Editorials
5 More Horrifying Scenes from Non-Horror Movies!
Crafting a perfect scare or a visceral moment of terror isn’t as easy as it may seem. There’s an art form to it, and the best scares tend to come when you least expect them. That means that the most unforgettable fear-inducing moments of cinema often happen outside the realm of the genre entirely. After all, with horror, there’s already a preset expectation for scares; but in non-horror films, there’s no way to prepare.
In other words, the most horrifying scenes come from unlikely places.
There’s no shortage of trauma-inducing moments in non-horror movies, either. From Large Marge in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure to Mulholland Drive’s jarring diner scare, Sam Raimi’s stealth horror scene in Spider-Man 2, and beyond, horror frequently touches every aspect of our lives, and genres.
Here are five more nerve-shredding scenes from non-horror movies…
Enemy – Spiders
Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy is a psychological thriller that sees a man determined to track down an exact lookalike. That he feels like his life is stuck in a rut only fuels his obsession with the other man’s life. In other words, it’s a dreamy mind-bender. While tarantulas and spiders come into play in subtle ways throughout, namely in minor imagery, it still doesn’t prepare for this insane moment. Adam has effectively assumed the life of his doppelganger, goes to check on his wife, and discovers she’s become a massive spider. There’s a whole lot of symbolism behind this, but you’ll have to pick your jaw up off the floor first before you can decipher its meaning.
Look Who’s Talking Too – Mr. Toilet Man
Amy Heckerling’s family comedy sequel to Look Who’s Talking sees Bruce Willis reprising his role as the inner narrator of Mikey, now a toddler dealing with a new baby sister and potty training. His daycare bud Eddie (voiced by Damon Wayans) shares how his mom explained the potty business to him, “Mr. Toilet Man, he likes to eat your doody and your pee-pee. So, I say give it to him.” That night, Mikey feels the urge to pee, gets up in the middle of the night, and suffers a horrific vision of Mr. Toilet Man, with giant fangs and squirting liquid. Sure, this is a comedy, and Mel Brooks voices Mr. Toilet Man, but it’s still a significant WTF moment. Especially for children.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – Ceti eel
Admiral Kirk and his beloved Enterprise crew are back to take down an old nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh, in this acclaimed sequel. Aside from being a genetically enhanced being with super strength and intellect, Khan is an imposing villain with emotional reasoning behind his evil ways- the death of his wife. How can you tell he’s a scary villain? With a suspenseful scene in which he introduces the Ceti eel, an indigenous and deadly larva that he then places into Chekov’s ear. The writhing creepy crawler squirming into his ear is an unnerving visual, followed by Chekov’s screaming just before the critter takes over his brain. Sure, we expect the weird in a sci-fi movie, but no one expected a beloved Enterprise crew member to get tortured quite like this.
Trainspotting – Withdrawal Nightmares
Before 28 Days Later, director Danny Boyle injected some nightmare fuel into his well-regarded drama about a man, Renton, trying to untangle himself from his severe addiction to drugs and the drug scene. After relapses and an overdose, Renton’s parents lock him in his childhood bedroom to force him to quit, cold turkey. The withdrawal is downright frightening, both in Renton’s pain and in the hallucinatory horrors that await. The worst of it is Baby Dawn, his friend’s infant that died from neglect. The baby cries and crawls toward him from his bedroom ceiling, moving in ways a human baby never should. It’s a literal waking nightmare.
Looper – Seth’s Death
Rian Johnson’s sci-fi crime thriller proved you didn’t need gore or blood to offer up one of the worst character fates of all time. The film’s title refers to the assassins hired by the mob to kill a target sent from the future. When the assassin’s contract is up, the looper’s future self is sent back in time to be the final victim, therefore “closing the loop” and removing any of the looper’s ties to the mob. Retired looper Seth (Frank Brennan) tries to evade closing the loop, though, determined to outlive the mob’s death sentence. They kidnap his past self (Paul Dano) but opt to keep him alive. Instead, punishment comes in the form of bodily mutilation, and it catches up to his future self all at once. He’s terrified as his body parts start disappearing- his fingers, his nose, his legs, and arms. It’s a disturbing visual made all the more twisted with the realization that past Seth lived horrifically disfigured for decades.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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