Your Most Terrifying Hour of Television

[sidious618]

Happy Halloween! In the spirit of the holiday I thought I might start a thread about the scarier moments on television. For you, what was the scariest episode of a TV show? It's a no contest for me: the final episode of Twin Peaks. I still can't believe they aired it on television, to be honest. It was a total mindfuck and I've never seen anything like it since. I watched it tonight and got freaked out all over again.

So what's yours?

 

[Skywalker]

"These Are The Voyages..."

 

[auntiehill]

^That wasn't terrifying. That was just f***ing depressing.

 

[Kirkman1987]

Agreed on Twin Peaks final episode. I couldn't sleep the night I first saw it. Ditto Fire Walk With Me.

Also from Twin Peaks, The episode where the killer is revealed and kills again. The last 10 minutes or so of that episode is one of the high points of television. I can't believe that murder was able to air back then, or the finale.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

The Night Gallery episode with the story Green Fingers. Creeps me out every time. Elsa Lanchester is a little old lady whose only joy in life is gardening. An evil real estate developer wants her land at any cost. What he doesn't know is that everything that she plants grows.

 

[Sparky]

Nothing fictional. I honestly have no idea how anyone can find TV shows disturbing or scary in any way. It's fake. The more "realistic" it gets the further detached I am from it.

 

[WillsBabe]

There have been a few hours of tv that have frightened me over the years, not many, but some. When I was a kid the Doctor Who story "The Green Death" scared the living c*ap out of me. About 35 years later, an episode of Tales from the Crypt frightened me so much there was just me and the cat sitting on the couch terrified at midnight! The other episode of tv that frightened me was an episode of the X Files where Scully discovers other abduction survivors who were suffering from cancer.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Not so much "terrifying", but Alan Alda in Kill Me If You Can.

The end, where he's executed in the gas chamber, was very disturbing to me as a 10 year old. Very well acted scene.

 

[SicOne]

The late 70s made-for-TV adaptation of Stephen King's "Salem's Lot"

 

[Starkers]

The late 70s made-for-TV adaptation of Stephen King's "Salem's Lot"

Oh God yes! To this day I can't sleep if my curtains aren't closed

As with WillsBabe a lot of my scary moments were when I was a kid. Several episodes of the Hammer House of Horror creeped me out, as did the Dramarama episode with the masked wrestler. I seem to recall an armchair theatre about a faceless nun as well.

Oh, and of course if we're talking faceless then Sapphire and Steel have to be mentioned!

 

[Mr Light]

Millennium "The Curse of Frank Black" really great portrayal of a demonic haunting

 

[Goliath]

The final episode of Twin Peaks was damn good TV.

But I really think that "Home," the episode of the X-Files with the inbred mutants, was better.

That was just fucked-up, from beginning to end. IIRC, it begins with a POV shot of a baby being buried alive, and ends with a son climbing into the trunk of a car with his limbless mother, to... give them some privacy.

 

[ToddPence]

Thriller "Pigeons From Hell"

 

[TheGodBen]

It's only 1/120th of an hour, but this:

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Bob is so simple, yet so amazingly terrifying.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Ghostwatch scared the shit out of me as a kid.

 

[DevilEyes]

Also from Twin Peaks, The episode where the killer is revealed and kills again. The last 10 minutes or so of that episode is one of the high points of television. I can't believe that murder was able to air back then, or the finale.

This. That was the most terrifying 10 minutes of TV.

But the creepiest hour of TV ever was The X-Files "Home".

The final episode of Twin Peaks was damn good TV.

But I really think that "Home," the episode of the X-Files with the inbred mutants, was better.

That was just fucked-up, from beginning to end. IIRC, it begins with a POV shot of a baby being buried alive, and ends with a son climbing into the trunk of a car with his limbless mother, to... give them some privacy.

 

[Jax]

Stephen Kings IT! when I was a kid.

CLOWNS are EVIL

 

[JediKnightButler]

Parts 1 & 2 of Stephen King's "The Stand" (particularly Part 2)

Several individual episodes of "Tales From The Crypt", particularly the episode where some guy gives a woman a voodoo love potion and she keeps coming back for him- even from her death (and his). The "Shakespeare" episode with the late John Astin, Jon Lovitz, and Bruce Boxleitner(?) was pretty creepy there at the end.

Some of the episodes of "The Outer Limits" were pretty damned creepy as well (in a similar way to "Tales From The Crypt").

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Stephen Kings IT! when I was a kid.

CLOWNS are EVIL

When I watched IT I was more concerned about the huge spider that was running around the room.

 

[Lookingglassman]

The movie "The Shuttered Room". it still gives me the creeps.