Scariest Movie Monster Moments

[Toby Frost]

Well, if ghosts are included (and I can't see why not), I'd mention the dream on the beach from the 1960s version of "Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You" and the recovered mobile phone footage from the Australian film Lake Mungo.

 

[CupofJoe]

Monsters from the id.

As a child that scared the bejeezus out of me!

 

[BAYLOR]

Monsters from the id.

The melting door scene in The Forbidden Planet.

 

[BAYLOR]

Quatermass and the Pit The scene where the the drill operator went back to the Martain ship to retire his food and the light went out and all hell book lose . The scene where Colonel Breen under the influence by the glowing ship slowly burns to death .

 

[Guttersnipe]

Not a horror film, but the scene in Sybil (1976) where the main character has a vivid nightmare about being chased by a dead cat.

 

[Randy M.]

Here's an obscure one: Based on Cornell Woolrich's Black Alibi, early in the movie The Leopard Man (1943), after a leopard has escaped from a nightclub act, a little girl leaves home to get something from the store for her father's dinner, only that store, the close one, is closed. It's an extended sequence and one of the most suspenseful I've seen in a movie, and taken directly from the novel.

 

[KGeo777]

Sssssss! That poor assistant--what a horrible fate.
To think he ended up in a sideshow being stared at.

Scary monster moments.
The scissors scene in Exorcist 3 is pretty creepy thing.

I can't even watch the Shining scene with the hotel room--it is so creepy and freaky.
Also the shot of the guy in the bear costume--that is also a spooky scene.


The chauffeur in Burnt Offerings


The kids approaching the window and the vampire in the rocking chair in Salem's Lot "look at me teacher."

The girl emerging from the tv in Ringu--the famous Asian version. That really creeped me out.
That scene was so involving--and so simple. And the irony is--I watched it on a videotape someone sent to me.

In ALIEN, one of the creepiest scenes is when the alien is in the foggy mist and I think she turns around in the helmet and sees it.

The head in the boat in Jaws is one thing-but the shot that also disturbs me is where the shark attacks the guy in the pond and you can just see it under the water as it grabs for his legs.

The Ceti Alpha 5 ear creatures in ST 2

Actually, some of the Borg stuff in ST: First Contact is also very nightmarish--the scene where they are being lined up and converted into Borg drones.

 

[J Riff]

Invaders From Mars, the kid's parents being swallowed up by the sand.

 

[mosaix]

Same here on both. Not just the red eyes but the pig, too. It gets lots of flak for being goofy but as a kid I was terrified of it.

And the Omnibus oh whistle is supremely chilling. Love the way Hordern changed Parkins to a stuffy old man.

Horden is superb in the role. He hardly speaks a word but grunts and mumbles his way through the script conveying everything through the force of his acting.

 

[KGeo777]

How about the subway puppets in The Wiz?
Those things were creepy the way grew so big and bounced and they moved.

The wheelies in Return to Oz were also kind of disturbing too.

"She has a ...chicken with her!"

"A chicken!????!"

 

[pogopossum]

My wife had nightmares for more than a year after seeing Them as a girl, She has no memory of how she was allowed to see it as her mother was quite strict about such things. Those ants (and the soundtrack) were quite scary.

 

[BAYLOR]

Sssssss! That poor assistant--what a horrible fate.
To think he ended up in a sideshow being stared at.

A classic story of Boy Meets Girls , Girl Looses, Boy to Girls mad scientist father who turns him into a snake . Boy not a snake , gets into loosing battle with Mongoose

Scary monster moments.
The scissors scene in Exorcist 3 is pretty creepy thing.

Absolutely

I can't even watch the Shining scene with the hotel room--it is so creepy and freaky.
Also the shot of the guy in the bear costume--that is also a spooky scene.

Im not a fan of Kubrick's film but yeah , those scenes are beyond creepy, so it elevator putout gallon of Blood.

The chauffeur in Burnt Offerings

He did at least have nice macabre smile.

The kids approaching the window and the vampire in the rocking chair in Salem's Lot "look at me teacher."

Tobe Hopper's version Salems Lots is pretty damned scary in alot of places ! Especially the old the Marsden House

The girl emerging from the tv in Ringu--the famous Asian version. That really creeped me out.
That scene was so involving--and so simple. And the irony is--I watched it on a videotape someone sent to me.

Damned Scary and so is the Grudge and the Grudge 2 and by thy way theirs fails Ting vs Grudge where the The malevolent Ghost duke it out,

In ALIEN, one of the creepiest scenes is when the alien is in the foggy mist and I think she turns around in the helmet and sees it.

Another film with lot of terrifying moments. The Chest burster scene, The scene here the Alien sneaks up on poor Brett down in the lower section and that damn useless cat Jones did nothing to try to save him.

Actually, some of the Borg stuff in ST: First Contact is also very nightmarish--the scene where they are being lined up and converted into Borg drones.

The Borg stuff , yes

 

[JunkMonkey]

My wife had nightmares for more than a year after seeing Them as a girl, She has no memory of how she was allowed to see it as her mother was quite strict about such things. Those ants (and the soundtrack) were quite scary.

I rewatched this recently after many years and there was one moment in it that gave me a genuine shudder. It's fairly early in the film too. They'd just put the comatose, traumatised little girl in the back of the ambulance when our heroes hear the strange sound that they heard ealier. They turn to look out into the desert wondering what it can be and behind them, unseen by them, the little girl just sits up and stares out into the distance too - before lying back down again as the noise abates. I don't know why but that moment really jolted me.

 

[Boaz]

I think it was the summer of 1980 and my neighbors had a Betamax. And they had a copy of Jaws, which I had never seen. I was 14 years old and I was sitting about 5 feet from the screen when the head popped into the porthole. I think that was the worst jump scare I have ever had.

I was five years old when I first saw the Wizard of Oz. The wicked witch terrified me. The angry trees terrified me. The flying monkeys terrified me. The troll soldiers terrified me.

I went to see 28 Days After with a friend at a late showing. I knew the zombie trope that zombies shuffle. As long as you keep a level head and open eyes, then you can avoid zombies. But when the zombies began to sprint, that frightened me. Well my friend had given me a ride, and after the movie I asked him to drop me off at the grocery store two blocks from my house. I bought groceries and left the store at midnight. The quickest way to my house was down a dark side street and through two blocks of unlit back alleys. I was sprinting for my life by the time I reached home.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I think it was the summer of 1980 and my neighbors had a Betamax. And they had a copy of Jaws, which I had never seen. I was 14 years old and I was sitting about 5 feet from the screen when the head popped into the porthole. I think that was the worst jump scare I have ever had.

I was five years old when I first saw the Wizard of Oz. The wicked witch terrified me. The angry trees terrified me. The flying monkeys terrified me. The troll soldiers terrified me.

I went to see 28 Days After with a friend at a late showing. I knew the zombie trope that zombies shuffle. As long as you keep a level head and open eyes, then you can avoid zombies. But when the zombies began to sprint, that frightened me. Well my friend had given me a ride, and after the movie I asked him to drop me off at the grocery store two blocks from my house. I bought groceries and left the store at midnight. The quickest way to my house was down a dark side street and through two blocks of unlit back alleys. I was sprinting for my life by the time I reached home.

There are some very scary bits for a 'U' rating.

And yes I agree that the speeding up of zombies ramped up the scare factor 100%. I could never understand why in most zombie movies to this point that characters got caught, when the monsters ought to be so easily avoidable.

 

[pogopossum]

I just read the above post re THEM! to my spouse.
She added a couple of things. 1.Her mother did not know what was playing, but took her to the movies as a treat.
2. It was a double feature with The Thing! And yes, that was scary also.
3. They walked home from the strip mall theatre through a field after dark. Crickets were chirping.
The sound was the same (to a ten or eleven year old person) as the ants in the movie. It was terrifying - and she thinks that had to do with the nightmares.
This all happened about 64 years ago and she still remembers it distinctly.

 

[KGeo777]

I was five years old when I first saw the Wizard of Oz. The wicked witch terrified me. The angry trees terrified me. The flying monkeys terrified me. The troll soldiers terrified me.

I was going to mention the witch, monkeys, and trees too! Some of the munchkins creeped me out as well--the Lollipop Guild.
Funny enough, Sesame Street (a US children's show) had Margaret Hamilton appear in an episode as the Wicked Witch. She threatened to turn Big Bird into a feather duster but later becomes friends with Oscar the Grouch.
I remember seeing this episode and it was received so negatively that they never aired it again.

 

[Randy M.]

I rewatched this recently after many years and there was one moment in it that gave me a genuine shudder. It's fairly early in the film too. They'd just put the comatose, traumatised little girl in the back of the ambulance when our heroes hear the strange sound that they heard ealier. They turn to look out into the desert wondering what it can be and behind them, unseen by them, the little girl just sits up and stares out into the distance too - before lying back down again as the noise abates. I don't know why but that moment really jolted me.

What I wrote back in 2017 in the "What was the last movie you saw" thread:

THEM! (1954) -- first of the giant bug movies and still probably the best. The black and white cinematography and the gravitas of James Whitmore, James Arness and Santa Claus -- er -- Edmund Gwenn help carry the premise of ants made giant by radioactivity. Terrific, creepy early sequence with a little girl found wandering in the desert and her reaction to the noise the ants make. The movie also offers quick glimpses of actors early in their careers who visited our living rooms for the next few decades: Richard Deacon, William Schallert, Dub Taylor, Leonard Nimoy and Fess Parker.

That is so subtle compared to most monster movies of the time, that it really strikes home.

 

[BAYLOR]

What I wrote back in 2017 in the "What was the last movie you saw" thread:

THEM! (1954) -- first of the giant bug movies and still probably the best. The black and white cinematography and the gravitas of James Whitmore, James Arness and Santa Claus -- er -- Edmund Gwenn help carry the premise of ants made giant by radioactivity. Terrific, creepy early sequence with a little girl found wandering in the desert and her reaction to the noise the ants make. The movie also offers quick glimpses of actors early in their careers who visited our living rooms for the next few decades: Richard Deacon, William Schallert, Dub Taylor, Leonard Nimoy and Fess Parker.

That is so subtle compared to most monster movies of the time, that it really strikes home.

Clint Eastwood had an uncredited camp in the 1955 film Tarantula. He also had bit part in another scion action film of that era.

Steven McQueen stared in the 1958 version of The Blob

 

[JunkMonkey]

What I wrote back in 2017 in the "What was the last movie you saw" thread:

THEM! (1954) -- first of the giant bug movies and still probably the best. The black and white cinematography and the gravitas of James Whitmore, James Arness and Santa Claus -- er -- Edmund Gwenn help carry the premise of ants made giant by radioactivity. Terrific, creepy early sequence with a little girl found wandering in the desert and her reaction to the noise the ants make. The movie also offers quick glimpses of actors early in their careers who visited our living rooms for the next few decades: Richard Deacon, William Schallert, Dub Taylor, Leonard Nimoy and Fess Parker.

That is so subtle compared to most monster movies of the time, that it really strikes home.

I must have blinked and missed it. Leonard Nimoy was in in Them!?

My gods so he was...