The following contains potential spoilers and scenes which may be considered NSFW.
The scariest moments in horror are often the most intimate.
This is why knives are far nastier, button-pushing instrument of death than guns.
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The secret to the shower scenes brilliance is the sound and editing.
Its a horrible, squirm-inducing moment.
Butler Delbert Grady fatefully tells Torrance to punish his family in one.
The famous Heres Johnny sequence takes place in another.
Its only when they embrace that Jack realizes the woman is in fact a hideous old ghoul.
Its both an effective jump-scare and a further insight into the decaying state of Jacks mind.
Whoever it was, they allowed their imagination to run riot.
There is, however, one scene where Cronenberg lets the blood flow.
For several years, British audiences couldnt see the more graphic parts of this sequence.
They have since been reinstated in all their gory glory.
The equivalent scene inANightmare On Elm Streetis far more accomplished.
While later sequels drifted into self-parody, Cravens original film saw Krueger at the height of his unnerving powers.
In the original film, a victim received an axe to the face and fell against a shower curtain.
Theres a time and place for everything, but engaging in a duet while emptying your bowels?
There should be some sort of law against it.
It delivers on what the first films strapline promised: Theyll get you in the end.
Note, too, the wobbly cardboard walls.
A desperate struggle ensues between Dan and Alex, before Beth ends the encounter with a single gunshot.
Had Spielberg or effects supervisor Stan Winston botched this moment, the whole film could have collapsed.
Instead, its a masterpiece of anticipation and then pulse-pounding excitement.
A knife in the ear.
In this instance, a wire cord for hanging washing over a bath becomes a deadly noose.
Here, those subjects come together in a stomach-turning stew.
See also:grim toilets inTrainspotting(1996) andHeadhunters(2011).
Bathtub suspense inWhat Lies Beneath(2000) and an unexpected ferret inThe Big Lebowski(1998).
This article originally ran on February 2, 2015 onDen of Geek UK.
