Horror’s Most Shocking Moments
They’re the moments that make you jump, scream, or maybe even toss your popcorn in the air. It’s what turns a good horror film into a great horror film, that shocking moment that changes what you thought you knew and stays with you after the credits have finished rolling. Listed below are some of the more shocking moments in modern horror cinema, but be warned, heavy spoilers ahead!
Jason emerges from the water
Friday the 13th: Jason Voorhees might be the poster child of the Friday the 13th series, but it wasn’t until the second movie that he began his rampage and the third that he donned his infamous mask. He shocked horror audiences at the end of the first film when he broke the peaceful calm of Crystal Lake and lunged at the sole survivor of the Camp Blood massacre. Audiences had heard about the deformed child who had drowned years earlier while swimming, but his surprise return for vengeance proved to be on of horror’s more shocking moments.
The killer of Camp Arawak revealed
Sleepaway Camp: It might have been painfully obvious to viewers of this slasher classic that the killer would eventually be revealed as the shy Angela Baker, but few could have expected that the awkward girl was in fact a boy forced to live the life of a female by his crazy Aunt Martha. The final shot of Angela eyes wide and mouth gaping is a sick image that will stick out for years to come.
Freddy escorts Jason straight to hell
Jason Goes to Hell – The Final Friday: In what was pretty much the moment every horror fan dreamed of but never truly expected, Freddy Krueger’s glove bursts through the ground and clutches the infamous hockey mask of the fallen Jason Voorhees. The moment marked the first time the two had ever crossed paths and eventually led to 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason, in which horror’s biggest icons battled much to the delight of long-time horror film lovers.
The decomposing body suddenly stands up
Saw: It seemed logical that Zep was the maniacal mastermind behind the elaborate murder scenes which had been puzzling police. That was until the limp & lifeless (or so it seemed) body lying face down on the grimy bathroom floor suddenly gasped and began to rise from his resting place. The Jigsaw killer had given himself a front row seat to his latest bloodbath and film audiences were none the wiser. His chilling rise and subsequent departure was a greatly unexpected twist and shock that viewers couldn’t have seen coming.
The last shot is fired
Night of the Living Dead: After surviving a night full of zombie mayhem and carnage, Ben emerges from the farmhouse which served as his refuge, only to be shot and killed by a group of men out to kill zombies. In interviews conducted over the years, George A. Romero, director and writer of the film, reiterates that he did not intend to include any social overtones in his script, but it did however, reflect his feelings of the time period in which it was made.
CONDENSED VERSION PUBLISHED IN HUMBER ET CETERA 10.27.05
