Horror movies often rely on exploiting real fears to get under the audience’s skin. The best horror movies of all time are effective because they introduce concepts or situations that are either relatable or personable. If you believe it’s happening to you or it could happen to you, a horror movie’s terrifying moments become even scarier.
Putting you in the headspace of horror movie characters is also another highly effective storytelling technique. This is why the Saw movie franchise, despite its frustrating plot holes, has continued to win audiences over. Every Jigsaw trap and moral conundrum makes you wonder what you’d do in the shoes of the victim, and this draws you further into the film.
One of the best horror franchises with over five movies, which recently returned with a fantastic legacy sequel, the Final Destination franchise is known for terrifying viewers with real-life scenarios. Most characters die from horrifying freak accidents caused by mundane objects while doing regular activities. This is how some horror movies make you fear real-life scenarios after you’ve seen them.
The Birds (1963): Flocks Of Birds
A qualifying feature of a phobia is that it’s irrational. There’s no explanation for why you specifically fear a situation you have a phobia of, and Alfred Hitchcock knew how to trigger deep-seated fears or even manufacture new ones with his fantastic use of visual space, background score, and editing techniques that put you beside the victim in a scene.
So, when you see people being attacked by angry flocks of birds, like a passionately motivated mob, you rationally know it’s a horror movie gimmick, but the terrifying plight of the victims makes you fear for your life. You’d be excused for getting jittery around large flocks of birds, especially if they’re being loud, if you’ve seen Hitchcock’s The Birds.
Urban Legend (1998): Car Backseats
A messy horror movie known for its incredible performances, Jamie Blanks’ Urban Legends is strongest during its set pieces, as its lore is inconsistent at times. However, those set pieces are fantastic, and the car scene stands out as one of the best horror scenes from the ’90s. Its brilliant use of misdirection has instilled lifelong fears in some viewers.
After running from a man she thinks is trying to kidnap her, a woman breathes a sigh of relief when she hits him with her car and escapes. The reveal that there’s an axe-wielding killer in the backseat, announced by the man’s shouts, is shocking, and some of us still check the backseats of every car that we get into.
Climax (2018): Electrical Rooms
An hour-long after-party to celebrate a successful performance with a dance troupe sounds like a fun time, especially if the crowd is mostly non-verbal, drinking punch, and freely dancing to the upbeat music without bothering anyone else. Spike the punch with acid, and put Gaspar Noé in charge of directing the flow of events, and it turns into a nightmare.
People die horrifying deaths in Climax. In a shocking horror movie moment that makes you audibly gasp, the child, whose mother put him in an electrical room to protect him from the chaos outside, suddenly stops screaming. You know he’s died from electrocution. I’ll never close the door behind me in an electrical room if I’m ever inside one again.
Saw II (2005): Needle Pits
The entire Saw franchise has many traps that make you cringe and look away in horror, as human bodies experience the kind of physical trauma that you can’t unsee or forget, but you can eventually leave the cinema with the knowledge that these are exclusively designed torture devices that will likely never be made or used on you, at least.
However, Saw II, which is also known for featuring a horror movie hero who is secretly a villain, has a trap that will make you develop a real-life phobia. The needle pit in Saw II, where characters have to fish around for a key in a stack of needles, will worsen your fear of needles or give you a phobia.
Hereditary (2018): Heads Outside Car Windows
Who doesn’t love putting their head outside a car window on a breezy day during a long drive? The feeling of the wind in your hair is incomparable, and it’s a classic activity to do on a drive. However, once you’ve seen this horror movie that hits differently after becoming a parent, you’ll be afraid of this seemingly harmless activity.
The 13-year-old Charlie, who was holding her head outside the car window, gasping for air, is decapitated after her head hits a pole. It’s an unshakable visual that gets burned in your memory. It’s such a freak accident that looks like it could happen to anyone, that you’ll likely develop a phobia of holding your head outside a car window.
Jaws (1975): Going In The Water
On a hot summer day, when you’re relaxing on the beach beside a luscious blue sea, it’s hard to resist the urge to jump into it. Why would you even waste an opportunity to bathe in seawaters? Everyone who’s had the misfortune of watching the first-ever summer blockbuster at too young an age has a very valid reason why.
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws has one of the best opening scenes in horror movie history, in which a woman is dragged around by a Great White shark before becoming its lunch. Once you’ve seen people getting dragged into the depths by this terrifying undersea creature, you’ll no longer consider water safe, and will have a lifelong phobia of the sea.
Scream (1996): Garage Doors
Scream‘s opening scene sets a great pace for the rest of the film, and gave an entire generation of viewers a lifelong phobia of phone calls from unknown numbers, because the way Drew Barrymore’s Casey’s life changed and then ended after picking up Ghostface’s phone call is etched into everyone’s brains, especially since Barrymore was supposed to play the protagonist.
Scream is relentless with its innovative kills and incredible practical effects, and watching Rose McGowan’s Tatum being crushed by a garage door was enough to traumatize the same generation of viewers once more. Everyone who has seen that visual has a phobia of garage doors and will forever avoid being near one when it’s being closed or even being opened.
Final Destination 2 (2003): Log Trucks
The Final Destination franchise alone is responsible for at least 20 different real-life phobias that its viewers have, but there’s perhaps no scene across the six movies with a bigger cultural impact than the pileup scene in Final Destination 2. It is a horror movie scene that changed millennials’ lives as kids, and continues to affect them well into adulthood.
The latest film in the franchise, Final Destination: Bloodlines, features the perfect homage to the log scene, which will forever define the whole franchise’s legacy.
No millennial is comfortable driving behind a lumber truck carrying big logs of wood because of the gory pileup in Final Destination 2 caused by the logs slipping out of the truck. Every log truck you encounter brings back memories of the scene, and this phobia of log trucks will likely never leave, because the accident will always seem probable.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
