Completely agree, that's why my favourite horror film by a mile is The Shining. It just messes with your mind.
The body bag scene in the school in Nightmare on Elm Street. Seems tame now but when I first saw it, it really creeped me out. I'm on a bit of Wes Craven film binge at the moment. Just watched The Serpent and the Rainbow for the first time in over 20 years. That has some fairly creepy scenes too.
The Japanese original Ring - Ringu. That is a film that messes with your mind. I quite like a lot of the East Asian horror films for that reason.
Nosferatu: Symphony of Horror (the original from 1922) is a favourite of mine. Hugely influential and delightfully creepy.
Premature Burial (1962) scared the **** out of me. There was one scene where everyone in the (Priory) cinema simultaneously yelled out and almost jumped from their seat. I'd love to see a remake of this movie.
Anyone seen The Gallows yet? That looks pretty scary and has really good ratings. The Insidious films aren't scary but they really are good at creeping me out. Someone mentioned What Lies Beneath above. Very underrated film. Camera angles constantly make you think ****'s about to kick off but it doesn't always... then something will get you right out of the blue.
Scene in Soldier Blue where the army attack the Indian village and a squaw is ridden down and decapitated with a sabre at full charge. The new cinema technology caused everyone sat in the left-hand seats of the first few rows, looking sharply up at the screen, were given the all too real sensation of being about to catch the severed head. Everyone moved as one, it really freaked some folk out - ABC Cinema, about 1970/71 methinks.
Time Out recently put together a list of the scariest film scenes ever and at No.1 they had a Japanese film called Audition. There's a lot of torture in it and it does look fairly grim...
You seen Battle Royale? Some of the scenes where the friends turn on each other & kill each other off in a brutal fashion unnerved me. Especially, the poison scene.
Not familiar with it, though having just checked out the trailer, it looks fairly mental. Quentin Tarantino's favourite film apparently.
Someone mentioned the Jaws Head scene....at the time that was really scary stuff....Its the suspense building that gets you..I usually horror films but my daughter forced me to watch insidious......I thought it was actually pretty bland......but after the credits, when you think you have got through it unscathed,....that head suddenly pops up...frightened me to death....almost.
