Sunday, October 29, 2006

Top 5 Jumpseat Scares

"Come with us, children"
Here are the finest five of them all.

5) Final Destination (2000)
Alex has his usual premonition before something terrible happens. Then we witness a near fatal car accident, but everyone's ok. Have they survived Deaths's pattern once more, or not at all? And right then, when the completely expendable girl mouths the words "drop fuckin' dead", a bus comes out of nowhere and runs over her. Holy Mother of God... Moral lesson: never curse and always look both ways before crossing a road...

4) Friday the 13th (1980)
Everything is fine, our heroine is alive and triumphant, the villain is exposed, everything looks like we'll have a happy and most of all, serene ending. Christine is on the boat, Crystal Lake is so peaceful, the birds are chippin' and all is wonderful in life. Oh, look, Sergeant Tierney is here, hurraaaay, crack open the champagne. Then it hits you, little Jason pops out of the water, grabs and drags poor Alice into the lake. No, wait, it was just a dream... Music and disfigurement make this moment even more horrifying, not to mention the fact that it totally catches you off-guard, thinking the movie has ended and all. This scene, as stupid and unneccessary it may be, saved the whole movie.

3) Alien (1979)
It's not the chest-bursting scene, which may be extremely scary but it's not sudden, jump-seat scary. The alien is in the airlocks, Dallas is after it with a flamethrower. We constantly hear a blipping sound at a steady rate. Dallas finds some goo, and the signal is lost. Lambert starts crying in her mic for Dallas to get out of there, violins set the mood. The blipping sound is back and it's fast, the alien is after him. Then, a squeeky irritating sound and out comes the alien, in all its glory for the very first time. Just a couple of frames are enough to make you shit your pans. Screen goes blank, bye bye Dallas.

2) The Thing (1982)
The infamous defibrillator scene. MacReady is left outside to freeze to death, cause everyone believes he's the Thing. But guess what, they're all wrong. Macready gets really pissed off and smashes his way in through a window, threatening to blow everyone up with TNT. Norris collapses due to heart attack and Copper tries to revive him. He hits him once with the defibrillator unit. He tries again, but who could expect it, his chest opens and transforms into a teethy mouth chopping Copper's arms. Copper dies, Norris' head develops legs, the Thing escapes and we're left with our mouths wide open, saliva staining the floor and all. Damn...

1) The Others (2001)
It's not the opening scream, neither Victor's finger, nor the room with the scary painting and the sheet covered statues. Not even the "you're not my daughter" scene. It's all that, plus the final scene. The end is near, everything leads to the big climax. Grace tries to protect the children from the seemingly evil servants and sends them upstairs to hide. So, the children enter an empty room and hide in the closet. Music stops, heavy breathing follows.You actually expect something edgy to happen, and Amenabar doesn't dissapoint the fans. Someone is in the room, a voice is heard. The door opens, the decibels rise rapidly and the whole screen is filled with an elderly blind wrinkled woman, who can best be described as Donnie Darko's Grandma Death. Mop on aisle four, please...


Contenders
So many to mention. Basically any slasher movie scares, from Halloween to Scream. Also, Carrie's hand, Signs' alien at the party, Deep Blue Sea's Samuel Jackson's death, Psycho's shower scene, What Lies Beneath's stereo, Evil Dead II's Ash turns to demon.The Descent, Wolf Creek, Poltergeist, Romero and Argento's movies, they all came close. But An American Werewolf In London's second dream, and the Eye's elevator scene would win places six and seven. It's the top 5 Jump-seat Scares, so movies with horrifying scenes but with prolonged terror or no sudden outburst, do not qualify. That leaves out The Shining, Blair Witch Project etc. So, wait for the Top 5 Horrifying Scenes list.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi. I'm not really much into movies because they almost all suck. But your little write ups have me wanting to watch a bunch of movies!! If only there were someplace to rent movies around here...

Anonymous said...

i really like the idea of your blog. surely, movies addicts like me will surely love it.
i like it a lot!

Mabuhay! from the Philippines.

Wow, ur from Greece? i'm dying to visit your country.
Juno

P.S. Exchange links?

Anonymous said...

an awesome idea.....keep it up.liked it.

raj
http://infostall.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Found this site randomly searching the net. Pretty damn good analysis so far. One left off your list that should be there: Exorcist 3, the scene with the nurse in the hospital. Without a doubt the best, pants-shittingist scare moment in movie history!!

Anonymous said...

That grandma was really freaky!!

Anonymous said...

That last scene in friday the 13th really made me jump. It was so unexpected :).
One of the best for me is carrie's hand. I'm glad you put it in the contenders