Everyone loves a good scare, and there are plenty of them, a century of horror movies has seen to that. If there’s something out there that unsettles you, makes your skin crawl, or convinces you to sleep with the lights on, there’s almost certainly a film that taps into it. There’s no shortage of good horror movies or scares.
So here is our Top Ten Scariest Movie Scenes Ever… OK, so its the Top Ten Scariest Movie Scenes Ever according to Entertainment Swindon… Have we got it right? You think there are scarier movie scenes we haven’t added?
10: Lawnmower scene in Sinister
2012’s “Sinister” is filled with many horrifying moments it’s almost sacrilegious to choose just one, but the lawnmower scene is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the scariest moments ever put on screen.
Ethan Hawke plays a man named Ellison who discovers a box of Super 8 reels, each depicting the murder of different families in various ways. The one labeled “Lawn Work ’86” features an unseen figure filming a family in the rain from outside of their home.
The family looks to be spending quality time together but then the footage cuts to the figure opening the gate to the backyard and turning on a lawnmower placed outside. The camera fixates on the path of the lawnmower, illuminated by only the light of the camera. The lawnmower runs in a straight path across the grass for a short period of time before the light of the camera reveals the family from before, tied up in the grass, and immediately run over by the lawnmower.
The scare is effective in part because jump scares are a great way to jolt your fight/flight/freeze response, but unlike most horror films that utilise sound to build up tension before the scare strikes, “Lawn Work ’86” comes completely out of nowhere, catching the audience off guard and guaranteeing a shock to the system.
9: Final scene of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
I will forever remember the first time I watched this movie!… I was just 12 and whilst parents were out, I grabbed the VHS that they had rented from the local Video Store and watched A Nightmare on Elm Street alone, it may have been day time, but I vividly remember it scaring the living hell out of me! The scene that stands out for me is the final scene, we are left thinking Freddy is dead, that the world is back to normal and the cast left alive are safe… Wrong!
After Nancy denounces Freddy, she wakes up and everything is back to how it was before. In fact, it’s even better! Nancy’s mother declares that she has quit drinking, and a car pulls up to take Nancy to school.
Glen, Rod (played by Jsu Garcia) and Tina (played by Amanda Wyss) are all alive and waiting for Nancy. Her mother sees her off, and Nancy gets in the car, only for it to be revealed that the car’s roof is the same pattern as Freddy’s sweater. The car starts driving away on its own as the kids scream in terror, and Nancy’s mother is pulled through the door window by Freddy’s arm. The picture-perfect ending has been shattered by Freddy once again, and demonstrates the idea that Freddy was never truly gone.
8: Claras death in Candyman
Helen Lyle (Virginia Masden) is an affluent young woman who is working with her good friend Bernadette “Bernie” Walsh (Kasi Lemmons), on a master’s thesis involving modern folklore. Her husband, Trevor Lyle (Xander Berkeley), is a university professor, of whom she suspects infidelity with one of his younger students, and we suspect her home life isn’t quite satisfying, despite the fact that she seems to be very much in love with Trevor.
Helen and Bernie have been interviewing numerous people about various ‘urban legend’ type stories. One young woman tells them a story about “Candyman”, a mythical being who has a hook instead of a right hand. The legend goes that Candyman will appear behind you if you say his name five times while looking in a mirror. Clara (Marianna Elliott) dares rebel other-boyfriend Billy (Ted Raimi) to repeat Candyman’s name five times in front of the mirror while she’s babysitting the Johnson family’s baby.
Billy only repeats it four times but when she is left alone in the bathroom, getting ready to lose her virginity to Billy and not Michael, her “too good” boyfriend, Clara repeats the name a fifth time. Then, she turns off the light and right behind her, Candyman’s appears and kills her with her hooked arm.
7: Don’s escape from farm house in 28 Weeks Later
In 28 Weeks Later, after the zombie outbreak at the farmhouse, Don flee’s to a boat, managing to escape the infected by the skin of his teeth, where he leaves his wife to the infected!
Prior to the Rage outbreak in Great Britain, Don had allowed his children Andy and Tabby to go to Spain on a school trip, thus saving them from the horror of the epidemic which broke out days later. As London was overrun by the Infected, Don and his wife Alice fled to the countryside where they took refuge on a farm with a handful of other survivors.
They remained in hiding there for days until a young boy seeking shelter inadvertently led a mob of Infected to the house. As the Infected overran the house, Don and Alice fled to the upstairs bedroom, but their pursuers weren’t far behind. With the Infected standing between him and his wife, Don climbed out of the window and left Alice to die. He made it to a motorboat and escaped downriver.
6: The werewolf transformation seen in the living room in American Werewolf in London
The transformation of David Kessler in the living room of Alex Price’s apartment in An American Werewolf in London is a groundbreaking scene notable for its depiction of bone-crunching, visceral physical agony, achieved through revolutionary foam latex prosthetics and innovative stop-motion techniques.
This is another scene and movie that will forever stick in my head, and this particular scene will always send shivers down my spine. I watched this again in secret whilst parents were out of the house as a kid, this scene where we see David turn into a werewolf for the very first time, as he is changing, david drops out of screen and then suddenly appears and there is nowhere in the room that you can stand or sit that the werewolf’s eyes do not follow you and stare right into your eyes!
Its as if it is about to jump out the screen and rip your throat out! Check for yourself, pause the movie and stand anywhere and see the werewolf looking right at you wanting to rip your throat out too!
5: Frank dragged back to Hell in Hellraiser
In the movie Hellraiser, after Frank Cotton is torn apart and taken to Hell by the Cenobites, he is brought back to our world when his brother Larry spills his blood on the exact spot where he was dismembered. This blood acts as a key, reopening the portal and allowing Frank’s spirit to return, though in a severely damaged, emaciated, and skinless state. Frank then manipulates his former lover, Julia, into helping him regenerate his body by bringing him sacrifices, or fresh flesh, to feed on.
At the end of the movie, a fight that erupts, where Frank accidentally stabs Julia when trying to stab Kirsty. Frank absorbed Julia’s flesh to heal himself, coldly saying “nothing personal, baby”.
He then corners Kirsty in the attic, mocking her grief for her dead father. It proved to be his undoing, as the Cenobites ambushed him and tear him apart again with their chains and metal hooks.
4: He’s still there! – Friday 13th (1980) where Jason jumps out the water in the final scene
One of the most iconic endings in horror movie history…
Alice gains the upper hand and finally kills Mrs. Voorhees by decapitating her. Now in shock, Alice gets in a canoe and rows out to the middle of the lake, where she falls asleep. Morning comes, and Alice is still asleep in the canoe.
It’s often forgotten by people that Jason was not the killer in the first movie, it was in fact his mother, Jason only appears in the movie right at the end, after Alice awakens in the canoe on the lake after killing Mrs. Voorhees, all is peaceful and serene as the police show up at the camp. Alice looks up from the canoe at the policeman shouting at her from the shore when suddenly a muddy and deformed young Jason Voorhees (Ari Lehman) leaps from underneath the lake to grab Alice and pulls her into the water.
3: Chest popping Alien in Alien (1979)
During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.
Over 45years after Alien, the chest-burster scene is still one of the most disturbing and iconic moments of body horror in cinema history.
Most horror movies are blunted by age, but Alien is one of those movies that has stood the test of time. The chestburster scene just seems to get nastier every time you watch it! The fact that it takes 55mins to get to this blood splatting moment is makes it even more impactful after very little horror happening, its more sci-fi than horror up to this point. The scene itself is also more dragged out than I always recall, and upon a re-watch, it is striking to see how long the camera lingers on the rest of the crew attempting to treat what seems at first like a fit, before the horrific chest-burster scene is unforgettably nasty, but what makes Kane’s death so shocking is the movie’s reserved tone until this point.
2: Game over – (Saw 2004) final scene
The original 2004 Saw movie ends with a shocking twist: the ‘corpse’ in the room is actually John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer. He rises up to reveal that he, not the character Zep, was manipulating the entire game, and Dr. Gordon had been a willing accomplice. Gordon’s decision to chop off his foot to escape and rescue Adam is part of Jigsaw’s plan, though Adam’s fate is sealed after he tries to shoot Jigsaw.
Adam is struck with profound horror as he confronts a truth he never imagined could be so intimately connected to him. The individual beside him, whom he had believed to be dead, is revealed to be alive. Lawrence and Adams could not believe the end of their story.
The film concludes with Jigsaw leaving Adam to die in the bathroom, closing the door with the chilling line, “Game over.”
The movie ends on a dark and hopeless note, characteristic of the series.
1: Demonic possessed girl from Exorcist
Widely renowned as one of the most terrifying horror movies ever made. The infamous ‘crucifix’ scene is as shocking today as it was in 1973. Hearing a commotion coming from upstairs, Chris (Ellen Burstyn) rushes up to Regan’s (Linda Blair) room to find a telekinetic storm whirling and Regan stabbing herself with a crucifix as the entity possessing her screams all manner of blasphemies.
It’s horrifying on so many levels. The demonic voice is layered with Regan’s own screams of terror as she’s violently assaulted by her own hand. The crucifix — which is supposed to be a weapon against evil in movies like this — is instead gleefully wielded by the demon itself. And to top it all off, Chris’ attempts to help her daughter result in the demon grabbing her head and shoving it into her 12-year-old daughter’s bloody crotch with instructions to “lick me!”
Scenes that came so close to making the Top Ten…
Allie’s death in Terrifier 2
Night vision – The Decent (2005)
Final Chase in Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Chest chomp from The Thing (1982)
The Basement – The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Entertainment Swindon 
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