Villagemonster Dreams

31 Days of Great Horror Movie Scenes

Day 31

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Halloween is here, and so my list of great horror movie scenes comes to an end. Choosing no.1 was hard because Halloween falls on a work/school day this year….but in the end I decided to go with a slice of everyday horror from one of the most underrated genre films ever, and a film that perfectly nails the mood and allure of Halloween.

School Bus Horror - Trick r’Treat (2007)

Every town has its own urban legend - tales that may start out with a generic framework, but gradually absorb the flavor of thier surroundings and become tied to a place, passed down through generations, and widely circulated among kids as the facts. Like so many episodes of Goosebumps, Trick r Treat explores an urban legend that may have a basis in fact. But it does so with style, an eerie vibe, and some real horror.

The group of kids that tell this tale in Micheal Dougjterty’s film don’t exactly seem entirely trustworthy at first. after all, they are trying to scare the bejesus out of a poor mentally handicapped girl. But, as the creepy tale unfolds, and the supremely disturbing details emerge, it soon begins to appear that this horror may be more dangerous to the mischievous kids than they realize.

31 Days Of Great Horror Movie Scenes

Day 30

Airport Of Horror - Suspiria (1977)

Airports are not generally scary places. You are more likely to die of boredom waiting for your plane than get scared to death in an airport terminal. But in Suspiria, Dario Argento starts as he means to go on, creating a nightmare vision of Munich airport bathed in reds and greens.

Poor Suzy steps through the gates only to be surrounded by flashing red lights, passengers wearing crimson shades and Goblin’s sinister, insistent score. But, ignoring all the subliminal signs, Suzy carries on.

31 Days of Great Horror Movie Scenes

Day 29

Hysterical furniture - Evil Dead 2 (1987)

The first two Evil Dead films are the ultimate cabin in the wood films - the first basically created the genre - so are incredibly hard to pick a scene from. There are so many hilariously surreal scenes in the films - as well as shockingly brutal ones - that director Sam Raimi shoots in an incredibly creative way.

In the sequel he got to let his crazy imagination loose even more than in the original, and ramped up the surreal comedy to new levels.

Case in point is this awesome scene, where the demonic spirits plaguing poor Ash seem to inhabit the furniture of the ramshackle cabin. As the mounted deer head, desk lamp and bookshelves heave and cackle, Ash starts to laugh too, becoming as hysterical as the objects taunting him.

All the while, Raimi twists and sweeps his camera around the insanity, zooming right in on the absurd taxidermy and Bruce Campbell’s awesomely expressive features as he enters madness.

31 days of great horror movie scenes

Day 27

Hobbling - Misery (1990)

Who doesn’t love a scene where the villain calmly explains a random horrific story to their victim, and the victim slowly realizes what they are in for? It is even more terrifying if the villain shows their true colors in doing so.

So it is in this scene where Annie Wilkes, -who the film initially presents as an eccentric, but harmless kook - finally reveals the extreme lengths she is willing to go to to keep Her favorite writer in her home. The film builds up to the reveal subtly; emotional outbursts on Annie’s part, her pet pig, her tying her ‘guest’ to the bed….before revealing her icily efficient attitude towards mutilation.

31 Days of Great Horror Movie Scenes Day 25 Bare/Bear - The Shining (1980)

A list of great horror scenes wouldn't be complete without something from The Shining...but Kubrick creates so many iconic scenes here that is frankly hard to choose.

I'll go with one of the more WTF, random moments in the film. Yeah, maybe even more so than the blood elevator...

Poor frantic Wendy is fleeing the terror in the rest of the Overlook hotel when she stumbles up a flight of stairs and suddenly screams. What does she see? Though an open door ahead, a man dressed as a bear is apparently performing intimate acts with another, well-dressed man. Both slowly look up at Wendy. She screams and runs off. The ghosts never appear again. Random, right?

31 Days of Great Horror Movie Scenes

Day 24 -

The High Witch - The Witches (1990 )

I’m not sure what people were expecting when Nicholas Roeg signed on to direct Roald Dahl’s children’s classic, but the twisted result carries over much of the disturbing imagery and other-worldly menace of his classic Don’t Look Now.

Perhaps the biggest nightmare fuel in the film for children, is the scene in which the intrepid kid discovers that all the kindly old ladies in the hotel are really grotesque witches.

31 days of great Horror Movie scenes - Day 23

The Bitter End - The Mist (2007)

Spoilers!

It’s hard to watch The Mist now and not think of it a little as Frank Darabont’s training wheels for the first season of The Walking Dead. Actors Laurie Holden, Jeffery De Munn and Melissa McBride are present in both - and the latter two are essentially playing the same character- and both plots essentially revolve around a desperate group of characters trying to survive in a new world full of monsters.

The Mist is different than The Walking Dead though, in that this monster invasion is far eerier, mysterious and arguably disturbing than the arrival of walkers, biters or whatever they call them on the Walking Dead nowadays. For one, the prognosis seems far worse : instead of suffering a virus that creates fairly manageable, stumbling zombies, the humans here have to deal with a seeming rip between dimensions, and the mass of invading monsters and ominous mist brings with it. They don’t know when or if it will end.

And that brings the -relatively- sane survivors of the supermarket to this shocking scene, which still hits hard. It is surprising , but you do sympathize with the characters when thy make their decision.