What's The Most Unsettling Movie Scene That Doesn't Rely On Jump Scares?
Look, it's so easy to scare the heck out of someone by showing them a demonic person rushing toward the camera, like this scene from Paranormal Activity 4.
Paramount Pictures
Or having a pair of hands reach from the floor to yank a ghost girl to the depths of hell like they did in The Amityville Horror.
MGM Distribution Co.
But you know what's a challenge? Conceptually terrifying moments that are subtly eerie, yet still manage to make people feel discomfort at their core. Like when a woman with a sinister grin was lurking in the background of the library during It.
Or when people were faintly visible in the dark throughout Hereditary—particularly the smiling man from the cult, who was eerie at the funeral, and eerier standing in this dark doorway, naked.
It doesn't even necessarily have to be a horror movie! Remember when The Passion of the Christ showed Satan holding a creepy baby? That ruined me for years!
Or the unrelenting spooky vibes given off by the grandma in The Visit, who ferociously scratched at a wall in the middle of the night, and was seen running back and forth down the hall, then uncomfortably struck this ballet pose.
Whatever made you feel deeply unsettled, we want to know! Tell us about the scene that may not have made you flinch in your seat, but still deeply haunts you in the comments below! (Be as detailed as you can about what happens, and why it made you so uncomfortable!)
