Scariest Movie Scenes

Tina's death in A Nightmare on Elm Street

In honour of Halloween: The 13 movie scenes that, at one time or another, scared the living crap out of me.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
The premise: A long-dead serial murderer haunts the dreams of the children whose parents were members of the lynch mob that hunted him down.
The scene: Rod (Jsu Garcia) witnesses his girlfriend Tina (Amanda Wyss) meet a grisly end as she's dragged across the ceiling of her bedroom by an unseen force.

Lost Highway (1997)
The premise: A saxophonist is framed for the murder of his wife and sent to prison where he transforms into a young mechanic and starts his life afresh.
The scene: The Mystery Man (Robert Blake) confronts Fred (Bill Pullman) at a party and convinces him to phone his own house. When Fred obliges he hears the voice of the Mystery Man pick up his home phone, even though he's standing right in front of him.

Nosferatu (1922)
The premise: This silent classic chronicles the strange life of the vampire Count Orlok.
The scene: In a chilling example of German Expressionism at its finest, Count Orlok makes his way slowly up the staircase -- while the audience sees only his distorted shadow on the wall.

Silence of the Lambs (1991)
The premise: An FBI rookie must work with the infamous Hannibal Lecter in order to catch another killer on the loose.
The scene: Clarice (Jodie Foster) confronts Jame Gumb (Ted Levine) in his basement -- only to find herself abandoned in pitch black darkness as Jame follows her around with night-vision goggles.

Scream (1996)
The premise: A group of teenagers discuss the "rules" of horror films as students at their high school are systematically killed off one-by-one by a masked killer known as Ghostface.
The scene: The chilling opening sequence where Drew Barrymore receives harassing phone calls from an unknown assailant who quizzes her about her favourite horror films -- before brutally murdering her.

Halloween (1978)
The premise: A masked psychopath breaks out of an institution and stalks a teenage girl from his small hometown.
The scene: After emerging victorious from a faceoff with Michael Myers (Tony Moran), Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) breathes a sigh of relief -- while the seemingly dead Michael slowly sits up behind Laurie's shoulder.

The Exorcist (1973)
The premise: When a twelve-year-old girl is possessed by the devil, her mother enlists the help of two priests.
The scene: After stabbing herself in the crotch with a crucifix, Regan (Linda Blair) faces the audience by enabling her head to do a 360-degree spin.

The Exorcist III

The Exorcist III (1990)
The premise: A police officer respectfully acknowledges the anniversary of a priests death while, at the same time, trying to track down a vicious serial killer.
The scene: A nurse in a hospital checks a couple of rooms during a night shift when, in a genuine jump-out-of-your-skin moment, she's followed out of a room by a white-shrouded intruder.

The Thing (1982)
The premise: Scientists in the Antarctic discover a shape-shifting alien that takes on the appearance of its victims.
The scene: The alien, in human form, fakes a heart attack and, while the scientists scramble to save who they assume is their comrade, they are confronted with "the thing" itself in a shocking, terrifying, pre-CGI sequence.

The Shining (1980)
The premise: A family agrees to watch over a hotel that is closed for the winter season when an unseen force influences the father, pushing him to the edge of insanity.
The scene: While most would cite the twins in the hallway as the scariest sequence, there's also the simplistic slow zoom-in on Jack Nicholson's face looking out the hotel window as he slowly dissolves into madness.

Psycho (1960)
The premise: A young woman on the run stays at the isolated Bates Motel and meets the mother-fearing, socially inept owner.
The scene: No, not the shower sequence although that's terrifying in its own right. Lila Crane (Vera Miles) searches the Bates house for her missing sister (Janet Leigh), only to be confronted by the corpse of Mrs. Bates -- right before Norman (Anthony Perkins) bursts in to the room wearing a woman's wig and dress.

Jurassic Park (1993)
The premise: An ambitious millionaire creates a dinosaur theme park and, during a preview tour, a massive power outtage enables the prehistoric animals to rule the island.
The scene: A thunderstorm. A glass of water, trembling with each footstep. A T-Rex bites through an electrical fence and proceeds to attack the tourist cars.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
The premise: A former child star jealously guards her more-famous older sister in a rundown mansion.
The scene: When wheelchair-bound Blanche (Joan Crawford) crawls her way to the telephone to make an emergency call, Jane (Bette Davis) discovers her calling for help and violently kicks her around the room.

30 Day Movie Meme: Day 19

Day 19 : FAVOURITE FILM FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ACTOR AND ACTRESS

Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972)

This wasn't a hard decision, seeing as The Godfather is both my favourite film and the movie that first introduced me to Marlon Brando. I was a late bloomer, having only seen the film for the first time in 2004, the year of Brando's death. I credit the film, and Brando's performance, with jump-starting my classic film viewing binge for the last six (almost seven) years. It was the first time I realized how remarkable a film can be and how powerful a person's performance. On those occasions when both the film and lead actor are equally worthy of each other, it can solidify a viewer's love for film, as it did mine.

Members of the Mafia don't have my sympathy. They ensure, through their violence and dominance, that corruption will endure. The Mafia wipe out those, big or small, who stand in their way or offend their family's honour. With Francis Ford Coppola's groundbreaking direction and Brando's iconic and influential performance, The Godfather and the character of Don Vito Corleone remain compelling examples of what a thoughtful script and an effective performance can do for a film about an illegal underground operation that maims and kills.

I don't have a lot of love for Michael Corleone because he becomes everything his father was not (but I love Al Pacino in the role!). Vito is a different story. Coppola and Brando managed to convey the life regrets of an aging Don; a once indomitable man who now fears the old adage "the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children." He slowly becomes a broken man as he loses one child ("Look what they did to my boy."), only to have the other follow in his blood-soaked footsteps.

Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

My mom showed this film to my sister and I when we were children. I was probably 10 or 11, at the most. The fact that my mom managed to make two young girls watch a black and white film from the 1960s was a remarkable feat in and of itself, made all the more incredible by the fact that we loved the film so much we'd watch in often enough to recite dialogue. While this isn't necessarily the best Davis film (that would probably go to All About Eve or even Now, Voyager), it's my absolute favourite. Not only was it my introduction to Davis, much like The Godfather introduced me to Brando, but her performance is probably one of my favourites, ever.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? is an odd little film, part-horror and part-camp. You don't know whether to laugh or cringe and the fact that it can consistently make you do both is a big part of why I love this film so much. Joan Crawford is wonderful as the wheelchair-bound Blanche, older sister to former child star, Jane (Bette Davis). But make no mistake, this is Davis' film and her performance is outrageous and over-the-top. Those might sound like bad qualities in a performance, but who wants subtlety when you have Davis in your film? She's perfect as the off-her-rocker, crazy-jealous former star who wants nothing more than to regain the glory days of the fleeting fame she experienced as a child.

My favourite scene also conveys the internal conflict of this aging beauty: Jane starts singing a song from her youth she once sang at the peak of her fame. Wearing a dress that is identical to the one adorning the doll version of her younger self, Jane's child-like nature comes through, only to come to an abrupt halt when she looks in the mirror and comes face-to-face with mortality and the passage of time.

Classic Film Review: Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)

HUSH...HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE
Directed By:  Robert Aldrich
Starring: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten

"You're a vile, sorry little bitch!"
~Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis)~

I've caught glimpses of this film on TCM off and on over the years but had never sat down to watch the film in its entirety. Over the years I've slowly been working my way through Bette Davis' lengthy filmography. The woman had a long, illustrious career in Hollywood for a reason: she was a wonderful actress who never conformed to Hollywood's standards of beauty. Like Katherine Hepburn, Davis was her own person and no other actress in Hollywood could recreate her blend of talent and dark glamour. With her smokey voice and intense glare, Davis has fascinated me ever since I saw Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? when I was only 12. It was only a matter of time before I finally made my way onto watching Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte.

Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis) is an aging recluse, living in her deceased father's secluded house with only her housekeeper, Velma (Agnes Moorehead) for company. A wealthy spinster, Charlotte is the subject of gossip in the small town in Louisiana where she lives. Charlotte has lived a life devoid of human contact for nearly 40 years, after the brutal axe murder of the love of her life, John Mayhew (Bruce Dern), a married womanizer who promised Charlotte he'd run away with her. On the night of John's murder, Charlotte is found covered in his blood and, although she is never formally charged with murder, everyone in town suspects she did the deed out of anger and jealousy when John refused to leave with her after all. Later on, when Charlotte's old plantation house (which acts as a shrine devoted to both her overbearing father and John) is threatened with demolition she enlists the help of her cousin, Miriam (Olivia de Havilland), her last living relation whom she hasn't seen since the night of John's murder. Miriam even brings along Dr. Drew Bayliss (Joseph Cotten) to assess the mental stability of Charlotte. Along the way, there are twists and revelations that culminate into a dramatic and violent conclusion.

By early 1964, director Robert Aldrich had planned on re-teaming with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, the feuding stars of his 1962 hit, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Crawford soon dropped out of the project (reportedly due to an illness) and Davis was paired with Olivia de Havilland instead; an actress known for her gentle portrayals of sweet and virtuous women (from Maid Marion in The Adventures of Robin Hood to Melanie in Gone with the Wind). It was a strange casting choice, putting de Havilland in the role of Charlotte's conniving cousin, Miriam; however, under Aldrich's direction de Havilland made her characterization of Miriam worthy of Charlotte's insults (see opening quote).

The film is part Southern gothic, part psychological thriller; something Aldrich excelled at when directing Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and really capitalized on with Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte. The prologue of the film, which shockingly depicts the violent murder of John Mayhew, was incredibly chilling and graphic for a movie released in 1964. It's not hard to see why this would have upset audiences back in the day. It could still easily have the same effect on viewers today, even those desensitized by today's violent film standards. Not everything is constantly dark and violent, however, as the film manages to both amuse and terrify in equal measure. Witnessing Davis standing on her porch, pointing a rifle at trespassers and yelling at them in her thick Louisianna accent is downright campy and her performance is reason alone to check out the film. Yet, on a darker note, the longer Miriam and Drew remain in her house, the more erratic and dangerously unhinged Charlotte becomes.

A genuine whodunit, Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte is an eerie, violent and schlocky film blessed with two wonderful actresses in starring roles. As the film goes on, it gets progressively creepy and unsettling (example, the twisted nursery rhyme made up by townsfolk who believe Charlotte was the murderess: "Chop chop, Sweet Charlotte/Chop chop till he's dead/Chop chop Sweet Charlotte/Chop off his hand and head"). The film is over-the-top but very satisfying, although its main fault may be that it borrows too heavily from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Despite its campy and outrageous plot, this film will sit with you long after it's over.

FINAL GRADE: B+