once).

[Stefancos]

The scene in Silence were Lecter rips Pembry's face of to reveal his own gave me a real shock.

Also the scene in the basement, with Clarice Starling totally in the dark and stalked by Buffelo Bill is really creepy.

As for Spielberg films:

The Abduction Of Barry is really tense, and helped in no small part by the music.

But his 2 most frightening scenes must be in Schindlers List.
The scene in the Aushwitz gas chamberreally got me going.
And another scene, were a metal worker is dragged out by the Nazi's cause they think he is not working hard enough, they try to shoot him in the head but their guns jam.

When i saw that in the cinema back in early 1994 i wanted to close my eyes.

Stefancos- who thinks you can not watch schindlers List, you can only experience it.

[Melange]

And naturally i used to jump at the strangely "screaming skeletons" that used to leap out of corners in Spielbergs Indy films when i was kid. Nowadays i just laugh at them because how does a skeleton manage to scream? LOL

[Melange]

Also the scene in the basement, with Clarice Starling totally in the dark and stalked by Buffelo Bill is really creepy.

Yeah, that's a real drawn out tension. Very effective. The dark, the unknown, the sound of her breathing heavily in fear. Very effective scene indeed.

The Abduction Of Barry is really tense, and helped in no small part by the music.

Oh yes. I forgot that one. Although nowadays i does little to scare me. But when i was a kid i remember seeing the movie late at night in my room and i found that scene very disturbing indeed when the mother is hanging onto Barry's legs as he's sucked out of the cat flap. It distrubed me as a kid that scene.

And another scene, were a metal worker is dragged out by the Nazi's cause they think he is not working hard enough, they try to shoot him in the head but their guns jam.

Yes quite a strange scene. I remember the audience actually laughing a little when i saw it in the cinema when the gun jammed and then gave up/ A laught that seemed wildy out of place, but i think it was a laugh of relief more than anything due to the tension that had been building up as he pulled the trigger again and again.

[QuestionMarkMan]

Yes, quite strange

[Mr. Breathmask]

Also the scene in the basement, with Clarice Starling totally in the dark and stalked by Buffelo Bill is really creepy.

I remember I suddenly got real tense when Clarice spotted the moth and put two and two together. Great tension builder.

- Marc, who doesn't watch many scary movies, but did just watch a bit of Scary Movie on TV.

Don Davis - Spirit of the Universe from The Matrix Revolutions

[Marian Schedenig]

I'm curious which part of the hotel scene you find scary in 2001 Marian?. I find it quite surreal, but not particulary scary.

The whole thing. The "unknown", coupled with the weird visuals and sound design plus Kubrick's sudden cuts (which I think are what makes Shining scary as well), it just really scares me. Fortunately, there's the Blue Danube Waltz at the end to calm me down.

That reminds me, people seeing themselves for strange/unexplained reasons seem to be something that generally scares me. Something similar happens in The Tenant, and I also found it really creepy in Twin Peaks, even though I hardly understood anything in that movie (combine Lynch's weirdness with my never having seen the TV series).

Marian - planning to see Mulholland Dr. soon.

[king mark]

Another heart stopping moment in Alien when the alien grabs Dallas in the ventilation shaft.

K.M.

[CYPHER]

Scary movie scenes? My kind of topic! Some of my personal "Scariest Moments in Film" include:

* Anything in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) but especially Leatherface chasing that girl through the woods at night and his final maniacal 'chainsaw dance'. It makes me shudder just to think of it.

* The revelation of Norman Bate's mother in Psycho (1960) especially when that spider(?) crawls across her face. The swinging light, the music, the horror, the horror!

* Those scenes with Virginia Madsen crawling around that housing tenement in Candyman. Might not sound like much but it's incredibly tense. Plus I've always had an aversion to high-rise, ghettoised, condensed housing projects. There are quite a few in the suburbs surrounding my own and when I was a kid there was even a local variant of a 'Candyman' urban myth about a man encased in flames walking the streets at night

* The aforementioned climax from The Silence of the Lambs with Clarice Starling in Buffalo Bill's lair. 'Nuff said.

And one last thing: Adam, is there anywhere online where one can see the entire 100 scenes nominated by this "panel of experts"? I'd be most interested... Cheers.

CYPHER

[Melange]

And one last thing: Adam, is there anywhere online where one can see the entire 100 scenes nominated by this "panel of experts"? I'd be most interested... Cheers.

I dont know Cypher. I think i just saw the top 3 on AOL news or something like that. Btw, I remember anyother great tension builder (cannot be considered a scary moment though ) in the movie 2010 : Odyssey Two. Near the end of the film where there is that confusion about whether Hal is going to go against orders or carry through. Quite cliche film making techniques to do the scene i suppose. Lots of fast cutting between tense and sweating brows, and the music. But it certainly worked very well indeed.

[Morn]

That's supposed to be scary? I thought it was comedic Bah, anyway, the film media really doesn't scare me at all, I'm not saying that I'm some brave dude, just that that atmosphere method used doesn't work with me really and movie has no personal danager.
Of course, there is stuff that's shocking though like those infamious Indiana Jones scenes.

[Marian Schedenig]

That's because you watch movies on a small computer screen with desktop speakers, and chat on ICQ at the same time.

Marian - who watches movies in a darkened room, with good video and sound, and without letting anything disturb him.

American Journey

[Morn]

Not always....

[Maglorfin]

As the title seems fitting, let us resurrect this 9 years old topic! As it seems, Stephen King is writing a sequel to The Shining, to be published in January 2013.

Stephen King published "The Shining" way back in 1977. It was his fourth novel. A year earlier, his first, "Carrie," had come out as a film directed by Brian De Palma, and had been a huge success. King was big, but he wasn't yet the giant bestselling author he's become. Now, 35 years later, King has gone back to "The Shining" and written a sequel, "Doctor Sleep." It comes to shelves in January of 2013, just when everyone who might be snowed in will be...

Read more here.

[Ren]

Whoa, I just scrolled up and saw ICQ and Morn in the same post, LOL

Carrie was a scary read. Not as scary a movie but I can hardly wait for this prequel (shining). I love Stephen King. !!!!!!

Scary movie scenes? My kind of topic! Some of my personal "Scariest Moments in Film" include:

* Anything in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) but especially Leatherface chasing that girl through the woods at night and his final maniacal 'chainsaw dance'. It makes me shudder just to think of it.

* The revelation of Norman Bate's mother in Psycho (1960) especially when that spider(?) crawls across her face. The swinging light, the music, the horror, the horror!

* Those scenes with Virginia Madsen crawling around that housing tenement in Candyman. Might not sound like much but it's incredibly tense. Plus I've always had an aversion to high-rise, ghettoised, condensed housing projects. There are quite a few in the suburbs surrounding my own and when I was a kid there was even a local variant of a 'Candyman' urban myth about a man encased in flames walking the streets at night

* The aforementioned climax from The Silence of the Lambs with Clarice Starling in Buffalo Bill's lair. 'Nuff said.

And one last thing: Adam, is there anywhere online where one can see the entire 100 scenes nominated by this "panel of experts"? I'd be most interested... Cheers.

CYPHER

Aaaah. Candyman just about killed me, I STILL think about it when ever I'm in the bathroom , in the dark. STILL

[Quint]

The ghost coming down the stairs in Poltergeist used to fuck me up!

[Jason LeBlanc]

I don't like bumping of really old threads, especially when they have nothing to do with your new story. Next time just start a new thread

[E.T. & Elliott]

There is literally nothing in movies scarier than this.

[Koray Savas]

The only movie to ever scare me was The Shining.

[Maglorfin]

I don't like bumping of really old threads, especially when they have nothing to do with your new story. Next time just start a new thread

Sorry, Jason. I thought opening too many threads gets on administrators' nerves (it certainly annoys me) so I did a search on The Shining and posted the news in the thread that seemed most related. My bad.

[Jason LeBlanc]

It's all good! It's just that in this case, it was a thread about favorite scenes from scary movies, and you had a news article about a sequel book to the shining, so its not related at all.

And in general too many threads about similar things can indeed be annoying, when the only other thread you can find is 9 years old, it might as well not even exist. No reason to bump a thread that old unless you want to continue the exact topic it was already about