10 Random Horror Film Scenes That Instantly Cure My Depression
Welp, it’s finally October: objectively the best month of the year. it is the month my brain is no longer a melty puddle of pink sludge from the oppressive summer heat, but it’s also the month my brain decides that it’s ready to start thinking (intrusive) thoughts and feeling (bad) feelings again. to celebrate this return to despair, here are 10 completely random scenes from some of my favorite horror films that never fail to drain the chilly autumn dread out of my body. I hope they do the same for you.
Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977) - Bed Ate My Hands (“Great”)
The plot of Deathbed: the Bed that Eats is a simple one: a demon falls in love with a mortal woman and they have sex. but his demon dong is too strong, she perishes, and then the demon’s sadness infects the bed they had sex on, which then becomes indestructible and develops an insatiable appetite for human flesh. if the A24 CEO could build a time machine, he wouldn’t go back to 1889 Germany and kill Hitler’s mom: he would travel to 1977 Detroit and steal this movie idea so that he could make it himself and cast Mia Goth as the bed and Pete Davidson as the skeleton hands. but fortunately, time travel is a myth just like female ejaculation (it’s a-pee!) and this is the only version that exists (now and hopefully forever).
every single moment of DB:TBTE is an absolute delight that instantly delivers more serotonin to brain than any drug. but no scene tickles me more than the one where the main actor (yes, it’s the DAD from BOY MEETS WORLD) gets his hands gobbled by the bed. There’s no screaming or any sound other than the deep synth and otherworldly yum-yum noises made by the demonic bed as it slowly digests the guy’s hands with its evil bed stomach acid. It’s a schizoid alcaselzter commercial from hell, and absolutely 0% of it is grounded in reality. the guy finally manages to free his hands from the bed, only to find that it has sucked every last piece of meat off them like one of those cute (but thick) flyover state girls that will absolutely clean a whole chicken wing in 3 seconds while giving their date an unblinking stare that says “your dick is next.”
the actor’s reaction as he slowly pulls the shitty halloween-grade skeleton hands out of the bed is absolutely priceless. there is no pain or fear: just mild annoyance at his new, inconvenient skeleton hands. I truly implore you to watch the entire film — it is jam-packed full of bizarre moments that will make you oscillate between thinking that the film is a highly self-aware, tongue-in-cheek fake arthouse film and that writer/director George Barry deserves a spot alongside Neil Breen, Ed Wood, and Tommy Wiseau in the “Ooops guess I made a masterpiece????” hall of fame.1
Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (1981) - Peter Bark Scenes.
when I first saw Andrea Bianchi’s 1981 Euro-Trash flick “Burial Ground: the Nights of Terror,” I thought I had died and gone to schlock heaven. the film is clearly capitalizing on the zeitgeist of the 1970s European zombie arthouse films like Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972), Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974), and of course Fulci’s Zombi 2 (1979). these films are rich in style, poor in substance, and always have two things in common: the people are DUMB and the zombies are SLOW.
european zombies on their way to eat some people, if they get around to it (yes, this is socio-political commentary). The plot is as dumb as you would expect: an old scientist studying an ancient Etruscan crypt near a mansion accidentally unleashes an evil curse that reanimates the dead, and, spoiler, he is eaten. mere moments thereafter, three young jet-set couples arrive at the mansion because they were apparently friends with the old professor and were going to have a big sex orgy with him (idk). This film has so many moments that are just absolutely wild, like one of the 800 year old ancient Etruscan zombie emerging from its shallow grave of loose lawn clippings (no top soil, just lawn clippings).
guys, be sure to check your backyard for ancient corpses snoozin under a thin layer of grass. it could ruin your weedwacker motor. But the film’s crowning glory is Peter Bark: a 25-year old adult man that the film desperately wants us believe is a 10 year old child (the ol’ reverse kevin spacey).
the fact that the actor resembles a diminutive Dario Argento (disturbingly so) seems almost like a pointed dig by Bianchi, who clearly ran in the same circles at the time. every Peter Bark scene in this film makes me laugh uncontrollably. having seen this film over 10 times I know that it’s all build up for the shocking b-plot reveal, where the “boy” tries to suckle his mom’s boob. to this day, I wonder if that plot point was already in the script, forcing the casting director to say “aight, we gonna need a straight up MIDGET for this one” or whether someone from the crew randomly saw shrink-ray Argento at the mall and was so awestruck by him that they said “damn, how do we work this guy in?” and then someone responded “um, make him the kid? that way can make him do some cool adult shit like grab a titty” then they furiously revised the script (on cocaine) well into the morning immediately before filming.
either way, I love this film, all my friends ABSOLUTELY hate it, and one of my girlfriends even threw up after watching it because of the non-stop synthesizer music that, according to her, made her seasick. it is the idiot molasses of Italian horror, everything about it is so fantastically stupid that it just has a special place in my heart forever.
Creepshow (1983) - The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill
When I was a child, I didn’t understand the protagonist of this Creepshow (1983) vignette at all. the premise is straightforward: a hillbilly (yes, played by STEPHEN KING at the absolute height of his cocaine/xanax/robitussin addiction) finds a meteor has landed in his backyard, and without hesitation immediately puts his hands and mouth all over that shit like a real goddamn American. of course parasitic green meteor moss immediately starts growing over his entire body and he has a panic attack when he thinks about going to the doctor to get checked out. so, rather than seek any medical intervention whatsoever, he decides to just hang out in his house and let the alien moss slowly reclaim his body.
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this short always frustrated me as a child: like dude what are you doing? but now that I’m an adult, I 100% get it. hell, it once took me a year to make an appointment to get a suspicious mole checked out, and then another 8 months to have it removed. we are all a little bit Jordy Verill. we’ll take care of that meteor shit tomorrow.
35 y/o me thinking about making a dentist appointment and dropping my old clothes off at beacon’s closet. Angst (1983) - Sausage Break
I admit that I was absolutely terrified the first time I watched Angst (1983) back in 1999. not because it is without doubt the most hyper-realistic and depraved serial killer film ever made, but because I had never seen the Austrian phenotype up close before.
horrifying. This film is 80 minutes of unwavering depravity, so much so that it was banned all over Europe and arguably ruined Kargl’s career. it makes Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer look like an episode of paw patrol, and I can’t really can’t think of a more distributing fictional film made since Angst was released nearly 40 years ago.
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the film follows unnamed serial killer, eager to kill again following his release from prison and driven by an insatiable desire to see the fear in the eyes of his victims. while the film is entirely bereft of any humor, it makes my list because I cannot help but crack-up at what happens immediately after the killing spree scene. in THE most austrian moment in film history, after murdering an entire family the guy immediately heads to a diner to eat sausages. the bonechilling scene of our maniac vacantly dipping the link of grey meat into grain mustard is somehow more deranged to me than the actual murder/sexual assault scenes, but it also absolutely kills me because it confirms something I’ve suspected for decades: that no Austrian can go more than 20 minutes without eating a sausage or they will faint and die.
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every year, thousands of austrians are rushed to the hospital completely unresponsive. upon arrival, a nurse screams “doctor, his sausage levels!! ze are dangerously low!!” and then they give you a meat infusion and hook you up to an IV full of kremser mustard until you’re stabilized. and yes, this is all covered by health insurance, they don’t even charge you for the mustard.
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) - Fake Sparkle Dad.
I always crack up at the scene in Dream Warriors where Nancy’s dead dad materializes out of a glitter cloud and tells her that he’s “crossed over” immediately before he morphs into Freddie Kreuger and stabs her in the stomach. GIRL, you were the sole survivor of the first movie and you’ve seen Freddy Kruger turn himself into a bunch of random people/things, including a fucking telephone…you think you’d hesitate for at least 10 seconds before you went in for the hug from your dead dad that magically appeared not even 2 minutes after you “killed” FK. but nope, the writers decided to make Nancy die a 100% dumb wammen death and I simply can’t forgive it.
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not only is this scene just visually hilarious because of the incredibly cheesy SFX but, when I saw at second avenue theater some years ago, some chick yelled “that ain’t yo daddy, girl!” at the screen as soon as the fake Dad ghost appeared and the entire audience went wild. I still love quoting that woman to this day.
The Mist (2007) - Oopsie Daisy Ending
Am I a bad person for cackling at the end of the Mist, where the protagonist mercy-kills every passenger in his car, including his young son, mere moments before the mist clears and the rescue squad swoops in? certainly every person that was at the Regal Cinemas in Altoona, Pennsylvania on December 3, 2007 would have you believe so. the ending of the Mist is the cinematic equivalent of watching your neighbor’s kid absolutely fucking eat shit on his bike or witnessing an elderly person accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake and plow into a Joanne’s Fabrics at 60 MPH. it’s definitely NOT funny! it’s not. I’m actually not laughing at that all all, I was just… uhhhhh… thinking of a big bang episode when Sheldon did something spergy. you know the one.
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anyway, this scene always cheers me up because no matter what is going wrong in my life, at least I didn’t shoot my family/friends in the head with a very tiny gun for no reason. yet!
The Happening (2008) - What?! Nooooo.
In hell, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening (2008) plays on loop in a dark room on a 70mm projector run by your old HS gym teacher. when your flesh body withers and dies, the simulation reboots and the process starts all over again. The Happening is one of the worst wide-release films ever made, and features a truly nightmare blunt rotation of Marky Mark, Zoe Deschanel, and KENDALL ROY before he was famous (I left out john leguizamo b/c I would absolutely smoke with him). The plot is deplorable, the acting is atrocious, and we were all somehow scammed into watching it at least once because the guy from the Sixth Sense made it.
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after watching this film for the 15th time, Stockholm syndrome set in and I truly learned to love it. Of course of the film’s no. 1 highlight is when the old woman randomly accuses Marky Mark of trying to murder her, to which he delivers the legendary response of: “What?! Nooo!”
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“What?! Nooo!” is the second best stock response to any question you are ever asked. The first is, of course, “shut up, stupid” which my idiot Irish cousin-in-law coined a decade ago (which has ruined thanksgiving at least once). One or both of these responses works 100% of the time in virtually any scenario, including:
when a cop pulls you over and asks if you’ve had anything to drink
when your college RA asks you if you were the girl that puked in the shower and then waffle-stomped it down the drain
when you accidentally call the matchbox20 lead singer “rob santana” just because of that one song “smooth” and your entire group of friend flips out and asks if that was something you seriously thought was true
somebody asks if you’re THE THING
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I will say, while the internet is indeed a plague upon mankind, it has also produced some amazing art, including this “WHAT?! Nooo!” techno remix. enjoy:
The Thing (1982) - “Palmer Now.”
a blood test? aw geez cmon guys, let’s do a trust fall instead is there anything better than the look on Palmer’s face immediately before MacCready tests his blood at the 0:56 mark? Palmer knows he’s the Thing. Or rather, the Thing knows it’s the Thing. And the Thing knows that everyone’s about to find out it’s the Thing. I know this look. it’s the same look my friend’s shitbag ex gave when she demanded that he unlock his phone and open his texts. it’s a look that says “ok buckle up, bitch” and it makes me smile every time I watch it.
Subspecies (1991) - Radu’s Little Finger Goblins
On November 2, 1990, TerrorVision director Ted Nikolaou maniacally sped his Chevrolet into the parking lot of a derelict Spirit Halloween 60 miles outside Austin, and banged on the doors. when a pimply-faced teen answered the door and said “sorry sir, we’re closing up shop for the year,” an out-of-breath Nicolaou moaned “wait…I’ll give you $300 for everything left in the store…and a dry handjob for whatever’s in the dumpster. also do you want to be in it.” and that’s how Blue Moon Entertainment’s “Subspecies” franchise began.
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I love this film because you can absolutely smell the plastic, liquid latex, and gypsum cement through the screen. it’s a rod puppet / stop motion bonanza, and the entire franchise somehow feels flammable. the plot is some run-of-the-mill vampire nonsense, but with a refreshing twist: the evil vampire, Radu, has a special power: when he cuts off his super long fingertips , they turn into tiny little dumb looking demons who do his bidding. The effects are so horrible, I can’t help but crack up imagining the production crew reviewing this footage and just being like “Holy shit, guys, look at this. It’s incredible.”
wild to think these graphics are from 1991. they truly look like they could have been produced yesterday. I always think about this scene because it would be really funny to randomly cut off my fingertips on a date, watch them to morph into stupid little CGI subspecies demons, then exclaim: “minions, pleasure this man!!!!” as I watch them swarm his penis like it was a medieval battering ram. all while he painstakingly considers whether he should jump out the window or, you know, stick around and see where this goes... I think that would be funny.
Dead Alive (1992) - Rat Monkey Purse Wallop.
Mere days after the invention of fire, the first handbag was created when a young Neanderthal woman shore the skin off a dead mammoth and tanned it over a fire pit. after she finished braiding the strap and fashioning a small loop to hold lipgloss made from the creature’s blubber, she let forth a guttural scream into the flames. moments later, her skull was cracked wide open by a rock thrown by some bitch named Angelique, who grabbed the bag and fled into the taiga. that trauma somehow became coded in every woman’s DNA, and since that pivotal moment in history, females everywhere have lived and died by their handbags.
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Every day we feel the primal urge to weaponize our purses against threatening men, petty women, wayward children, ugly animals, swarms of bees, and those awful clipboard people that ask you to donate to UNICEF outside Penn Station. this is why the the bonkers scene in Dead Alive where the bitch mom absolutely creams the rat monkey with her purse right before impaling it with her high heel is so satisfying on so many levels. the brief scene is so gratuitous that it feels like it’s an hour long, and I love every second of it. apparently some bigwig studio executive felt the same way, and after watching this film looked Peter Jackson dead in the eyes and said “I’m going to give you 120 million dollars to film lord of the rings” and to which Peter Jackson responded “lol shut up, stupid.”
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the scene also highlights one of my favorite things about the continent of New Zealand, which is that you’re legally allowed to kill one zoo animal there every year, no questions asked. you just kill any animal however you like, and the only thing the zookeeper is allowed to do is say “holy shit!” but i heard they’re going to change the law soon so they won’t even be able to do that.
anyway, happy OCTOBER, everyone. if you enjoyed this stupid little post you should subscribe. also stop asking me if i’m going to use your email address for nefarious purposes. i would never!
If you have time (in addition to actually watching the film), I highly recommend reading about the highly amusing history of the film. Although the film was completed in 1977, Barry couldn’t afford to pay the $3000 to put credits on the film, which the prospective distributor required before agreeing to release the film. the film basically was lost for over two decades, until an obscure british label released a pirated VHS of the film in the UK without Barry's knowledge. Barry then discovered that the film had become a quiet cult hit by reading about it on a forum, and the film received its first two official releases, with a theatrical premiere at the San Francisco Indiefest on February 15, 2003.