The Scariest Single Frames in Cinema History

There are scary movies and there are…scary movies. We’re not going to get into the psychology of why people seem to like sitting through horror movies, but the genre has captivated audiences for decades and doesn’t look like it’s going to go away anytime soon. 

There have been many stories that have attempted to rank the scariest movies ever in the history of cinema, but what about specific shots or frames in movies that have legitimately creeped out moviegoers? That’s what the folks behind the podcast Horrorweekly tried to ask its followers on social media, and they certainly delivered.

From the ghostly figures outside the window in the 2001 film The Others, to how Regan twisted her head and climbed down the stairs in The Exorcist, there are tons of one-shot scenes in scary movies that have stuck in the minds of people everywhere. Here are a few of them (in alphabetical order):

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1| An American Werewolf in London

2| Annabelle

3| Burnt Offerings

4| Dead and Buried

5| Gerald's Game

6| Hereditary

7| Insidious

 

8| It Follows

Also from It Follows

9| John Carpenter's The Thing

10| A Nightmare on Elm Street

11| Paranormal Activity

12| Pet Sematary 2

13| Possum

14| Salem's Lot

Also from Salem's Lot

15| Sinister

16| Terrified

17| Texas Chainsaw Massacre

18| The Blair Witch Project

19| The Dark and the Wicked

20| The Exorcist

21| The Grudge

22| The Others

23| The Pit and the Pendulum

24| The Shining

25| The Taking of Deborah Logan

26| The Unborn