What is the most iconic horror movie moment of all time? It’s a question that horror fans have been debating for decades, with new movies throwing their hat in the ring every year. There are a bunch of different types of horror moments: jump scares, plot twists, atmospheric sequences, character introductions, shocking deaths, explosive payoffs to earlier setups. In many horror movies, the scariest moment is the ending: Rosemary’s Baby, The Wicker Man, Don’t Look Now, The Descent.
A common contender is the chestburster in Ridley Scott’s Alien, which works so beautifully because of the way Scott builds up to it. John Hurt’s Kane is rounded out as a character in the first half of the movie. He’s attacked by a facehugger, seems to have avoided any serious consequences, and throws a party on the Nostromo to celebrate. Then, midway through the festivities, a baby alien starts trying to tear its way out of Kane’s chest. The first appearance of the xenomorph sets up the rest of the movie to be a relentless barrage of terror.
But the chestburster has plenty of contenders. There’s the nanny getting hanged in the middle of a garden party in The Omen, David’s excruciating transformation in An American Werewolf in London, the pig’s blood being dumped on Carrie White’s head (and her subsequent vengeful rampage) in Brian De Palma’s Carrie – and who could forget the hobbling scene from Misery? In Stephen King’s novel, Annie Wilkes cuts off Paul Sheldon’s foot, but in Rob Reiner’s movie adaptation, she breaks his ankles instead. Reiner made the change to ensure that Annie (played to perfection by an Oscar-winning Kathy Bates) would still have some humanity while committing a heinous act of mutilation, which made it even more unnerving.
The opening “Do you like scary movies?” scene with Drew Barrymore in Scream brings a sharp meta angle to the familiar genre while also hitting all the spooky beats of a horror movie opening (a balance that only the great Wes Craven could pull off). And speaking of slashers, there are plenty of iconic scenes involving everyone’s favorite masked serial killers, like Michael breaking into the closet where Laurie is hiding in Halloween and Leatherface’s brutal sledgehammer kill in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Some horror movies are so masterfully crafted that they have more than one contender for the most iconic horror moment of all time. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho has the oft-parodied shower murder; the reveal of Norma’s corpse in the basement; a smiling Norman dressed as his mother standing in the doorway; and, of course, Norman staring dead-eyed into the camera at the end of the movie. This is often erroneously referred to as the final shot of Psycho. The true final shot is also an unnerving horror moment as Norman’s car containing Marion’s butchered corpse is ominously recovered from the lake.
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shiningalso has countless contenders: the elevator doors letting out a tidal wave of blood; Danny encountering the ghosts of the Grady twins in the long, narrow Overlook hallways; Jack quoting Ed McMahon while trying to axe-murder his wife; right up to the final shot of the framed photograph of Jack in the 1920s.
The climax of The Silence of the Lambs (one of the only horror movies to ever be taken seriously by critics and Academy voters), in which Clarice stumbles around Buffalo Bill’s dark lair while he stalks her with night-vision goggles, is truly haunting, because it puts the audience in the perspective of a killer and puts Clarice in a totally helpless situation.
Charlie’s decapitation in Hereditary is an unforgettable recent example. It’s literally the most horrible thing that could’ve possibly happened when Peter reluctantly agreed to take his little sister to a party (especially because the trailers portrayed her as the main character, so the audience was expecting her to stick around).
David Lynch, another critical favorite, isn’t necessarily a horror filmmaker, but his movies are certainly disturbing. Lynch has directed some of the scariest moments ever put on film, like the dumpster monster reveal in Mulholland Drive, or the Mystery Man in Lost Highway, or the notorious “phantom” scene in Inland Empire, or anything involving Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, or the most awkward dinner of all time in Eraserhead – the list goes on. Lynch loves to creep his audience out.
The question of the most iconic horror moment doesn’t really come down to determining the scariest thing ever put on film. It’s more about determining which horror moment is the most instantly recognizable, which would probably be the one that’s been parodied the most. In that case, Psycho’s tense, but very spoof-able shower murder wins. This scene gets bonus points for still managing to pack a punch with modern audiences, despite its reputation in the pop culture landscape. Thanks to Hitchcock’s meticulous cutting at all the right moments and Bernard Herrmann’s intense score, Marion Crane’s murder left an unforgettable impression on audiences in 1960 and continues to do the same to this day.