Because I couldn't come up with a Top 10, I decided to go with the seven that came to mind.
And yes, you may come up with some that are not on this list. And no, I have not seen every single show made on God's Earth, so this list will be very tailored to my own thoughts.
The reason behind me making this list was because of a nice little car ride home I was having the other night after watching The Great Gatsby. Classic. Anyway, Hotel California by The Eagles came on and I was like, "Huh. This song is not the ideal driving song right now because if I die I would go there." So that was not a pleasing thought.
Oh and to make it better I went to bed and thought of some weird Twilight Zone episode, then thought of the new anime Pupa, and eventually, came up with seven of the wierdest or craziest moments I've seen on TV. Maybe one day I'll get to these types of moments in books or movies, but for now, television has the most chilling moments that come to mind.
So, let's get started. (Full spoilers for episodes, by the way)
7. The Second Doppelganger--Twilight Zone: Mirror Image
I'm pretty sure this is one of the lesser known Twilight Zone episodes, but, it is none the less super freaky. Now that I think about it, It's a Good Life is a really spooky episode (not the scariest, but, we're getting there), but, there isn't one signature moment that is super scary. Except for the Jack-In-The-Box, but, whatever.
Onto this episode, though! It takes place solely at a bus stop, where strange things are going on. You're in the Twilight Zone, what do you expect? However this episode delves into the realm of science-fiction here, too, in which a woman keeps having her things moved around or keeps getting blamed for things she knows she has not committed. Enter the male of the episode, because almost every episode of the Twilight Zone has a either male or female to provide some exposition. He explains the concept of a doppelganger, which is where a replica of ourselves that exists in another universe suddenly jumps into our own universe, and the only way for it to survive is to eliminate the one in our universes. In other words, our doppelganger has to destroy us to survive.
Now that right there is a very intense concept (it can also be metaphorical, in that it's like an inner struggle going on for what will define who you really are). But that's not the point. In every Twilight Zone, it seems like the conflict is resolved in either a way that is unsettling or that kind of wraps up and proves that the Twilight Zone is just a distorted, yet possible, reality. The latter almost happens this episode. The lady is seen as insane, and, as a viewer, I accepted that resolution, not noticing there was still time in the episode.
As the man begins to settle down, he notices that his suitcase is missing, which is how the episode's mystery began. He turns to the door and sees someone running with it. As it turns out, that man is his doppelganger.
This means that the Twilight Zone won and that "myth" was apparently truth. I found this to be very unsettling, because the episode resolved extremely quickly in a bad manner. It also proved that the woman was not crazy, which was as upsetting as it was unsettling.
6. King Ramses--Courage the Cowardly Dog: King Ramses' Curse
Oh. My. God. If you were a kid who watched Courage the Cowardly Dog, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There are other things that were a little weird in the show (relatively speaking, "a little" means "a lot") but this was the first real scary, chilling, "holy crap MOM WHAT IS THAT?" moment of the show.
THIS GUY was the scariest thing of my childhood. Yeah. Not the Boogeyman, not the monster in the closet, not any of that stuff. King Ramses was, just, I don't even know. I saw him, on my television, and didn't know what to think. The episode, really, does not show him much, because it's all about the family surviving their little plagues (water, horrid music, termites) but when he is on the scene it is creepy.
For the most part, his appearance is terrifying simply because it is CG. Courage the Cowardly Dog is a 2-D show and only certain things, like the rocket ships, are CG or 3-D. This was the first CG thing in the show and that made it stand out like crazy. You can see in the picture that everything around him is 2-D like the rest of the show. I guess he is meant to stand out as the most chilling thing I saw on the show. Well, that and, you know...
Yeah. This is a kid's show. And it is the reason I no longer feel fear while watching television.
5. Birth of Judith--The Walking Dead s. 3: ep. 4 (Killer Within)
This was the first episode of The Walking Dead where I was literally on the edge of my seat in disbelief for two reasons: 1. Two main characters were going to inevitably die and there was nothing to be done of it, and 2. The way they killed one of them off.
If you follow The Walking Dead, then you understand how baby Judith, aka Li'l Asskicker, was born. It was gruesome and intense and I did not enjoy watching it.
But I couldn't stop watching it.
I was getting chills the whole time, though, in utter shock. The situation went from bad to worse to "no way." I've never seen a baby being born, but, imagine it's nothing like that. It's probably not as messy, because...they have tools now and are able to handle these kinds of things. Maggie and Carl are definitely not the best of doctor's.
Plus Lori's speech to Carl was very sad, and then the flashback with Rick ("no more kid's stuff") was heartbreaking. But it was definitely a WTF moment for the show. I knew Lori was going to die, eventually, because of comic lore, but, I didn't think she would die like that. I think if they translated her death to the show it would have been much worse because then the baby would have been shot dead, too, and that's just no good. Luckily, Judith is still alive! For now.
4. Yume's transformation--Pupa ep. 2
This is by no means a very good anime, and maybe that's the reason it is so unsettling. I didn't see it coming. I mean, the series starts off as a regular old anime would: in high school.
Then episode one happens and things just start to unravel from there when Yume, our female...character (not sure if she is our protagonist or not) undergoes a transformation after coming in contact with a small dog and the forbidden red butterflies.
First of all, that was weird because the dog just explodes for no reason and I didn't know what was happening. Then, as it would turn out, Yume became a dragon/ lizard thing and was eating, I think, a person. So I was just blown away by that.
Then comes what I'm talking about. Yume is still a lizard thing, transformed, and her brother, Utsusu, approaches her to try and see if he can help her.
Now, understand that episodes of these anime are only about three minutes long, so there is not much exposition to be had. In that case, you are easily lost and confused and left with vast amounts of questions and an uneasy feeling in your stomach.
Anyway, so Utsusu approaches her and we get a nice little scene of them being together and having to outlast their horrid and merciless parents together and you're thinking, "Hey, yeah, alright, he'll get through to her!"
Oh and the thing you see next?
Yume is eating Utsusu.
What the hell? Why? What are you doing, Pupa? Then the episode ends with Yume being happy about eating her brother. And it cuts straight to credits. I had no words, but, it was definitely a WTF moment. Needless to say I am only watching this anime to figure out what the heck is going on, but, it's just not very cohesive at giving me answers. Kind of like our next number, but, our next one is one of the moments that just make your heart drop.
3. Wall Maria--Attack on Titan ep. 1: (To You 2000 Years Later...)
This is not one single moment, because it is actually the beginning and the end of the episode. This is how the episode starts:
"And on that day, humanity received a grim reminder. That they lived in fear of the Titans in the cages they called walls."
And you have no idea what the heck is going on. But that does not look good.
So some backstory goes on, we meet Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and learn about the essentially hopeless situation against the Titans that is going on. Great. Wait, then does that mean that thing I just showed you is a Titan?
HAHA yes. It is. Now, the walls that are protecting the final remains of humanity stand at 50 meters tall. And that is pretty darn tall. The tallest regular Titan is only about 15 meters. You don't have to do any match, the Titans aren't nearly tall enough to stand over the wall. Nor are they capable of climbing it, since they are known to have no thought processes like humans (most humans, have you been to middle school)?
Yet there it is. A flash of green light, a cloud of smoke, and that Titan rises up, standing at 60 meters, looking down at humanity, casting its symbolic shadow over it. Then, BOOM.
The gates of the wall are destroyed, the Titan disappears, but average Titans start flooding Shingasha district, where Eren and all of them live. You are in utter horror. There is no one there to protect these people, and we are seeing shots of debris crashing on people, their homes, and even that of people being eaten by the Titans. It is horrifying.
And it's only the first episode.
But Eren's family is going to be okay, right? WRONG. Eren's mother is trapped under the debris of her house and Hannes (good ol' Hannes) saves the children, but the way Hannes picks him up, Eren is forced to watch as his mother is torn in half and is eaten by a Titan. As her blood sprays over the city, of course exaggerated, we hear the same voiceover from the beginning, truly coming to grips with the horror that the Titans are capable of bringing.
SLAM end credits. Uh...what? And folks, it does not get much better. Episode 5 brings another fun spin for us all, one that is super epic and then has you completely lost like a puppy. It's like it drops a literally ton on your lap and expects you to hold it up. Totally recommending the show to you, by the way.
I read the manga before I watched the anime, and I think the anime captured this more effectively because it had intense music rather than me reading this scene with bookstore music in the background.
2. "Room for one more, honey"--Twilight Zone: 22
I had heard, just before watching it, that this was the scariest episode of the Twilight Zone. Keep in mind, I never viewed the show as a horror show because, it's not. It just messes with you psychologically, which is one of the reasons it is among the greatest shows ever. But this episode was legitimately scary. Not in the cheesy, "Oh my gawsh the killer is totally coming after me I need a deus ex machina right now omggggg" horror we get nowadays, but in the way that only Rod Serling could come up with.
The gag of the show is a morgue nurse telling our apparently mentally unstable heroine "Room for one more, honey" as she stands in front of Morgue 22. For those of you who don't know, a morgue is where dead bodies are placed/ preserved. When I first saw the nurse I was like, "pft, whatever." Then we get into the episode, where we are unsure if it was all a dream or if it really happened.
The doctors and our heroine test out the dream theory by trying to change elements of this apparently repetitive dream. As it turns out, the dream starts off normal, then goes straight into its usual course. Just explaining this might not make it sound horrific, but, it is.
Remember, the Twilight Zone is in all black and white, which for me made it all the more unsettling. We can't see the colors of the wall or anything. So when things become dark (lighting-wise), they become dark and it is super scary. When our heroine is traversing the hallways at night and going down the sketchy elevator, it was very spooky for me.
Yet they prove, seemingly, that it was all dreams, since the nurse that our protagonist is seeing does not even work at the hospital she is staying at. We skip forward a few weeks where nothing bad has happened and the dreams stop. Our heroine has been admitted out of the hospital and is on a flight to go to her next show, since she is a famous dancer.
But wait, something happens. One thing leads to another and we begin to realize that her dream is playing out again, only in an airport setting. And instead of a morgue, we find out that her flight number is...
22.
Taylor Swift could write a song about this!
She approaches the plane just before it can take off, because she wants to know the truth, and the flight attendant steps out of the shadow and reveals herself to be the nurse from the morgue, once more saying, "Room for one more, honey."
Our heroine quickly escapes and begs the people in the airport to believe her. She points out the plane, and just as she does, the plane explodes, scaring everyone. Especially us. The explosion proved that her "dreams" were real, that every night she would get up and go to the morgue and see that nurse waiting for her. That every night she was in danger of dying, and right there, she almost could have died.
Talk about PTSD.
1. The Red Wedding--Game of Thrones s. 3 ep. 8: Rains of Castamere
I don't even know what to say. Watch Game of Thrones and then come back and read this and you will be able to understand the gravity of the situation.
It's like I want to talk about what happens, because that is the only way for me to really get to you how gruesome, how intense, how horrifying this single moment was, but, I just can't.
Let me just tell you that you will walk away from it as a changed person. You can't unsee it. You think about Game of Thrones after watching that episode, and all that comes to mind are how badass Daenarys Targaryen is and now the Red Wedding.
Again, I don't want to ruin this for you. It's a monumental moment for the show. It isn't really even that much of a battle sequence, and yet it single-handedly ends an entire war, ends an entire plotline, and ultimately rips your heart out without caring.
Looking forward to the Purple Wedding, though, I've heard quite a good buzz about that (DO NOT RUIN THIS SHOW FOR ME).
See you next time!
Links to images:
King Ramses: http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130111033426/courage/images/2/2f/King_ramses.jpg
Scary girl playing violin:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE49aCc4al7iFBzox5dg_ffRCcp4n_mBlY_o_9WU8lS_rFiSjC0wiknnTuKflqja6h9Cy48LeIuXX7CUoVRtw1SbLi86Pk_0h0y6nwOpwFOSiRmHj30-IlCKdtRszH3UA8B0b7nKPV0ws/s1600/25frujr.jpg
Colossal Titan 1st appearance:
http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130602170231/shingekinokyojin/images/6/63/Colossal_Titan_anime.png
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