Scary Moments

[CoffeeJunkie]

I am having trouble thinking of a script for a horror movie I am making so I thought I can get inspiration by seeing the scariest things to happen to you guys.

Just post a scary, or the scariest, moment that has happened to you.

Mine: It was late at night and I was turning off my TV so I could go to bed, when it turned off I saw someone standing in the corner of my room in the reflection of the TV. When I turned around no one was there and when I looked back at the screen the person was gone, safe to say I had a hard time sleeping that night.

[Vadiant]

Scariest moment? I was in the hospital once, and had an IV in one of my arms-- In the middle of the night, I woke up shivering... And realized a few seconds later, that I was cold because the tube of the IV had broken open. And there was blood pouring all over me. My blood. *Shivers* Not quite supernatural, but I STILL don't like hospitals. ... Especially 'cuz it was probably about the third time in a year I'd had something horrible happen to me in one.

[CoffeeJunkie]

Doesn't have to be supernatural, and you gave me a great idea

[CarrotMurder]

Well it never happened to me, but I got an idea that can be used in a horror film or a horror game. It goes like this.

You're in a dark hallway. Only hanging light bulbs light the way. If there was someone in front of you, you would only know if they were around 1-2 feet in front of you. The walls are painted white, but now a dark yellow because of the light. The path keeps going straight until you come across a dead end. On the wall, there is a note and a button. The note says, "Don't turn around." An arrow written on the wall using a marker points to the button prompting you to push it. Once you push it, the wall slides up, and the dead end is gone. You continue following the path and not turning around because of what the note said. You keep going until you see yet another identical wall with the exact same note of "Don't turn around". You follow the instruction and push the button again. The wall slides up. You keep going and then yet another wall almost identical to the last two walls appears. This time, the note says "Run". Now here, you have two choices. Push the button and run, or turn around. One of them causes the paranormal forces inside the cursed hallway to come out and end your life. It's turn around. If you turn around, there is nothing there. So you turn around yet again to keep going down the path only to be stopped by an ear bleeding shriek and the faces of the many dead souls not yet laid to rest in the hallway.

Game Over.

[CoffeeJunkie]

It would be nice for a game, but not so much a film.

[CarrotMurder]

It would be nice for a game, but not so much a film.

For a film, just get something extremely surprising for a cheap scare, like if the guy's taking a dump, have a head POP out of the toilet. It's a cheap scare, but it goes well in the film business.

For a real scare though, I guess just live on people's fears. Make it the fear of the dark. Make the movie focus on what's in the dark.

[Typhon]

I find that cheap scares like in your face scenes (face popping up behind window) is incredibly over used and cliched. But the fact of the matter is that the reason they are cliched is because they work! Having a face jump at you startles for sure, and some people say its more of a thrill than scare. But be real people, jump scenes can be pretty scary no matter how over used they are. You just gotta be innovative. Sorry that i don't have a scary story to tell, ill try and think of one

[CoffeeJunkie]

It is a pyscho-thriller and here's what I have so far.

{ROUGH DRAFT}
The protaginist, a female therapist, is helping a client cope with these strange 'things' he is seeing. He claims that they're trying to kill him. Later he is put into an Insane Asylum for murder. He claims to have done it for protection from the 'things'. He is put to death due to being a 'murderous pyschopath'. The therapist shrugs it off as another looney, until she sees strange 'things'. At first she just sees things but they get more and more real till the point she feels them. She is terrified for her life and goes to her boyfriend. Her boyfriend thinks she is crazy and takes her to a hospital. They call her crazy and send her to the pysch ward. It ends with her in a room and a 'thing' appears, it zooms out and she screams, the doctors rush in to find her dead of a heart attack.

I know it sucks so what should I add to it?

[Slippery-Q]

I always sit out in the back of my Step-Dad's Truck when I smoke a cigarette. I usually smoke at all times of the day. Often when I sit outside when it's dark, there is one solitary street light down the road. I usually pay no attention to it when I smoke, but one night I couldn't really help it. As I sparked up, and leaned against the windows in the back, I watched carefully down the street. I took in everything the was illuminated and revealed by that one solitary light. As to my surprise, I saw something moving. Now, keep in mind, this is really far down the road, so I could've been seeing something that wasn't there. But I saw what seemed like the silhouette of a tall man rushing back and forth very quickly between the edges of light. He was sprinting back at forth at amazing speed. It was like the Exorcism, where she is crab-walking down the stairs, and her head is jolting around very quickly. Well, he was shooting in both directions (North and South). He finally darted North (My direction) and didn't return within the reaches of light in the southern direction. Without hesitation, I hopped out of the truck, and started running to the house. I heard quick rustling coming from the southern direction as I was running up my yard. I didn't look back, just darted in, and slammed the door. I don't tend to smoke out front at dark time too much anymore.

[ChewyChewy]

Once something happened to me that SOUNDS like it was out of a horror story or a nightmare, but I swear it really happened....

Literally EVERY WINDOW in our house was infested with flies. I don't know how they kept getting in, but whenever we opened the curtain on any window at all, there were two flies. Always two, no more, no less, on the glass of the window.

And if we did away with those flies? No good. Later, if we came to the exact same curtain and opened it, there were two more flies (no more, no less) on the glass of the window--in the same spot.

No holes in the windows, and we don't open the windows themselves, so that doesn't explain it.

I will never know how they did that.

[Kyderra]

the dentist

[sliceofdog]

For a film, just get something extremely surprising for a cheap scare, like if the guy's taking a dump, have a head POP out of the toilet. It's a cheap scare, but it goes well in the film business.

Ugh, please don't. I love horror movies when they're done right, but things just popping out are dull. Even when it makes you jump, it's not cause it's scary. It's just like a flinch, like that stupid "Are you afraid of a man this big?" thing kids used to do.

It is a pyscho-thriller and here's what I have so far.

{ROUGH DRAFT}
The protaginist, a female therapist, is helping a client cope with these strange 'things' he is seeing. He claims that they're trying to kill him. Later he is put into an Insane Asylum for murder. He claims to have done it for protection from the 'things'. He is put to death due to being a 'murderous pyschopath'. The therapist shrugs it off as another looney, until she sees strange 'things'. At first she just sees things but they get more and more real till the point she feels them. She is terrified for her life and goes to her boyfriend. Her boyfriend thinks she is crazy and takes her to a hospital. They call her crazy and send her to the pysch ward. It ends with her in a room and a 'thing' appears, it zooms out and she screams, the doctors rush in to find her dead of a heart attack.

I know it sucks so what should I add to it?

Atmosphere makes or breaks good horror, particularly if you're going for psychological horror. It can't be all in the writing, because music, lighting, camera work and editing are incredibly important. However, what tends to work well (But is currently quite popular, so may become overused by the time you got a chance to make a movie) is something that doesn't seem horror at the start. And I don't mean for about 5 minutes. I mean for the first 20 minutes or so. That's where you have your cheap scares; Someone jumps out at the main character, but it's just a friend playing a joke, or you see someone staggering across the street, and it's just a drunk. You let the audience relax by throwing them curve-balls. They will come to expect shocks to be nothing serious, so when something bad actually does go down, the audience are really taken by surprise.

Next stage is starting things getting dark. In your case, CoffeeJunkie, you could have your client tell your psychiatrist that the 'things' have big claws, or something, or that when they walk they leave dead patches in the grass or something. She thinks it's him making it up, but then you start adding subtle things in the background, like a news broadcast about unidentified claw marks or large animal sightings or unexplained deaths or whatever. This works best if you don't make a big deal about it. Have your main character walk past while it's on, so the audience hear it but might not focus on it. Add subtle hints like this that relate to what the client has been describing more and more, until it's obvious something's up.

Then you can add a couple genuine scares; She gets in her car at night and glimpses something in the back mirror or something like that. Don't make anything jump out; Remember, if your antagonists (The 'things') are mysterious, that makes them scarier. As soon as you show them they loose their mystery and become less scary. She just sees something and then it's gone. She starts to get scared. Then you play on the fact that she's a psychiatrist and start to blur the lines between reality and imagination. Perhaps have her see a dead body in the road that everyone else is ignoring or something. Large animals work best, she could slowly drive past a dear deer and stare shocked at it, but people are just walking past it not looking. Then maybe throw in something random, like she goes to her boyfriends house and he's not in. So she rings him and the phone answers then goes dead. She gets worried and starts banging on the door, and then he answers and says that he's saw her out the window just standing in the garden staring or something. Just make the audience start wondering if what they're seeing is actually what's happening.

Then she gets a call, says her client is dead. Was found with his throat ripped open. They think it was suicide, but can't find a weapon. She offers to come in, but they tell her to relax and there's nothing she can do.

Another few scares at her boyfriends house; She looks over and he's suddenly dead, then she screams and he's fine again, asking her what's wrong, something like that. Then you can really deteriorate things, have the 'things' come and kill the boyfriend. She runs outside screaming, cars are abandoned in the street, no one's around. The 'things' start chasing her. She hides somewhere, and then if you used the animal idea above you can bring that back in, have the deer walk past on the road but still as a corpse. She runs again, goes into a police station or something. They say they'll protect her, the 'things' come in, start killing the cops, and then just as she's about to die, it zooms in on her screaming, and zooms out again. She's in a straight-jacket being watched by doctors, and one of them is saying to the boyfriend something like "It's a good job you brought her in when you did. A complete mental breakdown, it's rare in someone with no history of this kind of thing" blah blah blah.

The end could then be she's being interviewed by another psychiatrist. She is staring into a corner, looking completely gone out. She finally looks up, and the camera turns around. One of the 'things' is over the psychiatrists shoulder. It jumps. Le Fin.

tl:dr version - If you're going for a psychological thriller, mess with the audiences head. It's integral they question what they see, and things are confusing and do not reflect reality without becoming ridiculous. Too many cheap scares will undermine a psychological horror, and just make it a teen slasher flick.

[Buckdida]

You want a scary moment?

Try the split second before getting hit by car.

Or, on another occasion, a motorbike.

Let's see. All on my bike...
-Forced into a ditch by a stalled manual car. (he pulled over into the bike lane, he didn't check the bind spot)
-Knocked over by a car pulling out of a driveway. (Neither of us saw this one coming)
-Clipped by several overeager cars waiting for me to pass by a parking lot entrance/exit (Seriously, my bike pedal should not be hitting the bumper of a moving car. What is WITH some people's impatience?)
-Turned into. (Protip: Put on your turn signal before turning; it let's other people know what you're about to do)
-Run over by a motorbike! (I love you speed up to try and beat me through a turn at an intersection)

I walked away from every one of these. And the only damage my bike suffered was the front wheel when the motorbiker ran through me. I'm still using the same bike frame today.

The scary part? These all happened on the same route, the one that I took every morning and afternoon to and from school. There's nothing weird nor creepy that tells you today would be different. There was no warning sign or tell that they would happen, no psychological thrill or mind screw, and, lucky for me, no gore. It's not a movie, it's not supernatural, and you aren't freaking yourself out and it's nothing that's out to hunt you down or has some non-specific grudge against you or humanity. It's real life, and it could happen to you...and might not get as lucky as I have. Think about that.

Oh, and here's a great one. I often switched which side of the road I'm riding on in the interest of time. One day, I wasn't able to get over to my preferred side (skipped a stoplight and annoying crosswalk on that side), so I just continued biking on the side I was on. Then, randomly, exactly across the street where I would have been if I were on that side...a car does a rollover and slides three yards forward. The windshield cracked and the passenger front seat window shattered. To this day, I wonder what would have happened if I were biking on the other side of the street. Yes, this was on the same route I took to school every morning.

...If you haven't guessed, I DO in fact wear a bike helmet.

[CoffeeJunkie]

Kyderra: Ha
Buckdida: I would stop riding that route if I where you
Sliceofdog: I hate cheap scares as well because, like you said, it's not very scary just makes you jump for a second. My favourite scary moment is in Strangers, the woman is getting a glass of water and in the far back corner of the room a person's head slowly comes into picture, but leaves when she turns around. Now about your script idea, I was going to use the 'nice opening' & 'glimpsing' trick so that you can't tell if they're is anything going there, Your movie idea is great and has helped me with my script but the problem is that the 'things' can't kill anybody (but the client will die to add paranoia). That would take away from the 'is this really happening' feel I would like to give. One scene my friends suggested is to make her hit someone while driving but only to realize nothing was there. Also the 'things' aren't always the same thing. I thought about the idea to make her go to her own therapist. (Not enough space to keep writing)

[sliceofdog]

Now about your script idea, I was going to use the 'nice opening' & 'glimpsing' trick so that you can't tell if they're is anything going there, Your movie idea is great and has helped me with my script but the problem is that the 'things' can't kill anybody (but the client will die to add paranoia). That would take away from the 'is this really happening' feel I would like to give. One scene my friends suggested is to make her hit someone while driving but only to realize nothing was there. Also the 'things' aren't always the same thing. I thought about the idea to make her go to her own therapist.

Oh, yeah, I don't expect you to follow it word for word. In fact, I'm glad you won't, it shows you know what you want, that's important in writing a script. I was quite detailed because each element requires another to have full effect, but if you already have your own ideas about these 'things' then follow it. I'm only glad to have helped

[dynaslash]

Giant Demon Zombie Spiders. I mean most people have arachniphobia and demons and zombis can be scary.


Yes I have intense arachnaphobia.

[44R0NM10]

I've never had any really scary moments...but speaking of spiders...

I remember once, me and a friend were mavign a BB gun fight, and I was hiding in a bush. He was aiming at me, and I was getting ready to shoot him and run out myself. I stopped when I saw a spider by my feet (not Ebly massive...but massive enough) and I just screamed and ran out through the bush. The funny thing was, my friend didn't shoot at me.

I have nice friends...

[Tiggy]

My scariest moment(s) was when playing some scary game online, my rooms all dark and stuff scares me <.< I am so paranoid, I actually look around my room once in a while to make sure theres nothing there (I HATE THE GRUDGE GIRL.)

[sliceofdog]

Yes I have intense arachnaphobia.

I remember once, me and a friend were mavign a BB gun fight, and I was hiding in a bush. He was aiming at me, and I was getting ready to shoot him and run out myself. I stopped when I saw a spider by my feet (not Ebly massive...but massive enough) and I just screamed and ran out through the bush. The funny thing was, my friend didn't shoot at me.

I found a spider in my bathroom a couple weeks ago days ago; http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3971790

She (I assume she was a she. She spiders are bigger, right?) was pretty muffins and cookies big. I let her hunker down for a few days, but then evicted her when she ate half of another spider.

[Typhon]

Claustrophobia and nyctophobia go hand in hand very well.

[CoffeeJunkie]

If we are talking about phobias I have Automatonophobia and Pediophobia

[Tiggy]

Nyctophobia here! No really, I really hate dark places, makes me feel people are watching me and are going to kidnap me, or whatever <.< Also deep waters, feels like summit is going to come from below and drag me down! *cries*

[The Game]

Let's see, scary moment....
uh...like a time i thought i was going to die?? I have a good one then!

In 5th grade, we went to a camp that had the biggest zipline I've ever seen. It was a good, 50 feet off the ground (outside) really long, and nothing but a little harness to hold you up. me and my bestest ever friends (luckily) were going down at the same time, and when I pushed off the platform, I dropped. i thought i was going to meet a flattening death, but my harness decided to work and i zipped and it was fun!!
That was me near death, like, the 3rd time or something, maybe, but i can't remember the others...

oh, and one time me and my family were on a plane going to Nigeria and experienced some absolutely crazy turbulence. my oldest brother was in the plane crash position by the time we were have way through. It probably didn't help that we were flying through some pretty thick clouds. When the plane landed (miraculously) every single Nigerian started praying like mad, my parents included. i would have laughed if i hadn't been so frikkin scared.

[Typhon]

If we are talking about phobias I have Automatonophobia and Pediophobia

for a minute there i thought you wrote pedogogue lol.

[CoffeeJunkie]

pedogogue is scared of children, Pediophobia is fear of dolls

[Typhon]

Is there one for clowns?

[The Game]

Is there one for clowns?

if there is that describes all my fears in about one word.

pedogogue is scared of children, Pediophobia is fear of dolls

people are afraid of kids? What did kids do?

[44R0NM10]

I know people who are afraid of things weairder then kids...besides, in most circumstance what does the dark do? What did spiders do? What did clowns do?

Fears are weird, and all I know is that they are annoying. I'm...I'm calling my...my, erm, my cause for intimidation to be because I see no human under there. They are normally silent, and I hate when people touch me. I can't even stand my own mother giving me a hug, and these people like to hug anybody who get's too close. These people have a facial expression that never changes...and since they ussually don't talk I rarely even know their gender.

I don't trust you if I can't tell the smallest amount about you, yet you still find it a smart idea to give me a hug with your never changing happy face! I don't care if you're being friendly, don't touch me!

Ebly. I don't call this a phobia anymore, but you've still made me think about why these people intimidate me so much to the point were my answer seems biased.

(...take a guess who I'm talking about. I'll admit I've never been to where you see them a lot...but I have been to Disneyland, and there is more then enough of something very simliar there.)

(Also, I still love all you guys...you know that )

[CoffeeJunkie]

Is there one for clowns?

That's easy! Coulrophobia! The only reason I am afraid of dolls/dummies is Chucky from Child's Play and Slappy from Goosebumps. Also, they aren't any other scary moments out there?

[Anthroguy101]

I woke up to an explosion (sometimes nuclear), flash and/or loud noise that didn't actually happen. I remember when the Kinzua Dam broke and the house got pounded with water, then I woke up.

[CoffeeJunkie]

Soooooooooo... It was a dream?

[Dissension]

When I was 14, I was an explorer scout at my county sheriff's office. Two of us and a real (jail, not patrol) deputy were sent to a neighboring county to help with security at their annual fair. A girl got assaulted, very not PG-13, and they sent us (instead of their own police officers, deputies, or our supervisor) to look for the suspects in a wooded riverfront area. Fun times.

[CoffeeJunkie]

That remind me of a time when I was younger, like maybe 8-ish, and me and my bbb (best black buddy) were playing in the near by woods. We were basically just playing hide & seek and I was the seeker. I looked for him for about a minute when he ran really fast toward me and grabbed, this made me scream but it isn't the scary thing. He was crying and saying we should go and began to drag me out of the woods. I wasn't sure what he was running from but I looked back and saw a man standing way off in the distance. It might have been my imagination but it scared the crap outta me

[Typhon]

When I was 14, I was an explorer scout at my county sheriff's office. Two of us and a real (jail, not patrol) deputy were sent to a neighboring county to help with security at their annual fair. A girl got assaulted, very not PG-13, and they sent us (instead of their own police officers, deputies, or our supervisor) to look for the suspects in a wooded riverfront area. Fun times.

US?

[Dissension]

Yes, there were two of us. I think the other guy was a little older, maybe 15. Long story short, we didn't find anybody. We didn't carry OC spray, batons, or any other self-defense tools, either.

[Typhon]

Yes, there were two of us. I think the other guy was a little older, maybe 15. Long story short, we didn't find anybody. We didn't carry OC spray, batons, or any other self-defense tools, either.

lol, no no i meant in the United States?

[Liam]

A girl got assaulted, very not PG-13, and they sent us (instead of their own police officers, deputies, or our supervisor) to look for the suspects in a wooded riverfront area. Fun times.

We didn't carry OC spray, batons, or any other self-defense tools, either.

O_O

[NickCole]

Scary moments? Well...most I heard are from my friend since he has a 3rd eye and can see them and all. But here was my experience when I was ghost hunting in school with my friends.

We were staying up late in school, helping out with the board decorations, then one of my friends suggested to go to the 6th floor and check it out since the janitors have switched off the lights and all. And we did. We went up, along with 3 of my other friends. We walked slowly in the corridors and passed dark classrooms. The floor was shaped of an 'H'. We then made a turn to the left and passed the laboratory. My friend claimed to have seen something passed by the door window...We then made a turn to the right. As we were midway, a friend of my screamed and pointed to the front. The thing we saw...was...unexplainable for me. All I saw was a black figure in front of us, under a window and light was being emitted from it from the streetlights. The figure was only our waist tall and was constantly moving left and right while my friends and I freeze in the spot.

It was very freaky, if you ask me. There was no light being emitted behind us since all the lights were switched off and none of us has a flashlight. We quickly walked passed it though...And it looked like a shape of a Dog. Which was all I remember. o.o

[D-Singer]

Holy **** Nick

...I’ve got one.

About five years ago, there was a severe electrical storm that swept across the county. When it passed over our neighborhood, lightning took out two of our power poles. This left us without electricity for FIVE DAYS. Several of our neighbors had backup generators that ran all night, needless to say it was difficult to get sleep. At the time we had a male, three-year-old tabby cat, who since the day we adopted him, would leave for days on end and come back. On the fourth night, around 12:00pm he wanted outside, so I picked him up and went to open my bedroom window like always. It was still overcast with almost no moon so it was pitched black outside. The second I opened the window, this cat took off fast as H*** into the other room. Tired from lack of sleep I didn’t think much of it, so I reached back out to pull the window shut...and that’s when it happened.

‘Someone’ or ‘something’ on ‘two feet’ blitzed away from under the window and across the yard, SUPER fast, starting from literally two feet from me leaning out the window. I heard our chain-link fence clinking in the dark once this thing was completely out of sight. This left me panicked and wide awake for the rest of the night, all I saw was some dark blur about four feet tall take off from under my window......Like it was ****ing WATCHING me or something. I knew for a fact it wasn’t my brother or parents screwing with me, I confirmed that moments later. We had two dogs back then that weren’t exactly the friendliest type of pets, one had already bitten someone a year prior who was in our yard, so I ruled out a friend or trespasser. As for it being one of the dogs themselves, I was already CERTAIN it was running on two feet, I heard the footsteps.

This may or may not be in relation to what happened, but the day we got our power back, our cat left and never came back...

I haven’t experienced anything remotely similar since then...The story is yours to believe or not.

[Atari]

So, in a violent way that scared me (if I was even conscious enough to be scared):

My head + trunk door of minivan + bike below me == Pain. Lots of it. I'll leave you to guess what happened. (My head + door came before the bike was even in the picture. I wasn't riding it.)

Non-violently (well, not involving blood for that matter):

This is a sequence of creepy events. Well, one night (thunderstorm), we get a random call looking for someone, so we said no, hang up. Again, 5sec later, no, hangup. This goes on for several more minutes, until my parents remove the phone cord from the wall. It starts ringing my mom's cell phone (or someone's cell phone, there were only my parents with cell phones at that time). And they ask for the same person. My mom says no, rips out battery, and that's that. For an hour or so. Then, an hour or so later, there's a huge blast of thunder (as in, it felt like an earthquake for a second), and power flickers out. Power comes back on a minute later, and my brother isn't there (he went to his room). Huge crash in the basement (in this older apartment, the basement just held the power box and a furnace with hot water attachment), power goes out a minute later. Bigger crash after, heaters shut off. My parents go downstairs to look around. My mom screams for a split second, and I look downstairs. All power comes back on, heater still out. Come to find out, the power was shut off, furnace was burnt out as a product of no electricity (somehow), and the door was opened.

If you honestly want to remove the scariness from it: Come to find out, my brother decided to play a joke on us by going downstairs and shutting all electricity off. No heat for a few days, and he had a cut nearly across his entire shin area. Great price to pay, no? As for the weird people calling, we found out that it was a group of prank callers, the second time, by coincidence, another group with sincere intention (likely), and just the wrong number.