Yeah Richie, I remembered that scene from the "Ring". I can still recall not being able sleep for a few nights without the lights being on!!!!!!! I know "big pussy".......!

I haven't seen a lot of horror movies, but off the top of my head (possible spoilers):

The Shining: The elevator doors opening to reveal it full of blood and then flooding down the corridor.
Psycho: The murder of the detective at the top of the stairs. So sudden and shocking.
The Birds/Kingdom Of The Spiders: The final scene. These similar man vs nature movies have very dark endings.

Okay, you want to know one of my haunting moments? It's not from a horror film. It's from Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream. It's the final shot of Ellen Burstyn laying on her bed dreaming about the one thing she wanted in life: happiness for and with her son. Shots that haunt you are the ones that connect with you on a level that you don't show on your everyday face. Scary shots are great, but they don't leave trauma in that they don't stay with you your whole life. There are scenes in City of God that are haunting. I know this is an argument of semantics, but those scenes in that list were either shocking, scary, or disturbing but not, in my view, haunting.

I would agree that scenes can be haunting regardless of genre, but Richard narrowed down the discussion to scenes from horror movies.

I think if the scene stays with you after the movie is over, so you revisit it in your imagination or dreams, then I would describe it as haunting.

Feeling shocked, scared or disturbed are usually short-lived sensations.

Very interesting stuff. I always say that there are two things who are completely individual: those which scare you and those which excite you.
What makes one cry makes another laugh sometimes. It´s very difficult to know for advance which will be the behaviour of the audience towards a scene in particular.
Most of the scenes mentioned in the topic are in my personal list, I will add some more:

-Alien: When the monster gets out from the body of John Hurt. Nobody saw that coming.

-The Thing: The blood analysis. Man, I jumped to the ceiling.

-The Shining: Now, this is one who has lots of moments. The most disturbing to me is those creepy twins in the corridor.

-Psycho: The shower scene. No need to say more. It´s still scary after all this time.

-The Fly (old version): When we learn the fate of the white fly in the spider web. It freaked me as a child and it still does.

-The Fellowship of the Ring: The horrible face transformation of Bilbo when he wants the ring from Frodo.

-Lost Highway: John Pullman looks at his own house and discovers there´s lights in the attic.

-The Grudge (Japanese): The woman in the videocamera showing her face.

-Scanners: When the head of that guy explodes.

-Poltergeist: Another with plenty. That fucking clown toy. I hate it, I always will.

-Passion of the Christ: The devil woman carrying a baby with an aged, horrendous face.

-Event Horizon: Those disturbing pictures of what might have happenned "out there".

-Carrie: The hand of the mother coming out from the grave.

-Night of the Living Dead: The little girl becoming a zombie.

There´s so many. I am not sure if I could say these ones are haunting (it´s so difficult to make a haunting movie, or a good horror one). But at least I can say they kept me from sleep at some moments, and I remember them like the first day.

Okay, I missed the brain part in 'Hannibal'. Like I really want to see that.
In the 'Ring', the girl coming out of tv was a rightous moment. Truly, I don't think I have heard so many people scream in unison (myself included).
But, I got one for you Richard that no one has mentioned yet. How about in 'Anaconda' when that snake regurgitated Jon Voight, and Jon not being completely dead winked back at us. Remember that part? Well, it looks like I'm going to be skipping dinner tonight.

I have to agree with you on the Blair Witch Project scene. That may have been the only really scary part of that movie or the one that really sticks out. The only other thing I remember is a lot of bitching about being lost.

"Hauntings" for me really come from films seen too early, ie too young. I have no idea what the film was apart from it being in the Hammer House of Horror series. Some couple being locked up by a maniac (as all good Hammer House films had maniacs) in a house protected by a noisy road, isolation and a few thousand volts of electric beams. One of those beams was temporarily disabled, and the guy throw a stick to see if it was on, which it wasn't. Their puppy then ran after the stick, at which point the aforementioned maniac switched the electric back on, just in time for the puppy to bring the stick back. That poor puppy...

Dave, you're spot on. It doesn't have to be horror movies, and I actually don't class Body Double as a horror movie, however it was these scenes that came to mind.

Now you mention it, Requiem prompts me to think of the final scene, that is extremely haunting and disturbing and Connelly's performance is incredibly powerful.

Event Horizon, another one that has some haunting images all briefly cut through, and great casting.

Anaconda? Really? I haven't seen that film at all and I hadn't even thought it would be freaky...I might give it a go then!

Lee! You hit that one on the head! That's one of the Hammer shows that stays with me to this day. I remember the exact scene...very sad and quite freaky. However there is one other, it's the one that has the rabbits eating their young and then translates that to a real family...shiver indeed.

Right...I've just thought of another.

Something that haunts me are images that aren't properly revealed or explained (Exorcist III as above), but something even worse are sounds alone. Like the Blair Witch screaming.

Then it struck me, in John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness they show this dream that people keep having and it's of a handheld video of the outside of the church that they are all in and a newscaster talking about this figure standing in the doorway. The figure is in darkness with light behind them, and the voice is cracked up. We don't see who the figure is but from the story and the voice, we know it's something terrible.

That whole scene just sets me on edge and unnerves me, mainly because it hits a nerve as Dave says, it's got a reality about it.

i'm not really an expert on scary movies, but the ones i have seen made me crap my pants.(a horror in itself)

which ones made me STOP watching scary movies i hear you say?

well, just about any film that leaves most of the scene to the imagination, so that rules out most "pop horror" movies, friday the rubbish parts 1-453 etc.

the last movie that i saw that had A haunting moment or two was signs, yes ok it wasn't scary, but the actors and general feel for the moment joaquin phoenix is watching the alien running across the screen in blurry-ish images on tv.

anyway, like i said. not big on scary movies. Whats that noise?????

I totally agree with the Exorcist III scene. I remember watching that movie multiple times as a kid and that always got me. I also remember being freaked out by the trailer, which featured the scene where the papers are blowing around the front of the church and the doors fly open, and as the Excorcist theme plays you see a statue of Jesus and his eyes open. RELIGION IS SCARY.

Jay C.

I thought I wouldnt be able to participate in this discussion but I have just been discussing "Munich" with a work colleague today who has just seen the film and thats when it hit me that the final scene where we are shown the Twin Towers in the background when Avner (Bana's character) was fading out of the background really got to me. It was ominous (technically speaking) and Spielberg hauntingly captured it for me.

The bathtub scene in Cabin Fever where she is shaving her legs. That scene still creeps me out more than just about any other scene in a horror film. That and the little girl at the very beginning of the Dawn of the Dead remake, where she flips back up after being kicked.

Don't know if it was because I was young when I watched it but the 'floating vampire at the window' scene in Salems Lot was a creeper for me.

Hmmmm, what else....'Candyman'....there is a scene where 'Helen' is in a car park and all you can hear is the Candyman saying her name....the voice of Tony Todd....that low/slow voice saying 'Hheeellleeennn'...creeped me out. In fact that whole film is pretty scary.

The very last scene at the end of 'I still know what you did last summer' where you think everything is fine....and then the person sees the figure under the bed in the mirror.....cheap scare but it done it for me.

Oh Colin, you're spot on with that one too, there are a number of haunting moments from there but Danny Glick (I think) scraping at that window freaked me out!

For goose-bumpy creepiness. It's hard to beat the elevator scene in Danny & Oxide Pang's "THE EYE".

The original Ju-On (film not OVA) version has more than one creepy moment in it.

Call me weird, but Shyalaman's SIGNS when they watch the TV footage of a the alien walking in the back of some kids birthday party.

In terms of haunting for days afterwards, two films which achieve this are Peter Watkin's Punishment Park, and Oliver Hirschbiegel's Das Experiment.

Just off the cuff thinking here.

Doh, on the Signs comment...Hadn't read the above. Apparently I'm not the only one!

Oh yeah Triflic, the hospital scenes for The Eye creeped me out.

Signs deserves a few mentions anyway, and that scene is very reminiscent of the one from Prince of Darkness. Video footage of actual events, very creepy, hardly seen...shiver.

The Messengers trailer had a few creepy scenes too! Arrrrgggghhhhhh!

I am a total horror movie junkie!

The moment in Signs that got to me was the birthday party video. The fact that instead of seeing the alien in full light we see it on a home video really gave it a good feel to me.

The Omen chilled me to the bone throughout, but the best moments were the nurse hanging scene. the priest impalement scene and the coffin unearthing got to me. Also the end shot where they cut away from Damien smiling.

Any showers scenes scares the crap out of me. The scenes from Psycho, The Grudge and Cabin Fever get to me the worst. Also the euthanasia by shovel in Cabin Fever was disturbing to say the least.

Stalker movies hit too close to home for me. I'm just glad my guy backed off before it became like Play Misty for me. Fatal Attraction at the end where she pops out of the tub after being drowned made me jump over the couch.

All Hitchcock movies, but especially Vertigo. The ending still gives me chills.

Saw in general gives me the chills. It may be considered a gore-fest, but it does challenge you to think what you would do if put in that situation.

And spoiler alert, The scene in Devil's Rejects in which Wendy Banjo is escaping the Firefly clan with her husbands dried facial skin on her face, only to bre run down by a semi-truck.

There are many more. Too many to post. But these are the ones that stuck with me.

Hey Jetta, good to see you here!

If you like that Signs moment and you're a horror fan go see Prince of Darkness by John Carpenter - there's a similar use of hand held video at certain key points and it's really spooky.

Oh I know what you mean about shower scenes, horrors aside I'm continually freaked out by thought of that spider crawling across the shower rail in Aracnaphobia...blergh.

Actually that face idea freaked me out too. She's wearing her dead husband's face! Yuk!

Great choice Jetta.

Just watched Hostel. When Kana jumps in front
of the train after she sees the reflection of her disfigured face. So sad.

Near the end of The Exorcist (the first one), when Karras comes back in the room to resume the exorcism he discovers that Merrin died while he was away.

What happened afterwards is what haunts me. That giggle from Regan while she was watching Karras's reaction sends shivers up my spine and makes my skin crawl and my neck hairs stand up.

That certainly is a creepy scene. Aiman, have you see the third film with the corridor/figure/shears? That's one of the best scenes in the series.

Yes I have seen that scene Richard. Unfortunately I heard about it before I saw it, so that spoiled it for me. I can imagine it would be very scary if you didn't know what was going to happen!

Hey Aiman. I can see that would lessen the scene's impact somewhat!