I can't think of an episode of TNG, or any episode from Trek, that was actually scary. "Night Terrors" was probably as close as they got to making a real sci-fi thriller story. I suppose ENT's "Impulse" could be seen as a zombie-like thriller.
For a Star Trek episode Night Terrors was terrifying! The whole "eyes in the dark!". The fact that Betazoids go crazy after a while and people start hallucinating shit.
And I still jump every time I see the corpses sit up in the morgue! yikes!
My Scary episode was actually Eye of the Beholder. I think I had nightmares over the whole reveal scene for a week and Pierce's "You know what you have to do" was freaking disturbing. I also get a little scared over Dark Page, especially angry Lwaxana Troi.
Interesting that to me, Eye of the Beholder wasn't scary at all, but my brother was terrified at the scene where they find the skeleton inside the wall.
I love threads like this...scary things are always interesting.
In fact, I created a thread about this kind of stuff a couple of months back - I could place a link to it in this post, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that or not. Either way, that thread kinda trailed off after a while, but it could be interesting if it was revived...
Anyway...
For me, it is the morgue scene in Night Terrors, and that episode as a whole, which seals the deal. A group of cadavers in death shrouds sitting up on their slabs might sound scary, but considering they don't do anything but that, it shouldn't be all too terrifying...except it is, and from my observations it's precisely
because they don't do anything other than sit up that it's so horribly creepy. Less, in so many cases, is more.
And of course, the whole premise of the episode - that is, being trapped aboard your own ship, which cannot move due to a mysterious alien phenomenon, with only a ghost ship full of people who went insane and brutally murdered each other for company, and no apparent way to escape, while also slowly beginning to lose your minds and become increasingly fearful of something truly unknown...I.E Worf's eerie conversation with Troi where he, the most powerful warrior and a Klingon, is terrified of "something out there which we cannot fight" (which, of course, isn't even real, and so the actual danger is of losing control of one's mind)...it really milks the whole "space can be frightening" thing brilliantly and horrifically.
I also agree with the OP about Identity Crisis. In terms of its scariness, creepiness and eerie, uncomfortable atmosphere, I think that episode is underrated. In some ways it's even worse than something like Alien, because anyone who's infected with that parasite will end up as nothing more than a creepy animal, wondering around in the dark on a desolate planet...forever.
Other than that, while Schisms is obviously scary, the episode "Remember Me" is quite terrifying in a psychological sense. Just watch it, imagine yourself in Doctor Crusher's shoes, and you'll see what I mean.
I agree with everything you said. To add, I think the morgue scene is particularly scary because for that fraction of a second, you feel just as helpless as Crusher feels at what seems some incredible supernatural force in effect.
While Remember Me wasn't "scary" per se (one of my favourite TNG episodes), but two things in it are kind of frightening if you think about them:
1. A huge vortex trying to suck you in out of the blue.
2. Looking out at the universe and only seeing some gray mist/energy barrier
Phantasm always creeped me out when I was a kid, but maybe the morgue scene in Night Terrors is the single most jumpy moment.
The scene where Data gets torn apart so easily at the beginning freaked me the fuck out the first time I saw it.
Schisms was disturbing, even more so when it was a mystery at first.
I loved the whole concept, and even though it was freaky, I think it ended well. Riker was able to not only escape and save a crew member, but was able to grab a phaser and shoot one of those fuckers point blank in a symbolic "fuck you asshole" moment
. I thought that act of defiance was freakin' awesome!
The exploding head in Conspiracy creeped me out the first time I saw it.
The holodeck scene in Schisms is also pretty creepy. "I've been in this room before..."
The exploding head did nothing for me. I guess it looked too fake/cartoonish. And I wouldn't consider that "scary" as much as it is "gross".
The "I've been in this room before" scene was truly unnerving though.
"Where No One Has Gone Before"
The Traveller's lusting after Wesley so openly was obscene and had me completely creeped out.
I still love the episode, it's my favourite Trek episode of all time.
I'm surpprised no-one has brought up Where Silence Has Lease yet. I always found that to be a creepy episode. Trapped in the void, on an impossible recreation of the Yamato, Worf losing his mind, auto-destruct and creepy music.
I thought the creepy face was bad enough, Nagilum or whatever his name was, he makes it worse by saying 'I've gone to great lengths to appear in your form" or something like that. Then a redshirt dies in probably the most horrible way I've ever seen someone die in a Star Trek episode.
There is very little in any Star Trek show or movie that could scare anyone.
If by "scare" you mean "gross out" then yes I agree. I don't know when "gross out and vomit inducing scenes" in movies because synonymous with "scary". Watching some guy tear open a guy's stomach to get to a key is not "scary", it's sick and vomit inducing. Or watching some guy get his face torn open by a machine is not "scary" either, it's more like heave and gag reflex inducing. No thank you.
"Night Terrors" some good, scary moments in that. But I think the prize goes to "Schisms." Really good, creepy, eerie episode that makes the "alien abduction" story work in this setting. The recreation of the abduction room on the holodeck is a great, fantastic and chilling scene.
Night Terrors beats it on sheer scary moments. Schisms is just unnerving, but end on a lighter tone to me.
In Night Terrors, we didn't even find out who the heck was on the other ship, we just see this blue glowing ghost ship fly off. Where they creatures of energy or something? They are obviously still limited by spacial anomalies like humans are.
Another one, "Frame of Mind."
Maybe not "scary" but, man, it's like live-action fever dream, very, very unsettling.
The whole episode is a mind fuck, but I wouldn't call it "scary" though, just unnerving.
Like others, I found Night Terrors very creepy (the mortuary scene still gets my heart beat up even after multiple viewings). of course, Schisms too.
I'd like to add one that I don't think has been mentioned though. The episode itself is not scary at all but for one brief moment :
In Theory
A scream, then seeing a dead Lt. Van Mayter melded into the floor just totally shocked and scared me first time I saw it. I think part of it is the fact her eyes are open, too.
The horror
The rest of the episode is just scarily bad (imho!)
That was a scary scene I admit, in an episode that was pretty mediocre to boot.
For me the scariest is Genesis. That episode still creeps me out!
Genesis is the only Star Trek episode that has ever scared the bejesus out of me. It is still an episode I avoid watching.
The only thing that's kind of scary to me is that spider thing Barclay turns into. I laughed when Riker became a Neanderthal (how fitting) and Worf becoming some dinosaur creature was expected.
I'll add my own moment of TNG that unnerved me:
In Parallels, when the beat up Enterprise of the Borg infested universe shows up, and Riker is begging not to be sent back because he's terrified of going back there. That was bad enough, but made worse by the fact that he was trying to stop Worf from resetting everything back, and gets shot and blown to pieces. Really sad and unnerving moment for me. He just wanted to live and unfairly died
I think that's the one scene that actually made me feel queasy for a couple of days afterward.
