This scene from 1974’s Young Frankenstein is not only funny but kinda poignant and sad. I mean, you can tell that the Monster (Peter Boyle) is trying so hard to do a good job and what does it get him? Not only does the audience turn on him but even his creator (Gene Wilder) starts yelling at him.
I mean, considering that the Monster had only been alive for a few days, I think he deserves a lot of credit for handling the performance as well as could be expected! To me, the true monsters in this scene are the theater patrons who apparently brought cabbages and other vegetables with them to the theater. I mean, you don’t pack a salad unless you’re planning on using it.
Take Shelter was one of my favorite films of 2011. It was not only the first to introduce me to director Jeff Nichols but it was also the first time that I ever watched Michael Shannon act and thought to myself, “Hmmm….so, yeah, he’s a really good actor.”
The film was usually described as being either a “psychological thriller” or “a character study” but that’s just because critics were trying to justify how good the film was by ignoring the fact that it was totally a horror film. Shannon plays a man who is haunted by disturbing nightmares of the end of the world. The film perfectly integrates the nightmares into the narrative, so that you’re never quite sure when one of them is going to pop up. It’s always raining in the nightmares but sometimes, it’s cloudy while Shannon’s awake as well and you’re just like, “Oh no….”
Anyway, this is one of the nightmares and I remember it totally freaked me out when I saw Take Shelter in the theaters. I was like, “Uhmmm….did anyone else just notice a shadow walk by the window?”
Take Shelter‘s a really good movie so you need to see it if you haven’t already.
Obviously, you don’t have to be from a Catholic background to find this scene from The Conjuring 2 totally creepy but it definitely helps.
I remember watching this scene in the theaters. As soon as Vera Farimga stepped into that room, I was like, “Uhmm …. see the painting? Uh, there’s a painting behind you. You might want to turn around and look at the painting….”
I really liked The Conjuring 2 and the first Conjuring as well. I even liked the Annabelle films. But one thing that I’ve always noticed about haunted house films is that nobody ever just turns on the lights. It always seems to me like so much trouble could be avoided just by turning on the lights in every room and leaving them on. Scary things only seem to happen in the dark.
Anyway, enough of my rambling! Here’s today’s scene:
Today’s horror scene that I love comes from the classic 1958 British film, Horror of Dracula. Horror of Dracula was not only one of my favorite horror films but iit was also a favorite of Gary’s as well and, as I spend today considering how best to honor his memory and his love of cinema, sharing a scene from this film just feels very appropriate.
Horror of Dracula was not only the film that introduced the world to Christopher Lee as Dracula but it was also the film that, for lack of a better term, “rebooted” the whole Dracula legend. It was the film that showed that Dracula could still be intriguing and frightening in the modern era. Even more so than the original Draculastarring Bela Lugosi, the Hammer Dracula films — and Lee’s performance as Dracula — have influenced every vampire film that has come out since.
In this scene, Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) leaves his room at Castle Dracula and runs into one of Dracula’s brides (Valerie Gaunt). Lee’s Dracula doesn’t make an entrance until towards the end of the scene but what an entrance it is!
This scene epitomizes everything that made the Hammer Dracula films so memorable. You’ve got sex, horror, and Christopher Lee playing Dracula. What had before merely been the subtext in previous vampire films was revealed by Hammer in all of its glory.
So, last night, at the TSL offices, Jeff, Leonard, Case, and I watched Insidious! It was an enjoyable experience. I think we were all surprised to discover just how well Insidious holds up. When the film reached the seance scene, in which the ghosts were asked questions and a possessed Lin Shaye would write out their answers, I said, “This scene reminds me of the seance scene from The Changeling!”
And then I thought to myself, “That should be our next horror scene that I love!”
So, I went to YouTube and I searched for the classic (and really scary) seance scene from Peter Medak’s great 1980 ghost story, The Changeling. And guess what? I couldn’t find it! I found a lot of scenes from The Changeling and I found a lot of people talking about how much they love the seance scene but I couldn’t find the scene itself!
So, here’s the best I could do. This scene that I love takes place immediately after the seance and features George C. Scott listening and re-listening to a tape of the seance until he can finally hear the voice of the child who, years before, was murdered in his house.
Even if it’s not the seance scene, it’s still pretty good. I personally consider this to be one of George C. Scott’s best performances. And the sound of the little boy’s voice on the tape is chilling.
The Changeling is really good, by the way. You should watch it, if you haven’t already!
After all of the sequels and the rip-offs, it’s easy to forget just how scary Insidiouswas when it was first released, way back in 2011.
Believe it or not, it’s still pretty scary. Take the scene below, for instance. I screamed the first time I saw it and then I screamed again rewatching it on YouTube.
The reason this scenes works is because, from the start, you know that those two ghosts are going to show up. You just don’t know when. With each click, you know you’re getting closer and closer to something bad appearing in that hallway. And then when they do finally show up and the movie’s soundtrack goes “BOOOOM!” and then you see the smiles on their face — AGCK! Seriously, this is one of the best jump scares of the past decade.
The scene below comes from the 1979 Lucio Fulci masterpiece, Zombi 2.
In this scene, a mysterious boat is floating towards New York City. Two cops are sent to check the boat out and, as they eventually discover, the boat isn’t quite as deserted as they thought it was.
Now, there’s a few reasons why this scene is important. Number one, Zombi 2 is an Italian film that was designed to pass for an American film. (Technically, it was sold as being a prequel to Dawn of the Dead, which was released under the title Zombi in much of Europe.) In order to maintain the illusion, Italian filmmakers would often spend a day or two shooting on location in a recognizable American city. More often than not, that city would turn out to be New York.
Number two, since Zombi 2 was promoted as being a bit of a prequel to Dawn of the Dead, one could argue that this scene shows how the whole zombie apocalypse began in the United States. It wasn’t radiation from space or Hell running out of room. No, instead, it was juts a boat floating from an island in the Caribbean all the way to New York.
This scene is also memorable because of the “boat zombie,” who is one of the best-known of the movie zombies. Even people who have never heard of Lucio Fulci will probably recognize the boat zombie. He’s an icon of the undead!
Finally, this scene sets up one of the greatest closing shots in the history of zombie cinema. New York beware!
The scene below is, of course, from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece, The Shining.
In this scene, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) stumbles into the Overlook Hotel’s ballroom, still fuming over having been accused of abusing his son. A recovering alcoholic, Jack sits at the bar and thinks about how he would give up his soul for just one one drink. And, on cue, Lloyd (Joe Turkel) appears.
As I was watching this scene, it occurred to me that, way back in 1980, there probably was some guy named Lloyd who saw this movie in a theater and was probably totally shocked when Jack suddenly stared straight at him and said, “Hey, Lloyd.”
The brilliance of this scene is that we never actually see Lloyd materialize. We see him only after Jack has seen him. So, yes, Lloyd could be a ghost. But he could also just be a figment of Jack’s imagination. Jack very well could just be suffering from cabin fever. Of course, by the end of the movie, we learn the truth.
Everyone always talks about Jack Nicholson’s performance as Jack. Some people love it and some people hate it. (I’m in the first camp.) However, let’s take a minute to appreciate just how totally creepy Joe Turkel is in this scene. Turkel was a veteran character actor and had appeared in two previous Kubrick films, The Killing and Paths of Glory. Two years after appearing in The Shining, Turkel played what may be his best-known role, Dr. Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner.
From Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, here’s Jack Nicholson and Joe Turkel:
First released in 2016, The Witchis one of the best horror films of the past few years.
Based, so the film claimed, on actual historical records, The Witch told the story of a Puritan family living in 17th century New England and finding themselves haunted by not just a billy goat named Black Phillip but also by a baby-eating witch who lives in the forest.
In the scene below, Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) meets the Witch (Bathsheba Garnett) herself and they share a rather fateful kiss. Among my friends, this scene is actually somewhat controversial. Some of them wish that the film had kept the Witch off-screen for its entirety, the better to leave some ambiguity as to whether the family was truly cursed or just a victim of mass hysteria. While I see their point, I think this scene works well in the overall scheme of the film. In this scene, the witch reveals herself to be everything that the Puritans were supposedly against and her seduction of Caleb establishes that the film is ultimately a battle between the desires of the flesh and the piety of the soul.
It’s also interesting that, if The Witch can be viewed as a cinematic folk tale, the witch is wearing a red hood, linking her to the story of Little Red Riding Hood and leaving us to wonder who the wolf really is in this case.
I swear, nothing annoys me more than when wannabe hipsters go out of their way to trash old movies.
You see that a lot on twitter. People who, for the most part, haven’t even studied film or cultural history will try to post something snarky about a film that was made decades before they were born. They either make fun of the acting or the dialogue or they attempt to call out the film for not being properly woke. It’s an easy way to get likes and retweets but it’s also about as intellectually lazy as you can get.
For instance, there’s a tendency to dismiss the 1931 version of Dracula and Bela Lugosi’s performance in the lead role. Personally, I do think that Dracula is a bit too stagey (it was, after all, based on a stage play that was based on Bram Stoker’s novel) and I wouldn’t put it up there with director Tod Browning’s best work. The Spanish-language version ofDracula, which was filmed at the same time, is technically a better film. But, that being said, I will accept no criticism of Lugosi’s performance. Lugosi is the perfect Dracula. If he seems overly theatrical …. well, Dracula’s a pretty theatrical character. It has to be remembered that Lugosi is playing a character who is supposed to be several hundred years old. If he acts like a man out-of-time, that’s because that is exactly what he is.
Ultimately, it comes down to this — a lot of actors have played Dracula. Some of them have been very good in the role. Some of them have been very bad. But, if not for Lugosi, none of them would have had the opportunity.
So, in honor of that legacy, today’s horror scene that I love comes from the original Dracula and features Bela Lugosi at his creepiest:
Through the Shattered Lens 