For MovieMaker’s 2016 Guide to Making Horror Movies special edition, we set out to identify what makes some of the scariest scenes of all time quite so terrifying.
So we asked a few fright-meisters to share their personal picks for “scariest scene of all time,” and try to explain why those moments were so effective. We’ve posted the responses each Friday, and today is our last one. (Halloween is finally upon us!) Patrick Brice, writer and director of this year’s Creep and The Overnight, dredges up his deepest cinematic fear.
Patrick Brice. Photograph by Michael Rababy
Patrick Brice: For me it’s all about that last scare. The Blair Witch Project, Friday The 13th and Carrie all have great final scares. The very last moment in The Blair Witch Project has stuck with me for years. That film is all about the slow burn and making the unseen feel as scary as possible. Seeing Mike standing up in the corner for a split second at the end out of the corner of the frame had visceral effect on me.
I tried to replicate this feeling for the final scene of Creep, which unfolds in an extremely long single take. The audience becomes implicated in the action when they are forced to watch a scene like this in real time. Like watching a car accident in slow motion. MM
This article appears in MovieMaker‘s Fall 2015 issue, currently on newsstands.
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