And we haven't spoken since... Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the shocking moments in horror movies that we needed time to process. This list is full of spoilers, so be warned.
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00:00 "Do you go out with friends?"
00:02 "Well, a boy's best friend is his mother."
00:07 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today
00:10 we're counting down our picks for the shocking moments in horror movies that we needed time to process.
00:16 This list is full of spoilers, so be warned.
00:19 "I say we drive south as far as the fuel takes us and try to get clear of this mist."
00:23 Number 10. The Sunken Place. Get Out.
00:28 "Hypnosis. She developed a method and I'm telling you it works like a charm."
00:32 "Wow."
00:35 "Some people don't want strangers messing around in their heads, guys."
00:38 Although there are warning signs that things are not what they seem in his potential in-laws house,
00:42 Chris doesn't truly understand the evil at play until he goes to the sunken place.
00:47 He first encounters the mind-bending and oppressive boy during a particularly harrowing and
00:53 sadistic hypnotism session with his girlfriend's mother.
00:57 "Now, sink into the floor."
01:01 "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait."
01:03 His consciousness becomes totally divorced from his body,
01:09 and he can only watch through his own eyes like a fading screen in the dark.
01:13 Even for a viewer who didn't get the metaphors and writer-director Jordan Peele's social commentary,
01:19 The Sunken Place is a visceral, oppressively bleak, and terrifying experience.
01:24 "Now you're in the sunken place."
01:27 [Ominous music]
01:29 Number 9 - Jigsaw reveals himself. Saw.
01:36 "Hello, Mr. Hindle."
01:38 "Or as they called you around the hospital, Zemp."
01:43 It's a twist that launched a franchise.
01:45 When Adam and Dr. Gordon wake up chained to toilets in a filthy bathroom,
01:49 the corpse on the floor is almost an afterthought.
01:52 He's there so long that in the middle of all the torture and flashbacks,
01:56 it's kind of easy to forget about him.
01:59 It's only after Gordon literally saws off his own foot that the corpse reveals himself to be alive.
02:05 And not only is he alive, he's actually the gravel-voiced mastermind behind this entire setup.
02:11 "The key to that chain is in the bathtub."
02:14 This jaw-dropper of a finale was a surprise the sequels always tried to replicate,
02:22 but could never quite duplicate.
02:24 [Screaming]
02:27 "Game over."
02:29 Number 8 - The Tate - The Ring
02:34 "And as soon as it's over, your phone rings. Someone knows you've watched it."
02:40 "And what they say is, you will die in seven days."
02:46 In what is probably one of the greatest opening sequences in modern horror,
02:51 The Ring starts with a pair of tremendous scares and a great explanation
02:55 of the cursed videotape at its center.
02:58 But what really disturbed viewers was the tape itself.
03:01 We don't get to actually see the curious sounds and images until Rachel,
03:05 the journalist investigating the tape, watches it.
03:08 At first glance, some of the footage is more confusing than scary,
03:17 but it's so anxiety-inducing with its trees on fire,
03:20 creepy noises, and little girls crawling out of wells.
03:24 By the end, we, like Rachel, feel like we've just gotten a glimpse
03:28 of something we should never have seen.
03:30 Number 7 - What Have You Done to His Eyes - Rosemary's Baby
03:40 "There's nothing to be afraid of, Rosemary. Honest and truly, there isn't."
03:44 "There's nothing but a mild sedative to calm you down."
03:46 Apartments usually have a few quirks,
03:48 but this one has passageways and a satanic cult instead of a condo association.
03:53 In the last sequence of this paranoid horror classic,
03:56 Rosemary is a new mother whose baby was born under duplicitous and downright evil circumstances.
04:03 She finds her husband and neighbors in a secret room standing around her baby's bassinet,
04:07 and is shocked at her newborn's appearance.
04:10 In the movie's greatest stroke of genius, we never actually see the baby.
04:14 We only see Rosemary's look of horror and hear the terrible question,
04:18 but the final gut punch is how she overcomes her fear
04:26 and takes her place as the mother of Satan's child.
04:29 Number 6 - The Penthouse - Wreck
04:42 "This low-budget Spanish hit follows a news crew who have been unwittingly quarantined
04:54 in an apartment building with people infected with a mysterious virus.
04:58 Escaping from the infected hordes,
05:00 the pair flee to the top floor penthouse where they learn the truth.
05:04 But even here, there's no hope.
05:06 "We are forced to watch shaky night vision footage of their chilling last moments,
05:19 as the monstrous patient Zero closes in,
05:22 dispatches one of them, and then drags the other into the darkness.
05:25 The details of her fate are left open, but the result is pretty clear.
05:30 Combining her primal fear of the dark and the unpolished creepiness of found footage,
05:34 it's a bleak and heart-stopping climax."
05:37 Number 5 - Chestburster - Alien
05:43 This is one of sci-fi horror's greatest shocks.
05:50 The first appearance of the Chestburster alien is not only true to its name,
05:54 it's also a marvel of practical effects.
05:57 As the crew of the Nostromo celebrate Kane's apparent recovery from having an alien
06:01 surgically removed from his face, an unexpected guest crashes the party.
06:06 It also crashes right through Kane's ribcage.
06:09 More than just a jump scare, it's a moment that comes seemingly out of nowhere
06:18 and reveals yet another terrifying feature of the eponymous alien.
06:22 This blood-covered reptilian is a lingering image that has us forever second-guessing
06:27 every stomach cramp.
06:28 Number 4 - Ben Is Killed - Night of the Living Dead
06:36 George Romero's grindhouse classic was not for the faint of heart,
06:43 and definitely not for moviegoers who want happy endings.
06:47 After watching every other character get dragged into devouring hordes of undead ghouls,
06:52 Ben is the last remaining survivor in an abandoned farmhouse.
06:56 But once safety arrives in the form of a gun-toting mob,
07:00 Ben is mistaken for one of the zombies and shot in the head.
07:03 "Okay, he's dead. Let's go get him. That's another one for the farm."
07:07 Many critics have identified the montage of grainy photographs of bodies being burned
07:11 and the racial dynamics at play in Ben's death as a sobering reflection of real-world violence.
07:17 Number 3 - Charlie's Death - Hereditary
07:22 "What's up? Are you okay?"
07:28 "It's hard to breathe."
07:32 Writer-director Ari Aster's first feature found a million different ways to ratchet up the tension.
07:38 Thirteen-year-old Charlie Graham is positioned as the movie's focal character,
07:42 at least until she has an allergic reaction and through a wild confluence of events,
07:47 is decapitated by a telephone pole.
07:50 It's a brutal scene that is played at breakneck speed, no pun intended.
07:54 Her brother's fugue state and her mother's desperate howls of grief afterward
07:58 hang over us the entire time.
08:00 Given that it only happens a third of the way in,
08:09 Charlie's death lets us know that no one in the story is safe.
08:13 It's only the first stop on a breathless nightmare.
08:16 "So now I can't accept and I can't forgive because...
08:22 because nobody admits anything they've done!"
08:28 Number 2 - Seconds from Rescue - The Mist
08:32 "Something in the mist! Something in the mist took John Lee!"
08:41 When you go into a creature feature like this, it usually ends one of two ways.
08:46 Either the military gets their act together and slays the monsters, or everyone dies.
08:51 This gnarly Stephen King adaptation somehow does both at the same time.
08:55 "We gave it a good shot. Nobody can say we didn't."
08:59 Stranded in a car, David and the other survivors decide to end their lives,
09:04 including that of David's young son,
09:07 rather than meet a painful demise in the tentacles of the fog-dwelling monsters.
09:11 Moments after the deed is done and only David is left alive, the military suddenly arrives.
09:17 Realizing they were only minutes from rescue and the sacrifice was for nothing,
09:21 a horrified David breaks down in the middle of the road.
09:36 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
09:40 The Abandoned House - The Blair Witch Project
09:43 Two filmmakers meet an abrupt and mysterious end in the cellar.
09:47 Zelda - Pet Sematary
09:55 Rachel's dead sister returns to torment her, but an even worse fate awaits.
10:01 "I'm coming for you, Rachel. And this time, I'll get you."
10:13 Burned Alive - The Wicker Man
10:16 A cult sacrifice provides one of the most disturbing endings to any horror movie.
10:30 Christine Meets Her Fate - Drag Me to Hell
10:34 Who Says There's No Truth in Advertising?
10:36 Angela's Identity Revealed - Sleepaway Camp
10:44 A controversial twist delivered in the most bizarre way.
10:48 "Angela. Such a lovely name. Why, I believe it means angel. Why, yes, I'm sure it does.
10:57 I know you're going to like that name, won't you, Peter?"
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11:16 Psycho - The Misfit
11:17 Number 1. She Wouldn't Even Harm a Fly. Psycho.
11:21 "But she's harmless. She's as harmless as one of those stuffed birds."
11:29 Audiences in 1960 were stunned by the climax,
11:32 which sees the mild-mannered motel proprietor Norman Bates unmasked as the killer.
11:37 The twist is now legendary, but even more affecting is the monologue at the movie's close.
11:43 "Norman Bates no longer exists. He only half existed to begin with."
11:48 It may be Norman sitting alone in that cell, but it's Mother's voice in his head. Her insistence
11:54 that she wouldn't even harm a fly is a chill-inducing counterpoint to Norman's complete
11:58 break with reality. "Just sit here and be quiet. Just in case they do suspect me."
12:05 Anthony Perkins' wordless performance is subtle, sad, and so creepy. If the scene
12:11 weren't eerie enough, Hitchcock's brilliant idea to superimpose Mother's skull over Norman's face
12:17 adds the perfect finishing touch. "They'll see. They'll see and they'll know and they'll say,
12:23 why she wouldn't even harm a fly."
12:27 What horror movie scene are you still getting over? Let us know in the comments.
12:33 "God, I love you."
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12:43 [Music]