13 Scariest Horror Movie Scenes

It’s time to give horror cinema the respect it deserves. This genre is so much more than buckets of fake blood and bad acting (although there is a lot of that, too). The same way that fairy tales illuminate our grandest hopes and desires, horror movies give shape and substance to our worst fears and anxieties, inviting us to confront them head on.

Halloween may only happen once a year, but spooky season can be all year round if you want it. We’ve rounded up a few of our favorite scenes throughout horror history to embrace these evergreen chills. If you’re sensitive to spoilers, jump scares, and gore, get out while you can.

1. Scream, “Not in my movie!”

Scream’s Sidney Prescott, played by ‘90s It Girl Neve Campbell, is not your average “final girl.” And this scene, in particular, captures everything we love about her. After outsmarting and outmaneuvering a teenage serial killer named Billy (who also happens to be her boyfriend), Sidney stands over his seemingly lifeless body to make sure he’s dead. In keeping with slasher film tradition, Billy suddenly awakes and lunges for Sidney — the killer’s return for one last scare. But before he can even sit up, Sidney shoots him square in the head and adds “Not in my movie!” We simply have no choice but to stan.

2. The Witch, The Levitation Scene

Wouldst thou like to live deliciously? Look no further than this 17th century slow burn starring modern-day scream queen Anya Taylor-Joy as Thomasin, a girl whose family is banished from Plymouth Colony and forced to move to the other side of a dense, New England forest. As near-starvation and a series of unsettling events batter the family, they sink deeper into grief and paranoia. Despite her prayers and attempts to be a good, Puritan girl, Thomasin is repeatedly blamed for their misfortunes. And by the end of the film, she has nowhere else to turn besides the coven of witches in the woods.

3. Psycho, The Shower Scene

Clocking in at an extremely tense 45 seconds, this scene remains one of the most shocking and impactful in horror history. Traveling on a stormy night, Marion Crane — played by leading lady Janet Leigh — pulls over and checks into the Bates Motel for the night. After dinner/preparing for bed, she decides to take a shower. As the bathroom fills with steam, we see a figure silently enter, pull back the translucent shower curtain, and stab our would-be protagonist to death only twenty minutes into the film. Years later, Leigh told the New York Times she stopped taking showers all together after filming this scene. And really, can you blame her?

4. Us, The Hall of Mirrors

Beautiful and haunting, this scene is a Jordan Peele masterclass in cinematography. Having wandered away from her parents at the boardwalk amusement park, young Adelaide, played by Madison Curry, is drawn to a brightly lit funhouse along the beach. As she walks deeper into the maze of mirrors, the attraction’s lights and music suddenly shut off, plunging Adelaide into darkness. Clearly spooked, but determined not to panic, Adelaide whistles to herself and searches for an exit. But before she gets there, she finds herself face-to-face with her likeness — not a reflection, but a living, breathing copy. Consider us SHOOK.

5. Suspiria (2018), Susie Improvising

Contemporary dance! Witchcraft! Tilda Swinton! A score composed by Thom Yorke of Radiohead! The Suspiria reboot doesn’t have much in common with the 1977 cult classic, a jewel of Italian horror cinema, but it does honor the mood of the original. In the 2018 release, Dakota Johnson plays Susie Bannion, an ambitious dancer who leaves her sheltered life in Ohio behind to join a prestigious, Berlin-based dance company. The catch? The company may or may not be run by witches trying to groom Susie for their next ritual killing. Yikes!

6. mother!, The Baby-Eating Scene

mother! Is an allegorical horror flick that builds up to a wild final scene. Jennifer Lawrence plays an expectant mother in a bad marriage with Him, a poet with a really intense fandom played by Javier Bardem. When Him’s admirers start showing up uninvited at their cozy country home, the couple’s blissful life together rapidly turns into a domestic nightmare.

Case in point: When mother finally gives birth to their first child, Him lets his admirers pass it around like a platter of hors d'oeuvres. When the frenzied crowd accidentally snaps the baby’s neck, they begin picking apart — and yes, eating — bits of its flesh. This, understandably, pushes mother over the edge. And in the film’s final scene, she cracks open an oil tank in the basement of their home, drops a lighter, and blows the whole place to smithereens.

7. Carrie, The Prom Bloodbath

The 1976 adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie is one of the most iconic horror films of the 20th century, as far as we’re concerned. In this supernatural coming of age story, scream queen Sissy Spacek plays Carrie White, a repressed 16-year-old girl with no friends, a horribly abusive mother, and telekinetic powers she can’t control. In an attempt to do ONE NICE THING for someone who is relentlessly bullied at school and at home, a girl named Sue asks her hot boyfriend to take Carrie to the prom. But even this small kindness is ruined when a hateful popular girl rigs the prom court election and drenches Carrie in pig’s blood. When Carrie finally exacts revenge on her peers in this scene, it’s cathartic as well as disturbing.

And the Chloë Grace Moretz version:

8. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, The Finger Scene

This arthouse vampire western noir takes place in the imaginary Iranian town of Bad City, where a lonely vampire whiles away her time dancing alone in her apartment, skateboarding, lurking in the shadows, and intimidating children. That is, when she’s not dishing out vigilante justice to terrible men.

One of those terrible men is a drug-dealing pimp named Saeed. After watching him assault and refuse to pay a sex worker named Atti, The Girl stalks and seduces him. Saeed takes The Girl back to his gaudily decorated bachelor pad and proceeds to hit on her. He sticks his fingers in her mouth, and for a moment, The Girl plays along. Then, she bites his fingers clean off and shoves the decapitated digits in his mouth before sucking his blood and stealing his watch on the way out.

9. Silence of the Lambs, The Basement Scene

Night vision makes everything scarier. Clarice’s final showdown with serial killer Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs is only two minutes long, but it feels like a lifetime. Luring her down to his filthy murder-basement, Bill cuts the lights and watches Clarice swivel around, shaking with fear, through a pair of night vision binoculars. As she feels her way around the room, gun in hand, he follows her. At one point, he reaches out, almost caressing her hair and face as she blindly searches for him in the darkness. Hear that? That’s the sound of us shrieking into the nearest throw pillow.

10. Jennifer’s Body (2009), The Pool Scene

Amanda Seyfried isn’t the only thing Jennifer’s Body has in common with Mean Girls. Both films are darkly hilarious, ultra-quotable takes on the (at times) parasitic nature of female friendship. Of course, there’s a crucial difference. In Diablo Cody’s horror-comedy starring Megan Fox, resident hot girl Jennifer Check is possessed by a demon.

The only person standing in the way of her teenage boy-eating rampage? Jennifer’s childhood best friend, Needy. In this scene, everything comes to a head after Jennifer tries to eat Needy’s boyfriend, Chip.

11. The Descent (2005), The Blood Chamber Scene

The Descent is about a girl’s spelunking trip gone horribly wrong. Six adventurous women find themselves trapped inside an underground cave system with a horde of blind, flesh-eating “crawlers” — humanoid creatures that look like Lord Voldemort, but scarier.

This film is claustrophobic horror perfection from start to finish, and the action sequences are on par but one scene, in particular, deserves a shout-out. Near the end, one of our fearless female protagonists, Sarah, has an epic brawl with an angry female crawler in a chamber filled with blood. So. Much. Blood.

12. We Need to Talk About Kevin, (2011) The Lychee Scene

Ezra Miller’s evil smiling in this movie almost made us forget how much we adore him IRL. In this chilling psychodrama about a fragmented relationship between mother and son, Miller plays a troubled teen named Kevin. To everyone else, Kevin is a mostly average kid. But when Kevin is alone with his mother, a much crueler side of his personality comes out. Nothing violent or graphic happens in this scene, but it does show Kevin’s total lack of remorse after his little sister loses her eye in a mysterious accident at home.

13. IT, The Opening Scene

You’ll never look at sewer grates the same way again. If jumps-per-minute is the metric you care most about, you can’t go wrong with the franchise that gave an entire generation a lifelong fear of clowns. Whether you’re watching the 1990 classic or the 2017 reboot, the opening scene of IT is positively terrifying. On a rainy day, a little boy named Georgie chases his paper boat down the street until it falls into a storm drain. As he leans down to peer in, Pennywise the clown emerges from the darkness and introduces himself.

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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue