Top 13 Scary Scenes from Non-Horror Movies

 

Nightmare fuel is not just for horror films.  There are villains in rated PG movies that could pass for slasher flick monsters, like Judge Doom and Voldemort.  Some dark fantasy films like Pan’s Labyrinth and Dark Crystal have creepy qualities in common with the horror genre.  Other intense scenes are completely void of the paranormal but involve life threatening situations.

I compiled a list of scenes that either distressed me or were notable for emotionally jarring viewers.  This list started out with about six examples, then ten, twelve, and then thirteen.  The number 13 was unintentional, because the ideas just kept coming.  They are ranked from creepy to bloodcurdling based on my judgment, and that ranking is free for people to argue.  I was going to add The Witches (1990), but I decided that it could have been a children’s horror movie since the plot surrounded the antagonists who were decked out in monster makeup.  

Note:  I don’t like to spoil movies.  If you have not seen one of these films, please stop what you are doing, watch that movie, and please resume reading.  Either that, or you can just skip to the next section.  Also, there are some spoilers at the end of this entry.

 

 

13.  Tunnel scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) – Willy Wonka and the children board a small boat and travel through a tunnel, and then Willy Wonka recites some scary poem.  This emotionally affected a lot of children, but it never scared me.  The same kids who belittled me for fearing bees were afraid of this scene.  Though, I was not judgmental of them since I was afraid of ET anyway.  While we watched WW&tCF in second grade, I looked around, feeling concerned for my classmates, but wondering why they were afraid.  However, it wasn’t just my peers who feared Gene Wilder’s dreaded voice, but a wider audience of children was affected.  The scene was notable enough to make this list.

 

12.  Professor Quirrell’s Head from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) – Under the professor’s turban was the undead face of Lord Voldemort, who was living on the back of the professor’s head the whole time.  One of my friends said this part of HP1 was frightening and unnecessary, though it was in the book with a slight variation.  The Harry Potter franchise is nowhere near the horror genre, and this monstrous reveal is peculiar enough that Professor Quirrell could wander into a horror movie and fit in.

 

11.  Eyeball eating scenes from Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016) – The film is jam packed with horror movie material, but it is presented in the plot of a lovable children’s movie.  Samuel L. Jackson’s role as Barron has similar abilities to the T-1000 in Terminator 2, making him intimidating enough without him eating children’s eyeballs.  There is a scene where Barron and his evil accolades are consuming eyeballs in a dining room table feast as if they were delicacies.  This was all in attempts to regain human form in the least humane way.

 

10.  Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) - This guy belongs in a horror movie, not just a dark fantasy.  A silent monster sits at the head of a long table covered in tempting food.  The second a child eats the food, the monster awakens to eat the child.  There’s even a pile of children’s shoes belonging to the eaten.  Pale Man is foreboding enough to make the ranks of other horror movie monsters like Freddy Krueger and Pumpkinhead. 

 

9.  Happiness sucking laser from The Dark Crystal (1982) – Jim Henson wanted to prove that puppets weren’t just for children, so he made a frightening puppet movie to prove that.  Henson was definitely not a pervert, which sets him apart from a lot of Hollywood figures.  Instead of sexualizing his material to fulfill the adult genre, he decided to make it disturbing and involve a plot with genocidal villains.  I watched this movie in college, so it did not bother me, but it frightened one of my childhood friends, specifically the following scene.  The Skeksis capture people and force them to receive a red light beam from the dark crystal itself.  It saps all joy and transforms the captive into a slave.  Their eyes turn white in the process and they act soulless.

 

8.  Soul splitting machine from Golden Compass (2007) – Now that we just discussed a film about puppets attempting genocide and slavery, here is a movie truly intended for families.  It has an institution functioning like the Ministry of Love from 1984!  When children question and uncover arcane knowledge, they are sent to a prison with a room worse than an execution chamber.  The child and animal companion are forced into a machine with an electrical fence bisecting it.  When activated, the electrical current in the bisecting fence slowly slices the bond between the duo.  The child is rendered soulless, or seems to appear that way.

 

7.  Submarine scene from Zeus and Roxanne (1997) – Mary Beth takes a solitary dive in a small submarine, which gets caught in marine terrain, and the propeller is tangled in a net.  Stranded with no means of remote communication, the woman attempts to escape, resulting in the water fiercely flooding the interior.  She made some seriously stupid decisions, but before you judge, just know that we all make dumb mistakes.  It didn’t matter that she had a pending Darwin Award, I still felt terrified for her predicament.

 

6.  Shower scene from Captain Ron (1992) - The married couple is taking a shower on a boat, the drain gets clogged, and the door is obstructed, thus trapping them inside.  The faucet malfunctioned, and the water level was rising in the tight space.  If Captain Ron were not there to save them, the couple could have drowned.  This is supposed to be a comedy.

 

5.  Trash compacter scene from Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) – Luke, Han, Chewbacca, and Princess Leia are hiding in the trash, and the walls start caving in, to compact and dispose of the trash room’s contents.  The possibility of being crushed by walls was disturbing to me as a child.  C3PO and R2D2 stopped the process, because remote communication was possible unlike the Mary Beth’s submarine with no reception.  Although Star Wars is a far cry from a horror franchise, the people of Alderaan probably thought Darth Vader was worse than Jigsaw.

 

4.  Snake pit from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – The ending of this movie was disturbing and fits the paranormal aspects of horror for that scene alone, but I’d like to focus on a more natural threat, snakes.  The snake infested temple where Indiana Jones was marooned was terrifying and the prospect of being stranded down there is dreadful even for people without herpetophobia.

 

3.  Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) – Towards the end, the antagonist is run over by a steam roller, then his flattened body rises, and struggles to balance with spectre-like motions.  He inflates his body with a helium tank, and his eyeballs pop out.  The villain leaves his eyeballs on the floor, and reveals red eyes and gives a helium screech.  This unnerved me plus scores of children.  This family flick that’s half-animated managed to scare me more than ET.  Moreover, Judge Doom was supposed to be a mere cartoon.

 

2.  Buried alive, Kill Bill Vol. 2  (2004) – Most of the previous scenes were surreal or highly unlikely, but this event could happen if someone was malevolent enough to carry it out.  Uma Thurman’s character, the Black Mamba, attempts to exact revenge against Budd, and he puts her inside an old fashioned wooden coffin, nailing it shut.  Then he buries that coffin in the ground.  Before this egregious act, he gives her one flashlight.  Cinematically it helps with shooting the scene, but it was supposed to be his one speck of benevolence to Uma.  The scene is very tense despite her survival.

(The number one scariest scene is bad enough that I refuse to take a screenshot and post it here.)

 

1.  “Hoover it!” from She’s All That (1999) – This scene is scarier than anything from a horror film.  Grab a bottle of antacids.  This might make you sick.  This is a chick flick where the unpopular girl, Laney, gets transformed into a prom queen candidate; the antithesis of horror - aside from Carrie.  However Carrie will let you keep your stomach intact.  The most disgusting part is when a bully pranks Laney’s younger brother, Simon, by putting a large wad of tangled hair mangled with cafeteria floor debris onto his pizza.  The popular guy in school, Zack, stands up for Simon, by drawing the attention of the cafeteria, and pressuring the bully consume the pizza with the massive mound of puke-worthy material on top.  “Hoover it!” Zack says.  The bully eats it like he’s on Fear Factor, and the camera leaves nothing out.  I feel sorry for the actor who played the bully.  This is probably a deleted scene because it’s too nauseating.  Not even Freddy Krueger tried this in any of the nightmares he created.

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Out of the thirteen films listed, five of them were based in realism, seven were fantasy, science fiction, or both, and one was half-animated/live action.  Four were comedies.  Two thirds of the surreal films were dark fantasies.  Willy Wonka’s factory looks cheery, but it’s a tempting torture facility and Pale Man has probably picked up a job application there.

Although the majority of the films listed had predominantly dark undertones, a significant portion was realistic fiction or had lighthearted plots.  Even in normal circumstances, frightening things can still happen.  Drowning can be petrifying. 

The only reason these chilling scenes don’t make it to horror is because everyone survives.  Ofelia escapes Pale Man.  Harry Potter defeats Professor Quirrell/Voldemort.  Captain Ron rescues the drowning shower takers.  The villainess saves Lyra in Golden Compass.  Out of the thirteen scenes, five involved being saved, three escaped their predicament, and two defeated monsters.  Two involved no horrifying outcome.  Barron and his fiendish friends were just shown consuming eyeballs.  It was just gross.  Absolutely nothing happened in Willy Wonka’s tunnel.  The candy man just spoke in a creepy voice.  Out of all the scenes listed, the only horrific outcome was the bully succumbing to ingesting the vicariously intestinal churning mass of grossness.  Though, he probably did not die.

I don’t shame people for being afraid.  Fear is a naturally occurring emotion that makes us human.  If you think about it, almost anything could be creepy.  Take anything from a movie, and imagine it walking into your bedroom at 4am.  Instant terror!