All-time scariest TV episodes
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on October 11, 2012 – 1:10 PM114 Comments
Hey, folks. I’m sourcing a story for Yahoo! about the all-time scariest TV episodes, and I just know I’m forgetting some obvious ones. (I’m also a bit embarrassed that finding clips from Star Trek: TOS‘s “A Wolf in the Fold” online made my arm hairs stand up.)
What’s on your “three scariest episodes” list? It doesn’t have to be a show that identified as horror, either. One of mine is that Sopranos episode where Tony’s dreaming he’s a long-ago laborer, and that figure comes to the top of the stairs, and WIGGINS.
Plus I just love this stuff. ‘Tis the season. Let’s dare each other to watch things.
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You want suggestions that aren’t nominally horror? Boy howdy, have I got one for you: “Love’s Labor Lost” from season 1 of “E.R.” That’s the Emmy-winning one where a fairly routine birth goes horribly, tragically wrong.
I was messed up bad for a solid week after that aired, and the worst part was that it wasn’t horror — there was no comfort to be had in telling myself it was just fantasy. I don’t think I’ve been that scarred by an episode of TV since I was a kid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love's_Labor_Lost_(ER)
Veronica Mars end of the first season with the fire and the fridge.
Without a doubt, the X-Files episode called “Home” with the creepy, deformed, inbred people. That freaked me the hell out.
Also – here’s a strange one – the episode of Archie Bunker where Edith was almost raped. I was young and it scared the crap out of me.
@Cat (From Canada)
I remember that episode of The Outer Limits! I was around 12 when I saw it and I think that’s the most unsettled I had ever been by a TV show.
I second the BSG “32” nomination. I was a huge X-Files fan but “Home” was never one that really spooked me. “Eve,” on the other hand … maybe it’s the amount of time I spent as a teenage babysitter, but the super-intelligent evil twins scared the crap out of me.
It hasn’t been mentioned here yet, but The X Files episode Elegy freaked me RIGHT out… when Scully gets in the car and sees Harold in the rear view mirror? I’m STILL scared to look in my rear view when getting in the car at night.
@Kristen, is that the one where the First Evil’s face turns inside out? So creepy.
@Caitie, meeeeeeee too. And then I read them as a grownup and it was such an anticlimax.
Miracles had some hair-raisers too, IIRC.
I loved Square One when I was little, especially the MathNet segments. But the one based on “And Then There Were None” (or Clue, which was all I knew at the time) really freaked me out. I had to make sure my brother (my YOUNGER brother, even) was with me whenever I went up or down the basement stairs the whole week that story aired.
Another vote for Dr. Who’s “The Empty Child.” Nightmare Fuel!
Have to nominate something from Supernatural…some of the creepiest moments from that show have been in some of the worst episodes, unfortunately, but ‘The Usual Suspects’ will always top my list in this regard…perfect mix of procedural and horror movie. (And yes, Keckler, ‘Scarecrow’ was great.)
And Medium…there were a lot of episodes that were phychologically creepy, but ‘Penny For Your Thoughts’ (the first one with Mark Sheppard) always makes my skin crawl.
Since everyone’s mentioning The Twilight Zone – I never even *saw* this one, but just reading the script of ‘Sorry, Right NUmber’ gives me chills.
Daisy! I had never heard of that Max Headroom intrusion until a couple weeks ago, in an online forum. I talked myself into being completely paralyzed with fear, without even having seen it. This was at, like, 2:30 am. I texted a friend, who just started cracking up. He talked me into watching it, and I realized just how ridiculous it is.
Ok, I wrote this back in 2007 (6/19/2007 from my livejournal, to be exact http://texaslawchick.livejournal.com/714413.html The livejournal posts has pictures):
“Hush,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Gentlemen freak me out. Their grinning. Their slow fluid movements. Their floating. Their pinkys sticking out while they cut out the still beating hearts out of people. Their meticulous suits. Everything about them freaks me out. The silence freaks me out. The dudes with the straight jackets and the lips sewn shut and the weird walks freak me out. I was clutching on to the dogs last night while I was watching it (poor Crianza), and I knew what’s going to happen at the end. I even knew when they’d pop out at me and scare the bejesus out of me. And when they popped out at me, they scared the bejesus out of me.
“Home” The X-Files. Had the heebeejeebies for days afterwards. Spent the entire night after it aired on the phone with my best friend trying to reassure one another that we’d be able to sleep that night. No sleep came that night. I don’t think I’ve seen the episode since the night it aired on October 11, 1996. I think it wasn’t allowed to be shown on TV after that first night, though obviously, I have the Season 4 DVDs and could watch it any time. I can’t really put my finger on what made that particular episodes so damned creepy, but I think it was pretty much everything save Scully’s “baa-raa-moo” comment. The image of the blood mixed with the soil is something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get out of my head. Good job boys! Scared the crap out of me.
“Space Vampire,” Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Looking at him now, I’m not quite sure how to justify this one. He certainly doesn’t look as terrifying as he did when I was ten. My brother and I used to watch this show religiously when we were kids, and every time this episode would come on, I’d sudder in terror. I think it was the guy’s fingernails. Look at ’em. He didn’t need his mesmerizing power to cause havoc. All he needed was a good swipe, and your arteries would be severed like THAT.
“The Beast in Black,” The Greatest American Hero No pretty picture for this one. I don’t even remember the episode very well, just some bits and pieces. There was an old house. And a portal to another dimension. And a possession. And it was really creepy. And I couldn’t sleep for weeks afterwards. And I thought that someone was going to get me. But I had to watch it because it was my best friend’s favorite television show and I had to know all about it so we could bond over it later.
Unknown episode, possibly “Possessed”, Fantasy Island. This one I’m a little fuzzier on than the one before. I don’t remember details, and it actually may be several epsiodes that I’ve mushed together into my brain to make a single episode. There was a little girl that resembled the girl from Poltergeist, and she was clearly possessed by some sort of devil. And she was absolutely terrifying. I remember also some sort of underground cave and a fight there. And it seemed to me that the devil was going to win. I don’t remember the outcome, but my mother wouldn’t let me watch Fantasy Island because of how scared I got after watching it.
The episode of Six Feet Under where David gets kidnapped by the creepy crackhead in the red hoodie disturbed me for weeks. Especially the sequence at the end where he douses him with gasoline and threatens to light him, and David’s life flashes before his eyes. I just found it so terrifying for some reason.
If miniseries count, The Day After scared the bejeesus out of me in grade school, especially since there was a shot of my school in the initial blast. Plus radiation sickness is way grosser than zombies.
And I made the mistake of watching Salem;s Lot around the age of 8 or 9. It’s still traumatic to talk abut,
I agree wholeheartedly on Dr Who’s Blink, but I want to throw in that episode of Melrose Place, where Kimberly and Dr Bastard do the dirty, and then she goes into the bathroom, and removes her wig, and talks to herself in the damn mirror.
I was traumatised for years by that.
The apartment fire on “Webster” terrified me. Somehow I was subjected to a lot of graphic fire safety videos in the early ’80s, and between baseboard electric heaters, space heaters, 30-year-old non-UL-approved Christmas lights, and pre-flame-retardant pajamas, my childhood home seemed like a smoke-inhalation death waiting to happen.
@Sars – Is Cemetary the Night Gallery episode with Roddy McDowell and the painting? That one is creepy as hell.
Seems like the whole first season of American Horror Story should be in here, though I can’t point to a specific episode.
“Snap”-Harper’s Island (I know I’m the only one who watched this show)…the killer drops the woman he’s hung down in front of the window; later another character is hung by rope attached to truck.
“Splash”-Harper’s Island…a violent bloodbath with four major characters down, including the two best characters on the show.
The Walking Dead episode where they have to cover themselves in blood and gore to walk through a horde of zombies.
Another vote for “Blink.”. Scared the holy heck out of me.
One more for BtVS Hush, and for the Twin Peaks episode where Killer BOB comes out from behind the furniture. Either of those will have me sleeping with the lights on for a week.
Growing up, we didn’t have cable, so the ONE time I ever saw an episode of Fraggle Rock was at my cousin’s house, and it scared the SHIT out of me! I don’t remember the plot, but there was a scene with some sort of ghost Fraggle with a Viking helmet and a purple robe, and for some reason, it freaked me out and I never watched an episode again. It got me on such an elemental level, I can still conjure up an image of that Fraggle and it makes my gut squinch up. I am a dork.
I love the first season X-Files episode “Eve”; it’s my favorite kind of horror, a slow burn instead of a bunch of pointless jump scares. “The Calusari”, I think in Season 3 or 4, terrified me as well, to the point where I was reluctant to turn off the light.
And the Torchwood episode “Countrycide” is definitely up there on the horror scale, too. I kept waiting for an ending that would tidily (or at least, *attempt* to) resolve the horror, and that story flat out refuses to give one. D:
The X-Files episode with the mutant sewer worm man who infects victims with worm parasites through his bite! Saw that when I was in 8th grade, still have nightmares featuring him.
I thought the X-Files episode “Elegy” was super creepy. It’s the one where ghosts (I think?) were mouthing the words “She is me.”
Alfred Hitchcock Presents “Final Escape.” The woman gets buried alive and the final image is of the empty cemetery… So. Scary.
Oh, yeah. Quantum Leap Halloween episode was scary but the episode where Sam leaps into the asylum and keeps flashing back on different leaps… YIKES!!
Season 1 finale of West Wing! “Who’s been hit??!??” haunted me all that summer!
Ooh, yes, I completely forgot the Walking Dead. The first episode of the second season gave me so much anxiety that I started it and stopped it about 12 times. Zombie dreams, you are the WORST.
I don’t watch much traditionally scary TV, but the CSI episode where the cheerleader is half eaten by the killer on PCP? Had trouble sleeping for DAYS. Ew.
Ooh, Karen in Japan reminded me of the Webster episode that scared the pee out of me as a kid. They were moving into that big house (after the fire, I guess), and when Webster was exploring he went into a room, and there was a lady in a rocking chair with her back to him. He tried to talk to her, she didn’t respond, and when he went closer, it turned out that she was just a mannequin for some reason! Ahhhhh! Something about that scared the bejeezus out of me.
Unsolved Mysteries also creeped me out quite a bit, though I can’t remember specific episodes that well.
The X-Files episode that always terrified me was “Ice” with that group of scientists stuck in the arctic. I must say that as I was reading these descriptions (and being reminded of other truly terrifying episodes, like “Eve”) my apartment buzzer rang and made me jump a mile.
c8, OmiGOD, ‘salem’s Lot! That damn vampire haunted me for YEARS.
I saw way too many of these images at exceedingly tender ages. What the hell were my parents thinking??
Aw, McTwin beat me to it by mere minutes, but I was looking it up to make sure that episode in the asylum wasn’t just a bad dream (it wasn’t): http://quantumleap.wikia.com/wiki/Shock_Theater_(episode)
Also, EVERY episode I’ve ever seen of Criminal Minds fits the bill, but I’m going to give a shout out to the episode where Spencer Reid gets kidnapped and tortured by the multiple personalities guy and the rest of the team can watch what’s happening via video feed from the cabin.
Cheesy as it sounds, there was a Fantasy Island segment that FREAKED ME OUT as a kid. I finally found a clip on YouTube and am still impressed at how they they really pulled out all the stops in the kid-trauma department: clowns, dolls, mechanical toys, fire, slowed-down voices, floating skulls, and a relentless scream track.
Clip #1: Creepy set up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=P7xzAZJXfzA#t=168s
Clip #2: THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ph5BSodhdE
I should mention that I had that EXACT Baby Alive Walking doll and I couldn’t look at its face for about two years after I saw this episode.
The Supernatural episode with the HORRIBLE LAMPREY CHILDREN (season 3: The Kids are Alright).
I fully support “Hush”, and Lucy and Carter get stabbed.
I would also submit:
Pilot episode of “Profit” with Adrian Pasdar. I don’t think it lasted a whole season on Fox in the mid-90’s. AP plays some sort of freaky control freak, and we find out that his parents abandoned him as a child (I think) and he therefore … sleeps naked in a box! Okay, that sounds really dumb, but it frightened the daylights out of me.
First ever episode of CSI (original flavor) I saw: DUI driver hits a pedestrian who crashes through the windshield. The driver is so freaked out he drives home and parks *in the garage* with the man still, well, hanging there. The man dials 911 from the car phone before expiring. I could not sleep for 3 days.
And an episode of “Mrs. Columbo” from forever ago. Yes, she really existed (well, on tv), and was played by Kate Mulgrew. She gets trapped in a house after she’s tracked down… some criminal (it’s been, what? 35 years? Memory fades.), and even though the action takes place in the middle of the day, it is so beautifully shot and edited that any visual of a Spanish Hacienda type house on a windy day gives me the chills.
Ah yes, the “Perils of Punky: Parts 1 and 2.” I was terrified by Alan’s head in a tree more than the spider.
Me three for Alfred Hitchcock Presents “Final Escape”. I was 12 when I saw it and 27 years later, I’m not over it yet. It was the first thing to pop into my mind when I saw the question.
But also CSI (original), Season 11’s Sqweegel – the one with the contortionist killer in the black latex suit who hid out in people’s homes for long periods of time before killing them, including hiding under the bed….
I still have nightmares about that Twin Peaks episode. Also, in general, about the dwarf whose arms bend backwards. I also second the X-Files with the incestuous deformed family, and the Firefly with the Reavers.
Not sure about scary, but the episode of “Criminal Minds” where the victims are disposed of by being fed to pigs is creeptacular – other than some bone shards, the only evidence left is their shoes. I knew pigs were omnivores, but before watching that I’d never really thought that all the way through before…
I’m not sure if it was The Alfred Hitchcock Hour or Alfred Hitchcock Presents” but The Monkey’s Paw freaked me out like nothing else ever did.
There’s an episode of M*A*S*H called (I think) “Dreams” that still creeps me out to this day when I see it. It’s during the Winchester Years and the staff is ridiculously overworked and you get a little peek inside their dreams during this shift and they’re all (except for Col. Potter, I think) brutal nightmares. Hawkeye’s is particularly disturbing, as he loses his arms (turned to mannikins and thrown away) and becomes useless.
*shudder*
There was an episode of Law and Order SVU (sigh, I know) last season that was about a guy who kidnapped escorts and then hunted them on a nature preserve for weeks/months till they gave up and killed themselves…the music and the creepy moonlit scenes did me in for months!
Embarrassing, but to this day I freak out at the episode of Little House on the Prairie where Ma is left home alone, cuts her leg & it gets all infected. When she’s rocking by the fire, reading the bible, muttering, “If thine eye offendeth thee, cut it out,” and waving a butcher knife. . . .yikes!
But the TV show that will totally give me nightmares is the Twilight Zone where Burgess Meredith breaks his glasses after the nuclear apocolypse. . .THAT’S horror!
Echoing what Mika said and voting for “the Twin Peaks episode where we find out that the killer is Leland Palmer (possessed by Bob) and he beats up his wife and she crawls down the stairs. And then he crawls to the camera too at one point.” I watched that in my house by myself, and it scared me more than any episode of any show before or since. It was the 1st thing that I thought of when I read your post. Just terrifying.
Twilight Zone- The Dummy- a ventriloquist’s dummy takes over the body of the ventriloquist. Nightmares and a fear of dolls for years….
@ferretrick
I watched Harper’s Island too; so now there’s at least two of us! And I agree about American Horror Story. I think with both American Horror Story and The Walking Dead, the opening title/credits scare me more than the average episode. The music is just really creepy.
I remember “Forever” from Buffy freaking me out. The one where they try to bring back Buffy’s mom from the dead.
Is it wrong that I think X-Files episode “Home” is kind of hilarious? Yeah, I’m…not normal. The X-Files episode that I personally found the scariest was “Irresistable.” Donnie Pfaster is one scary mofo, mainly because (unlike most of the other MOTW on the show) he was a villain that could actually exist in real life.
I’m also going to echo the folks who’ve mentioned the episode of ER where Lucy and Carter get stabbed. The song that was playing over the scene gives me the willies to this day (it’s Battleflag by Lo Fidelity Allstars for those who are wondering.)
I admit to skimming (too many I agree with!), but I’ve always thought that the Buffy episode “Nightmares” was just as hell. It got the disjointed part of nightmares just right, and the bit where Buffy’s dad says the divorce was her fault is just so sad/scary I can’t take it. (Also, the clowns. THE CLOWNS.)
“Little House on the Prairie and the raping clown dude. Enough said.”
Ugh, yes! Creeped me out. I love that the Little House thread over on TWOP is called “Ma, Pa, and the Mime that Raped Sylvia”
The Sherlock Holmes episode – can’t remember the name but the Nation will know – where Holmes and Watson are racing to rescue a woman who’s been buried alive in someone else’s coffin.
“Why such a deep coffin for such an old lady, Watson?” as the truth sinks in…gave me nightmares.
@Rachel – Square One TV! Loved it. They had a haunted house episode singing about probability called Ghost of a Chance that seriously freaked me out. A pizza delivery guy gets called to a haunted house and trapped inside, and has to figure out his odds of escape…and just when you think he’s free, bam! Trapped inside with a hungry ghoul. Freaked my seven year old self right out.
Speaking of stuff that terrorized me as a child, the owl from The Secret of Nimh.
I haven’t watched so much TV, but I remember seeing a Twilight Zone-episode where this young woman walks alone among shops and it turns out she really is a mannequin, who is supposed get back after her stint in the real life. It seems to be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_After_Hours_%281986%29_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29"The After Hours, but re-watching the end at YouTube does not evoke any memories at all, and it’s pretty cheesy. But I remember being terrified for a long time, because the thought that everything I remembered about myself was just made up made me scared… I got uneasy about the cylons in BSG too, but I was older then ;-)
I have this one little part of something that I watched on the telly when I was quite small, it gave me nightmares for years (literally, I kept dreaming about it on and off) and was one of the reasons why our parents actually threw the telly out(!) Does somebody recognize it?
Some people are at a cave that they want to explore. They send one person in, with a rope around his/her leg, as not to get lost. The person walks for quite a while, the rope moves – and then suddenly move around a lot and gets still. The others draw it in, and at the last few meters it is dripping with blood and at the end is (of course) only the leg left…
I still don’t like caves. Spelunking, no way!