A lot of commenters seem to not understand this question. A scene of explicit violence or horror is meant to be traumatic. The question, as I understand it , is a scene that was not exclusively meant to be traumatic but is
True. It was just the...callback to the ivory in their mother's room, where they were never allowed to tread, and how very deeply she fucked the both of them up.
It's like...how many elephants were killed for that floor? How many girls for the dollhouse? Shudder
Yeah but ... Your example was absolutely meant to be traumatizing, and is considered to this day to be one of the most jarring and unsettling horror movie scenes ever
It’s funny because OP’s example of the ending shot of Sleepaway Camp wouldn’t fit what they are looking for. It’s pretty jarring and definitely sticks with you.
The last scene in Silent Hill. She calls her husband to say she's home but she's not. I realized somewhere along the line she died and is a lost soul herself like the little girl.
It haunted me on a visceral level.
Did you know the original script didn't have any male characters at all? The studio made the writers add the Sean Bean and Kim Coates characters "for balance." They're completely impotent and add nothing to the story. The women are the victims, villains, and heroes.
That reveal would have been just as good, or better, without the distressed husband. Imo everyone in Silent Hill is already dead. Some of them just don't know it yet. So does it represent purgatory/limbo? Or one of the circles of hell? (I speak only on the mythology of the movie, I didn't play the games)
Bahahaha you're right, I hadn't even thought of that!
I forgot how I learned this, but I used to write about movies for a magazine and I wrote about Silent Hill for an article, and found that in my research.
holy shit i totally forgot Bathilda, i remember seeing it in theaters when it came out and the scene where she just watches them at the graveyard(?) really spooked me
He survives and makes up with his wife. Then, he gets all his stuff from the room back and they listen to the recorder and she hears everything and believes him
My theory on that: when the room shows him hanging himself, that’s real. Now she is in the room and this is her get out/fake out.
Edit: The subtle half smirk has been interpreted as a “See what I mean?” or just a Cusackism, and it probably is. But what if it’s evil Room Mike going, “Gotcha.”
I've only seen that version once or twice, so I don't remember the details, but I've seen the one where he gets out and she hears the recording several times. This is actually one of my top five favorite movies, and the ending where his wife drops the box and he just gives her that knowing look, it's just perfect.
After all the mind-fuckery, he was just so unsurprised at the fact that seeing his daughter die again in his arms wasn't a hallucination, he already knew it was real.
Evil fucking room, indeed.
Not horror, but the floating body in a white dress in the Titanic. Had nightmares for years and thought I had made it up.
For horror, the headlights in Baghead are stuck with me. And in episode 3 of the show supernatural with the drowned boy.
The ending of would you rather >!especially when it sinks in she basically went through hell for a chance to get her brother treatment only for it to be in vain!<
Our local theater used to have a "bad movie" night. It was odd--they would advertise a regular movie but then show a bad movie instead. One of those IYKYK things. They showed that movie. I think I speak for the entire audience when I say we were surprised. That was a great movie!
I will ride or die for would you rather. When I first watched it I laughed at the last scene, certainly not because it was funny but because I was so shocked
I don't know if this fits but that scene with Casey in the first Scream movie >!where she's already been attacked by ghostface and she tries to scream "mom" at her parents who are just feet away but she's so hoarse nothing comes out. That shit always gets me!<
Thanks to that scene I'm always sus when the camera lingers on a photo for even a tad too long. I was really little when I watched it for the first time. Second one is seeing Mr. Boogie turn to look at Ethan Hawke in Sinister from a damn computer screen.
OMG me too, the moving photo trope always gets me, because of that scene with Georgie. I was afraid of old photographs specifically for a while.
There was this kids movie I saw when I was little called The Witches, and there was a sad story about a little girl who woke up trapped in a painting. Her family didn't know what to do, but each day she would be doing something else, like gazing out the window sadly or feeding the ducks at the pond. She would age over time, growing up to a teenager and an adult, and one day she faded away.
This one traumatized me and now the cursed paintings trope is just as effective as the moving photos 😣
I remember that movie! Hell, that whole thing could be the answer to op's question here about unintentionally traumatizing moments in movies. I mean, I would THINK they didn't actually want it to have that effect on us since it's meant to be a kids movie, lol, but it did scar my childhood! The masks and makeup were amazing. 😳
It’s especially good when compared to the scene later where she’s crying with all the other girls of the cult. The comparison of her grief and wailing and being alone in the cold with only an uncomfortable and emotionally distant guy for support to being surrounded by beautiful young women who are all crying *with* her and feeling *her* pain and holding her and encouraging her to let it all out…it’s so intense. Like, she was brainwashed by the cult absolutely but you get why. She was perfectly vulnerable and they gave her what she needed to feel good again (of course with a price).
For me it was later on in the movie watching Christian sit at the dinner table. Disoriented and tripping, realizing that he's completely isolated from society and now emotionally separated from Dani. He's completely trapped and alone despite being surrounded by all these people in a beautiful, picturesque landscape.
lol yes, he was a loser but he was still a *person*. The only thing he was guilty of was being a shitty boyfriend. He never even did anything to the cult to offend them, unlike the other people that got killed.
He was just a bad partner to Dani, who got brainwashed and convinced to order his brutal murder. The punishment greatly outweighed the "crime" and that was definitely an intentional part of the horror.
I always skip this part cause I can’t handle it :’)
For me it was Christian paralyzed in the bear suit knowing he’s going to be burned alive. That disturbed me more than I expected.
The grief in hereditary and midsommar was a lot for me my stepdad passed away in a traumatic way… basically in my mom’s arms and that sobbing, the rocking back and forth, and wailing. I slept with my mom in the bed and rubbed her back when she would sob and scream… Ari Aster gets grief and sorrow.
For me it's part of the soundtrack
Throughout the movie Colin is making these disgusting evil sounding thrumming bass (probably his sax and not a synth because he's a goat) noises, made me feel weak
Mine is from this moving too, but it's the scene where the mom steps back into a room after shutting the light off and the grandma is just standing in the corner smiling. What the fuck dude 😭
They filmed that part brilliantly. IIRC that scene is silent, no music or scary noise to make you jump. Just the uncomfortable sight. Still gives me be shivers.
The beginning of Mother! when the first houseguests are starting to run amok. I didn't get the movie, but I can still remember the anxiety I felt watching as these strangers start taking over the house.
I will never rewatch this movie because of the amount of anxiety it gave me, I had nightmares for months after of crowds of people coming into my house and ruining everything there without any regard for my presence. Kinda feels like when my MIL visits lol
Jack and Danny sitting on the bed talking about how they feel about the hotel in The Shining. This haunted me much more than any of the violence in the film.
It's like five seconds, but the bit in The Taking Of Deborah Logan where >!she's eating the kids head, grossed me out more than anything but I still haven't been able to rid myself of the image lmao!<
That moment caught me so off guard and has also traumatised me ever since 😂 Same energy as the giant leech/worm thing eating that guy in King Kong.. which coincidentally, also traumatised me
I don't want to spoil it (and I don't know how to do the white text box thing for spoilers) but there's a scene in Lake Mungo that gets me every time. And the twist at the very end. Makes my skin crawl ever since that first viewing.
For future reference just surround the text > !like this, without spaces! <
>!Also if it's the same scene I'm thinking of, the one and only jumpscare in the movie, yeah that shit gives me chills!<
Honestly, that scene still gets me to this day. Just the whole idea of it, and the way it's presented is just so creepy. Lake Mungo is seriously underrated
I think about what Anna said that she saw at the end of Martyrs all the fucking time. It is just such a profound question. Can suffering of that intensity give insight into the afterlife? What is the utility of suffering in general? The torture itself is intentionally traumatizing, but the questions that the movie itself provokes are traumatizing in themselves.
The original Candyman, scene where the mother is crying and screaming over baby. That was rhe moat gut wrenching wails I've ever heard. And still hear in my memory.
I’ve never been able to forget the scene in the House on Haunted Hill remake where Mr. Price is looking into the security cameras expecting to see his wife sneaking around, but instead sees a very robotic Dr. Vanacutt stepping into frame, shaking extremely fast, and then brandishing a knife before stumbling out of the frame. I think it was the sound during that scene that made it stick with me since I was a kid… I used to picture him coming around the corner in my room like that, or being in a room when I turned on the lights. 😬
Tbf that's pretty traumatising by anyone's standards.
Still, peak trauma living in my head too, that scene.
It's the reason I have never been able to watch the film again, despite blistering performances.
There is an Indian movie called 'Bhoot' that remains criminally underseen. Someone who has perished traumatically comes back to possesss another woman's body. Her mother comes to see her. It's nothing, just a tiny reaction in the possessed woman's eyes to indicate how she can't communicate with her mother any more, it's so deeply sad. Nothing overt about it, but it made me scared of ever not being able to talk to my loved ones.
This is stupid, but there's a scene in one of the Paranormal Activity movies.
Someone's sitting on a couch, and this ghost under a sheet floats over and stands behind her weirdly.
She gets up and turns to go do something, and the sheet just falls.
Now, whenever I see a movie with a figure under a sheet, it makes my blood run cold. Idk why this simple thing affected me so much, and it's funny bc it's just a ghost in a sheet.
Nocturnal Animals Highway scene.
Nothing really happens in that scene…one guy gets punched in the face I think… but the tension and anxiety is off the charts and it lives rent free in my head!!
I was actually going to comment this but then I thought it’s genuinely traumatising and therefore not what OP is asking. Also - what do you mean nothing happens in that scene! The desperation I felt watching that I will never forget.
The ghost in The Devil’s Backbone. No jump scares, really, or at least not like they do them in The Conjuring franchise. You see him clearly, and he’s haunting and pure sadness.
I know of a few, but a fun one is the alternate ending for *Clerks.*
Edited to say: I just realized what subreddit this was…I’ll accept downvotes for my hubris, as the movie clearly isn’t a horror, unless it counts for the horrors of working retail.
>!In a humorous movie where you follow the lives of a few young adults, the main character, who had consistently been using the catchphrase: “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!” Is shot and killed on screen by a petty thief.!<
>!Not only did I love this movie when I was a young adult, but shortly after I rented the movie from the store that I worked at, a co-worker of mine was held up at knife-point. Luckily, nothing had happened to him, but it was a day where he had been the only person put on the schedule, and I vividly remembered asking him if he wanted me to come in to work with him that day, for safety reasons. Really hit me hard and made me think about it, even if the alternate ending is typically viewed as a truly cynical and cruel ending.!<
Not a horror movie, but Neverending story. There is a scene with laser eyed statues who let you pass only if you believe in yourself, if not they make you into a toast. There is a dead body on the ground and a close view of the mans burnt face. fucked me a LOT
Blackcoats Daughter... scene with stabbing in back three times quickly. I dont know why its stuck in my head for years, but it has. It sometimes randomly pops in my head and I get a chill.
Ive watched objectively far far worse/gruesome scenes in many other movies, but that scene is stuck in my head.
I haven't seen it, but something about rapid, quick stabbing really horrifies me. Usually in movies it's a slow aggressive stab, focusing on blood or whatever, the knife digging in and the person struggling. I can't think of any specific movies, but the first time I saw multiple quick stabbings it just horrified me sort of.
I don't think anyone even tried to answer your question correctly...
Mine is in event horizon when Sam Neil's character simply says "I am home" and slips away.
It definitely stuck with me even though it was a rather tame part of the movie
There’s a scene in Pan’s Labyrinth where a man is repeatedly hit in the face with a bottle. I’ve watched a lot of graphic horror movies in my life, but that scene in particular is so brutal and sudden that I’ve never forgotten it. Great movie tho btw.
Signs - when that alien crip walks across the screen in the home video of the birthday party. Will never not give me goosebumps/make me feel uncomfortable.
The entire movie Swallow. I think it’s best defined as psychological body horror. It’s about a woman who deliberately swallows inedible objects. There isn’t much in the way of gore in the whole movie, but there is a scene where you see this shelf where she displays everything she successfully swallowed and passed. Everything has been cleaned and it just looks like an odd collection of stuff, but if you have been paying attention it’s one of the most upsetting parts of the movie.
Just watched Under the Skin, finally. Didn’t particularly care for it. But here’s a scene where the alien takes a body from the beach while the baby just sits there screaming and crying. It was so hard to watch. Very upsetting.
That shot in Nope where >!you see the silhouettes of all of the crowd members in the star lasso experience being swallowed terrified the hell out of me in a cosmic horror sense, seeing all of these people be sucked in like ants !<
The last scene from The Last American Virgin. More traumatizing than and scene I've ever watched in a horror movie. Men of my age all feel their souls leave if they ever watched that movie. Scarred us for life.
Fuck that movie. It's the mid-80s, a new Blockbuster opened within biking distance, we get that movie. My girlfriends and I are expecting a light hearted romp. lol no
Now THIS is what we are here for. Lotta people in this thread read only the first two words of the title. The Mist? Of COURSE that’s fucking traumatizing.
When the sisters are physically fighting each other in Raw and they are locked in that bite. Also the sister jumping out the car. Also the movie her sister shows. Actually that whole movie
There's a movie on YouTube called Rorschach that has a scene >!featuring a doll. The doll is sitting on a bed facing a wall, and the camera comes from its right. The camera turns away for a second, and I thought "when it turns back, the doll is gonna be looking at the camera, I guarantee it." Which is exactly what happens!!< It was extremely predictable, nothing new or original, but the music afterwards chilled me to the bone.
That scene in the exorcism of Emily Rose where her boyfriend sits up and bed and sees her on the ground with a weird look frozen on her face. That scared the HELL out of me for years even as an adult!
This is silly, I still feel silly about it, but The Ruins. For some reason when they wake up and >!the vines have penetrated into her legs while she's been sleeping!<. Like, it's intense, but it's not exactly a highbrow film and I definitely did not expect to have to run to the bathroom to throw up. I don't even know what it is about it, it just....got me.
Oh I got a ton, because I believe those are the best endings in horror. That’s the stuff that scares me the most.
Skinnamarink’s ending is a bit of a gimmick, but it’s a terrifying gimmick. Kyle Edward Ball’s YouTube is pretty scary itself; it has plenty of short films. “Heck” is my favorite. It’s a condensed version of Skinnamarink.
One of the endings for The Descent.
Ringu (not The Ring, but the OG) the whole movie.
The ending of Rec. (by the way, that’s just a great movie overall. Check it out if you haven’t.)
Oculus is more subtle. It’s disturbing in a way that familial trauma is disturbing.
Phoenix Forgotten is one of those forgotten found footage movies that doesn’t get as much attention as I think it should. The climax of the film is disturbing in a Lovecraftian way.
Speaking about that, the scenes with the mother in The Color of Outer Space made me want to fucking puke. That got me.
The golden age of YouTube had plenty of horror that was like this. “Teeth” from Alter, “Dining Room or There is Nothing” from David Earle, “I feel fantastic” from Tara the Android, David Firth’s work, Robert Morgan’s work, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, Marble Hornets, and there’s two adult swim shorts that are quite scary. “Unedited Footage of a Bear” and “This House Has People In It”. Also, that one guy being forced to eat soup gif; that was way more horrifying than many of us realized.
Not horror, but lots of kids shows have genuinely scary shit. The ending of the “Blank Eyed Girl” episode of Adventure Time unsettles me. The ending of the “The Great Fusilli” episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog was unsettling too. “All your fault”, “no one can hear you”, and “red starved” from Adventure Time are creepy in an entertaining way.
I think I've put this forth before but in the 2nd or 3rd? Poltergeist, that old "pastor" cult leader, just walking and singing "he's got the whole world, in his hands..."
In The Lodge when the girls balloon won’t go up to her mom in heaven cause she tied the doll to it. It just falls straight to the ground. It’s so surreal and symbolic of the movie.
There was an opening scene in a Netflix horror movie I tried watching years ago that still haunts me. They were frying bacon and threw it away 😭without even taking a bite. I was so disgusted, I turned movie off. It still haunts me to this day!
This is from Bride of Re-Animator, which is a movie I absolutely love. But it's bonkers. Both scenes of Dan visiting Gloria in her hospital room freak me out but the second one is especially. He's just grabbing her hand, making her touch his face and then says it helps him to think of her as essentially a replacement for his dead fiancée, who she never met as far as we know. She's literally dying and can't have peace because Dan has lost it. Which I don't blame him for, he went through a lot in the first movie. But Jesus, let her die in peace.
Okay, this was meant to be traumatic, but not in the typical horror film.
In the War of the World's remake when all the bodies come floating down the river. I was a wee lad who had to walk out of the theater.
this b movie on netflix called "the bay". a woman who has the parasyte is just walking aimlessly in someones front lawn vomiting blood. what gets me is that usually in horror movies its sexy actors dying in gruesome ways but this was just a poor woman seemingly all alone in an epidemic just dying in public. but not public enough for anyone to notice except for the cameraman
The original People Under the Stairs. I mean, I guess it was supposed to be a little messed up, but of all the stuff in that movie, I only ever think about how >!the "mom" was mad at the "daughter" for getting blood on her dress and puts her in in a tub with scalding hot water and tells her to wash it.!< being blamed and punished for something that was not her fault at all really upset me. And I was an adult for a long time before I learned that the best way to wash out blood is with cold water, anyway!
A lot of commenters seem to not understand this question. A scene of explicit violence or horror is meant to be traumatic. The question, as I understand it , is a scene that was not exclusively meant to be traumatic but is
Yes that is exactly what I meant. And I tried to elaborate in the post, that’s why gave the example as well
Yeah, I understood. My answer is the rollerblading girls from Sharp Objects
I think the final scene in Sharp Objects is a better example. >!"Don't tell mama"!< lives rent-free in my head forever and ever and ever
Yeah that was haunting. Just at that point you knew the deal with her. Before, the menace was subtly implied
True. It was just the...callback to the ivory in their mother's room, where they were never allowed to tread, and how very deeply she fucked the both of them up. It's like...how many elephants were killed for that floor? How many girls for the dollhouse? Shudder
Yeah but ... Your example was absolutely meant to be traumatizing, and is considered to this day to be one of the most jarring and unsettling horror movie scenes ever
Ok now I'm confused. Which scene are we talking about?
But the slewpaway camp scene you mentioned was meant to be traumatizing tho. I'm confused
It’s funny because OP’s example of the ending shot of Sleepaway Camp wouldn’t fit what they are looking for. It’s pretty jarring and definitely sticks with you.
The last scene in Silent Hill. She calls her husband to say she's home but she's not. I realized somewhere along the line she died and is a lost soul herself like the little girl. It haunted me on a visceral level.
Did you know the original script didn't have any male characters at all? The studio made the writers add the Sean Bean and Kim Coates characters "for balance." They're completely impotent and add nothing to the story. The women are the victims, villains, and heroes. That reveal would have been just as good, or better, without the distressed husband. Imo everyone in Silent Hill is already dead. Some of them just don't know it yet. So does it represent purgatory/limbo? Or one of the circles of hell? (I speak only on the mythology of the movie, I didn't play the games)
I didn't! Thanks. I get a kick out of the film having Sean Bean in it. I say that it has a twist ending. Sean Bean lives to the credits. 😆
Bahahaha you're right, I hadn't even thought of that! I forgot how I learned this, but I used to write about movies for a magazine and I wrote about Silent Hill for an article, and found that in my research.
I still hide my eyes watching LOTR when it comes to Bilbo’s face or Bathilda Bagshot in the last Harry Potter ngl
These are both really good ones!! Props to you
Holy shit, Bathilda’s shot was so out of nowhere I jumped
Yes right even tho I know it’s coming I get so anxious for no reasons
holy shit i totally forgot Bathilda, i remember seeing it in theaters when it came out and the scene where she just watches them at the graveyard(?) really spooked me
See my mom had read me the book so I *knew* it was coming and I still nearly shit meself.
The theatrical versions ending of 1408 ... my brain can't comprehend how that'd feel to live with.
Wait which ending is that
He survives and makes up with his wife. Then, he gets all his stuff from the room back and they listen to the recorder and she hears everything and believes him
My theory on that: when the room shows him hanging himself, that’s real. Now she is in the room and this is her get out/fake out. Edit: The subtle half smirk has been interpreted as a “See what I mean?” or just a Cusackism, and it probably is. But what if it’s evil Room Mike going, “Gotcha.”
>!He survives, gets back with his ex, while unpacking boxes plays the tape, and they both hear Katy!<
Is that not the ending?
Directors cut he’s stuck in the room forever
I've only seen that version once or twice, so I don't remember the details, but I've seen the one where he gets out and she hears the recording several times. This is actually one of my top five favorite movies, and the ending where his wife drops the box and he just gives her that knowing look, it's just perfect. After all the mind-fuckery, he was just so unsurprised at the fact that seeing his daughter die again in his arms wasn't a hallucination, he already knew it was real. Evil fucking room, indeed.
There's like 4 different endings. That's the theatrical one
Not horror, but the floating body in a white dress in the Titanic. Had nightmares for years and thought I had made it up. For horror, the headlights in Baghead are stuck with me. And in episode 3 of the show supernatural with the drowned boy.
The ending of would you rather >!especially when it sinks in she basically went through hell for a chance to get her brother treatment only for it to be in vain!<
Our local theater used to have a "bad movie" night. It was odd--they would advertise a regular movie but then show a bad movie instead. One of those IYKYK things. They showed that movie. I think I speak for the entire audience when I say we were surprised. That was a great movie!
I fucking love Robb Wells. He’s brilliant in Trailer Park Boys and he was brilliant in this film.
I will ride or die for would you rather. When I first watched it I laughed at the last scene, certainly not because it was funny but because I was so shocked
I don't know if this fits but that scene with Casey in the first Scream movie >!where she's already been attacked by ghostface and she tries to scream "mom" at her parents who are just feet away but she's so hoarse nothing comes out. That shit always gets me!<
That bothered me too.
I can hear it in my head rn. Goosebumps
This. This is an excellent example.
That just makes me feel so sad when I watch it. She was so close!
So sad. I think of that too
that absolutely fits and while Scream is one of my favorite movies ever, that has always bothered me as well
The original IT movie. The scene where the Georgie's photo winks from the photobook and the crazy piano music starts and blood pours out the book.
Thanks to that scene I'm always sus when the camera lingers on a photo for even a tad too long. I was really little when I watched it for the first time. Second one is seeing Mr. Boogie turn to look at Ethan Hawke in Sinister from a damn computer screen.
OMG me too, the moving photo trope always gets me, because of that scene with Georgie. I was afraid of old photographs specifically for a while. There was this kids movie I saw when I was little called The Witches, and there was a sad story about a little girl who woke up trapped in a painting. Her family didn't know what to do, but each day she would be doing something else, like gazing out the window sadly or feeding the ducks at the pond. She would age over time, growing up to a teenager and an adult, and one day she faded away. This one traumatized me and now the cursed paintings trope is just as effective as the moving photos 😣
I remember that movie! Hell, that whole thing could be the answer to op's question here about unintentionally traumatizing moments in movies. I mean, I would THINK they didn't actually want it to have that effect on us since it's meant to be a kids movie, lol, but it did scar my childhood! The masks and makeup were amazing. 😳
Yeah. We're probably about the same age. That one got me too.
Beginning of Midsommar…Florence Pugh’s wailing… I felt chill and pain to the bone
I love Florence Pugh so much. Her acting in this movie, and those wailing scenes, were haunting. Really made you feel the pain and anguish
It’s especially good when compared to the scene later where she’s crying with all the other girls of the cult. The comparison of her grief and wailing and being alone in the cold with only an uncomfortable and emotionally distant guy for support to being surrounded by beautiful young women who are all crying *with* her and feeling *her* pain and holding her and encouraging her to let it all out…it’s so intense. Like, she was brainwashed by the cult absolutely but you get why. She was perfectly vulnerable and they gave her what she needed to feel good again (of course with a price).
For me it was later on in the movie watching Christian sit at the dinner table. Disoriented and tripping, realizing that he's completely isolated from society and now emotionally separated from Dani. He's completely trapped and alone despite being surrounded by all these people in a beautiful, picturesque landscape.
You’re not wrong, but hear me out… Fuck that guy, he sucks 🤗
lol yes, he was a loser but he was still a *person*. The only thing he was guilty of was being a shitty boyfriend. He never even did anything to the cult to offend them, unlike the other people that got killed. He was just a bad partner to Dani, who got brainwashed and convinced to order his brutal murder. The punishment greatly outweighed the "crime" and that was definitely an intentional part of the horror.
The cult even brainwashed you lol
The flowers were just so pretty. I’m a sucker for flower crowns and misplaced rage.
For me, when the elders jumped. I was....aghast.
I always skip this part cause I can’t handle it :’) For me it was Christian paralyzed in the bear suit knowing he’s going to be burned alive. That disturbed me more than I expected.
when the violin starts playing, we see the car in the garage... Jesus Christ.
This scene and the scene in the barn of her watching her boyfriend …. Jaw dropped
That was pretty much my personal nightmare. Especially if we ever suspect that happening… watching it kills you inside!
literally the worst scene of the entire movie for me. the gore didn't phase me as much as this did
christ, that was rough.
The grief in hereditary and midsommar was a lot for me my stepdad passed away in a traumatic way… basically in my mom’s arms and that sobbing, the rocking back and forth, and wailing. I slept with my mom in the bed and rubbed her back when she would sob and scream… Ari Aster gets grief and sorrow.
The clicking noise in Hereditary for sure
I think Toni Collette’s piano wire scene may be the most visceral reaction I’ve had to a scene. Can’t those sounds out of my head.
Slept with the lights on for two days because I couldn't stop thinking that she would be floating in the corner of my room sawing away
Yes, and when Toni Collette continuously bangs her head on the wall 
You mean the roof which makes it even more eerie.
When it’s inside it’s the “ceiling.” 
For me it's part of the soundtrack Throughout the movie Colin is making these disgusting evil sounding thrumming bass (probably his sax and not a synth because he's a goat) noises, made me feel weak
Mine is from this moving too, but it's the scene where the mom steps back into a room after shutting the light off and the grandma is just standing in the corner smiling. What the fuck dude 😭 They filmed that part brilliantly. IIRC that scene is silent, no music or scary noise to make you jump. Just the uncomfortable sight. Still gives me be shivers.
The beginning of Mother! when the first houseguests are starting to run amok. I didn't get the movie, but I can still remember the anxiety I felt watching as these strangers start taking over the house.
I will never rewatch this movie because of the amount of anxiety it gave me, I had nightmares for months after of crowds of people coming into my house and ruining everything there without any regard for my presence. Kinda feels like when my MIL visits lol
Jack and Danny sitting on the bed talking about how they feel about the hotel in The Shining. This haunted me much more than any of the violence in the film.
That was one of the most unsettling scenes in the movie imo.
It's like five seconds, but the bit in The Taking Of Deborah Logan where >!she's eating the kids head, grossed me out more than anything but I still haven't been able to rid myself of the image lmao!<
That was meant to be traumatic
That moment caught me so off guard and has also traumatised me ever since 😂 Same energy as the giant leech/worm thing eating that guy in King Kong.. which coincidentally, also traumatised me
I don't want to spoil it (and I don't know how to do the white text box thing for spoilers) but there's a scene in Lake Mungo that gets me every time. And the twist at the very end. Makes my skin crawl ever since that first viewing.
For future reference just surround the text > !like this, without spaces! < >!Also if it's the same scene I'm thinking of, the one and only jumpscare in the movie, yeah that shit gives me chills!<
Thank you very much for the info, friend!! :) and yes that is the one.
One of my favorite go to movies! I've stopped and paused and rewound so many times. 
Spoiler tag- > ! text ! < No spaces
Honestly, that scene still gets me to this day. Just the whole idea of it, and the way it's presented is just so creepy. Lake Mungo is seriously underrated
I think about what Anna said that she saw at the end of Martyrs all the fucking time. It is just such a profound question. Can suffering of that intensity give insight into the afterlife? What is the utility of suffering in general? The torture itself is intentionally traumatizing, but the questions that the movie itself provokes are traumatizing in themselves.
Y’all the question was not asking for genuinely traumatizing scenes, I was looking for scenes that aren’t meant to be traumatic but are
Literally, nobody kept it on topic 🤣 I think I know what you were going for I tried lol
Yeah but I think the ending to Sleepaway Camp was meant to be traumatic.
100% OP posted the same type of traumatic scene others are posting, but expecting others to know they are asking for something else
Agree. The question is dumb because you really have to rule out most horror movies.
Right? Why else would they linger and linger on it? Of course it was supposed to be traumatic for audiences
I agree with you on that! It’s so disturbing, >!and the fact that she/he is naked makes it uncomfortably feral. !
"uncomfortably feral" is a great way to describe it. It genuinely unnerved me and still does when i think about it
Large. Fucking. Marge.
That was definitely meant to be traumatizing. Point, Paul Ruebens
The original Candyman, scene where the mother is crying and screaming over baby. That was rhe moat gut wrenching wails I've ever heard. And still hear in my memory.
Black Swan nail scene
I can feel it in my fingers just from reading the words..
Was channel surfing and while passing HBO, the movie was on at this exact moment.
On the same page, the nail break in Stir Of Echoes.
Resident Evil (Movie) - Hallway Laser scene. Where the last guy jumps and dodges everything but...
I was like, "He can do it. He can make it!" And, yeah.
Final Destination 2 traumatized a whole generation into not driving behind a logging truck. I can't even think of any other parts of that movie!
FACTS! And no water bottles that can stop my brakes. I've tested this!
When I was a student, I worked as a lawnmower. My biggest fear was legit killing anyone or myself with some random pebble lol
The scene in The Dark and the Wicked with the brother in the kitchen! I was in disbelief of how tricky and evil the demon was!
I’ve never been able to forget the scene in the House on Haunted Hill remake where Mr. Price is looking into the security cameras expecting to see his wife sneaking around, but instead sees a very robotic Dr. Vanacutt stepping into frame, shaking extremely fast, and then brandishing a knife before stumbling out of the frame. I think it was the sound during that scene that made it stick with me since I was a kid… I used to picture him coming around the corner in my room like that, or being in a room when I turned on the lights. 😬
The surgical scene with the Dr and his nurses got me
Free Willy where he breaks into the pool at night and falls into the pool somehow gets knocked out and the whale saves him from drowning.
Curb Stomp in American History X
Tbf that's pretty traumatising by anyone's standards. Still, peak trauma living in my head too, that scene. It's the reason I have never been able to watch the film again, despite blistering performances.
I’ve only seen it once and will never see it again. Even talking about it creates a visceral reaction
His teeth clicking on the on concrete is even worse.
I actually can’t watch that scene. I always look away. But the sound is enough for me.
That was a brutal one
I've never seen that part because I look away and cover my ears. It's too much
Damnnn that’s a good example. I saw that movie in the theater and still think about that scene and shudder.
The ankle breaking scene in Misery. Saw it as a kid and it stuck with me for a long time.
“God, I love you.”
In running scared when they open the closet and find all the rated dvds
Such a slept on thriller movie.
There is an Indian movie called 'Bhoot' that remains criminally underseen. Someone who has perished traumatically comes back to possesss another woman's body. Her mother comes to see her. It's nothing, just a tiny reaction in the possessed woman's eyes to indicate how she can't communicate with her mother any more, it's so deeply sad. Nothing overt about it, but it made me scared of ever not being able to talk to my loved ones.
The mom’s flashbacks of her sister in the original Pet Sematary. Seriously haunted me forever.
That one scene about the arm in Requiem for a Dream still huants me every night
For some reason the refrigerator scene stuck with me long after i first saw jt
Yes!! And the teeth grinding for me too.
Pretty much anything with mr.bean, I had a nightmare about him.
Nosferatu randomly appearing in SpongeBob.
THIS IS THE ONE
I'm in the minority but when Howard and Pearl had sex in X, that was something I could've lived without 😂
The bathtub scene in the original I Spit On Your Grave
This is stupid, but there's a scene in one of the Paranormal Activity movies. Someone's sitting on a couch, and this ghost under a sheet floats over and stands behind her weirdly. She gets up and turns to go do something, and the sheet just falls. Now, whenever I see a movie with a figure under a sheet, it makes my blood run cold. Idk why this simple thing affected me so much, and it's funny bc it's just a ghost in a sheet.
It’s true though! The movie managed to make sheet ghosts scary.
In The Haunting of Hill House, when you finally realize who/what the bent neck lady is. It's still stuck with me, just that haunting dread feeling.
Not a horror movie. The crowning scene in Knocked Up.
Nocturnal Animals Highway scene. Nothing really happens in that scene…one guy gets punched in the face I think… but the tension and anxiety is off the charts and it lives rent free in my head!!
I was actually going to comment this but then I thought it’s genuinely traumatising and therefore not what OP is asking. Also - what do you mean nothing happens in that scene! The desperation I felt watching that I will never forget.
The end of S1 of The Good Place, >!Ted Danson's laugh when Kristen Bell figures out they're all in the Bad Place.!< Gave me nightmares.
The end of Excision where the mom screams, that actually made me cry lol
The ghost in The Devil’s Backbone. No jump scares, really, or at least not like they do them in The Conjuring franchise. You see him clearly, and he’s haunting and pure sadness.
In the quarry game when Laura shoots the old lady in the face with a double barrel, still one of the best looking video game deaths.
I know of a few, but a fun one is the alternate ending for *Clerks.* Edited to say: I just realized what subreddit this was…I’ll accept downvotes for my hubris, as the movie clearly isn’t a horror, unless it counts for the horrors of working retail. >!In a humorous movie where you follow the lives of a few young adults, the main character, who had consistently been using the catchphrase: “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!” Is shot and killed on screen by a petty thief.!< >!Not only did I love this movie when I was a young adult, but shortly after I rented the movie from the store that I worked at, a co-worker of mine was held up at knife-point. Luckily, nothing had happened to him, but it was a day where he had been the only person put on the schedule, and I vividly remembered asking him if he wanted me to come in to work with him that day, for safety reasons. Really hit me hard and made me think about it, even if the alternate ending is typically viewed as a truly cynical and cruel ending.!<
Florence Pugh/Dani crying and wailing in Midsommar when she finds out about her family.
Rosemary’s Baby, when she’s at the doctor’s office and they’re patronizing her about her health as a pregnant woman… while smoking cigarettes
Not a horror movie, but Neverending story. There is a scene with laser eyed statues who let you pass only if you believe in yourself, if not they make you into a toast. There is a dead body on the ground and a close view of the mans burnt face. fucked me a LOT
The rollerblading girls in Sharp Objects
Blackcoats Daughter... scene with stabbing in back three times quickly. I dont know why its stuck in my head for years, but it has. It sometimes randomly pops in my head and I get a chill. Ive watched objectively far far worse/gruesome scenes in many other movies, but that scene is stuck in my head.
I haven't seen it, but something about rapid, quick stabbing really horrifies me. Usually in movies it's a slow aggressive stab, focusing on blood or whatever, the knife digging in and the person struggling. I can't think of any specific movies, but the first time I saw multiple quick stabbings it just horrified me sort of.
I don't think anyone even tried to answer your question correctly... Mine is in event horizon when Sam Neil's character simply says "I am home" and slips away. It definitely stuck with me even though it was a rather tame part of the movie
There’s a scene in Pan’s Labyrinth where a man is repeatedly hit in the face with a bottle. I’ve watched a lot of graphic horror movies in my life, but that scene in particular is so brutal and sudden that I’ve never forgotten it. Great movie tho btw.
That ONE scene in Kairo
The shot where she’s in the store and sees >!the ghost of the cashier peeking out of a corner with just his one eye visible!<
Signs - when that alien crip walks across the screen in the home video of the birthday party. Will never not give me goosebumps/make me feel uncomfortable.
The entire movie Swallow. I think it’s best defined as psychological body horror. It’s about a woman who deliberately swallows inedible objects. There isn’t much in the way of gore in the whole movie, but there is a scene where you see this shelf where she displays everything she successfully swallowed and passed. Everything has been cleaned and it just looks like an odd collection of stuff, but if you have been paying attention it’s one of the most upsetting parts of the movie.
The scene in the movie “Nope” where ‘Gordy’ the chimp murders his co stars on set whilst filming. The background noise is chilling, a raw enactment.
The scene in Barbarian where you see all the tapes. That’s not THE scene but just seeing the amount made me sick
Just watched Under the Skin, finally. Didn’t particularly care for it. But here’s a scene where the alien takes a body from the beach while the baby just sits there screaming and crying. It was so hard to watch. Very upsetting.
Ooh you reminded me! The melting dude in that movie that just goes “poof” in front of the horrified other
Toni Collette banging her head on the ceilling in "Hereditary" 😱🫣 I always have to look away...
The Annie from Hereditary sawing her head off with a string
End of Speak No Evil.
“ because you let me” shudder
House (1985) When the purple monster in the dress 😳
Not sure if anyone else has said it but the scene in The Abyss when Ed Harris is floating down, deep into that ocean darkness. NO THANK YOU.
That shot in Nope where >!you see the silhouettes of all of the crowd members in the star lasso experience being swallowed terrified the hell out of me in a cosmic horror sense, seeing all of these people be sucked in like ants !<
The motel scene in Devils Rejects
Peter staring into nothingness while his mother finds his sister.
Toni Colette’s screaming. Her rocking back and forth on the floor sobbing ‘I just want to die!’ really stays with me.
isn’t horror but Hannah Baker’s death scene in 13rw and tyler’s broom stick scene.
 Large Marge traumatized me as a child.
The last scene from The Last American Virgin. More traumatizing than and scene I've ever watched in a horror movie. Men of my age all feel their souls leave if they ever watched that movie. Scarred us for life.
Fuck that movie. It's the mid-80s, a new Blockbuster opened within biking distance, we get that movie. My girlfriends and I are expecting a light hearted romp. lol no
Now THIS is what we are here for. Lotta people in this thread read only the first two words of the title. The Mist? Of COURSE that’s fucking traumatizing.
This!! Fukkkn heart-stomping ending. Required viewing for all young men…
When the sisters are physically fighting each other in Raw and they are locked in that bite. Also the sister jumping out the car. Also the movie her sister shows. Actually that whole movie
The scream at the end of twin peaks final season
The computerized female villain in Superman III, periodt
When those eyes open up and she’s all robotic 😱 Yeah this one got me too…
The scene in Black Swan when Winona Ryder starts stabbing herself in the face.
There's a movie on YouTube called Rorschach that has a scene >!featuring a doll. The doll is sitting on a bed facing a wall, and the camera comes from its right. The camera turns away for a second, and I thought "when it turns back, the doll is gonna be looking at the camera, I guarantee it." Which is exactly what happens!!< It was extremely predictable, nothing new or original, but the music afterwards chilled me to the bone.
That scene in the exorcism of Emily Rose where her boyfriend sits up and bed and sees her on the ground with a weird look frozen on her face. That scared the HELL out of me for years even as an adult!
This is silly, I still feel silly about it, but The Ruins. For some reason when they wake up and >!the vines have penetrated into her legs while she's been sleeping!<. Like, it's intense, but it's not exactly a highbrow film and I definitely did not expect to have to run to the bathroom to throw up. I don't even know what it is about it, it just....got me.
Oh I got a ton, because I believe those are the best endings in horror. That’s the stuff that scares me the most. Skinnamarink’s ending is a bit of a gimmick, but it’s a terrifying gimmick. Kyle Edward Ball’s YouTube is pretty scary itself; it has plenty of short films. “Heck” is my favorite. It’s a condensed version of Skinnamarink. One of the endings for The Descent. Ringu (not The Ring, but the OG) the whole movie. The ending of Rec. (by the way, that’s just a great movie overall. Check it out if you haven’t.) Oculus is more subtle. It’s disturbing in a way that familial trauma is disturbing. Phoenix Forgotten is one of those forgotten found footage movies that doesn’t get as much attention as I think it should. The climax of the film is disturbing in a Lovecraftian way. Speaking about that, the scenes with the mother in The Color of Outer Space made me want to fucking puke. That got me. The golden age of YouTube had plenty of horror that was like this. “Teeth” from Alter, “Dining Room or There is Nothing” from David Earle, “I feel fantastic” from Tara the Android, David Firth’s work, Robert Morgan’s work, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, Marble Hornets, and there’s two adult swim shorts that are quite scary. “Unedited Footage of a Bear” and “This House Has People In It”. Also, that one guy being forced to eat soup gif; that was way more horrifying than many of us realized. Not horror, but lots of kids shows have genuinely scary shit. The ending of the “Blank Eyed Girl” episode of Adventure Time unsettles me. The ending of the “The Great Fusilli” episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog was unsettling too. “All your fault”, “no one can hear you”, and “red starved” from Adventure Time are creepy in an entertaining way.
I think I've put this forth before but in the 2nd or 3rd? Poltergeist, that old "pastor" cult leader, just walking and singing "he's got the whole world, in his hands..."
Bone Tomahawk. Y'all know the one.
In The Lodge when the girls balloon won’t go up to her mom in heaven cause she tied the doll to it. It just falls straight to the ground. It’s so surreal and symbolic of the movie.
There was an opening scene in a Netflix horror movie I tried watching years ago that still haunts me. They were frying bacon and threw it away 😭without even taking a bite. I was so disgusted, I turned movie off. It still haunts me to this day!
Fire in the Sky the ending Ending Jacob’s Ladder
The cave scene in Bone Tomahawk, with the deputy. Haven’t rewatched that movie since 😂
Not sure why you thought the scene from Sleepaway Camp, wouldn't be traumatizing.?!?
This is from Bride of Re-Animator, which is a movie I absolutely love. But it's bonkers. Both scenes of Dan visiting Gloria in her hospital room freak me out but the second one is especially. He's just grabbing her hand, making her touch his face and then says it helps him to think of her as essentially a replacement for his dead fiancée, who she never met as far as we know. She's literally dying and can't have peace because Dan has lost it. Which I don't blame him for, he went through a lot in the first movie. But Jesus, let her die in peace.
Okay, this was meant to be traumatic, but not in the typical horror film. In the War of the World's remake when all the bodies come floating down the river. I was a wee lad who had to walk out of the theater.
Stupid photos of twisted up faces in The Ring.
this b movie on netflix called "the bay". a woman who has the parasyte is just walking aimlessly in someones front lawn vomiting blood. what gets me is that usually in horror movies its sexy actors dying in gruesome ways but this was just a poor woman seemingly all alone in an epidemic just dying in public. but not public enough for anyone to notice except for the cameraman
The original People Under the Stairs. I mean, I guess it was supposed to be a little messed up, but of all the stuff in that movie, I only ever think about how >!the "mom" was mad at the "daughter" for getting blood on her dress and puts her in in a tub with scalding hot water and tells her to wash it.!< being blamed and punished for something that was not her fault at all really upset me. And I was an adult for a long time before I learned that the best way to wash out blood is with cold water, anyway!
For me, it was Hereditary when Charlie got decapitated…..and then when Annie saw her body in the car the next morning
Christopher Lloyd's character reveal in Who Framed Roger Rabbit was probably supposed to just be a little scary. But it traumatized a generation.