More “WTF??” Scary Scenes from Non-Scary Movies

When Halloween rolls around we like to talk about scary movies that we love. But what often gets overlooked are scary scenes from movies that were never meant to be scary. It can be a comedy or scifi or whatever else, but the movie is perfectly pleasant until one scene gives us 60 seconds of terror. Here are ten that scared me, and in the interest of full disclosure I did do a list similar to this nine years ago. However, that article omitted a lot of examples and had no video clips. And of course these are my choices, if you don't think these scenes were particularly scary than that's no problem. 

Superman III-Robo Woman

So here you have a movie which goes out of its way to say that it is a light comedy. It has goofy opening credit and of course Richard Pyor. Then as the last act finally gets going, tou get this out of nowhere moment where a woman is grabbed by the super computer and turned into a robot right in front of our eyes. I think it's the women's cries which make it scary, especially when she goes from begging for help to being subservient in the span of a millisecond. And those eyes!!

A (Brief) Look at Muppet Haunted Mansion

 

So I just watched the latest Muppet production which premiered on Disney+ a few weeks ago. Since it was a Halloween special, I had to check it out. And since it just premiered, I will keep this short and as spoiler free as I can. So what is the plot? Gonzo and Pepe accept a challenge to stay at a haunted mansion all night on Halloween. Yeah, that's about it. This special isn't really story heavy, things just kind of happen though it does try for character development toward the end. Does that mean it's bad? No but it could have been better, Pretty much every Muppet appears although most are just brief cameo's. The special does try to keep the Muppet spirit alive with homages to the Muppet Show, 4th wall jokes, and some songs. I thought the songs were unnecessary but they aren't bad. And they also did a great job with the Haunted Mansion, not only does it resemble the Disney ride but there are even lines of dialogue taken from the ride itself. You can feel them trying to be a traditional Muppet production but the creators still don't get why we loved the classic stuff. The end kind of meanders to its conclusion. Will Arnett is good and most of the cameo's are very fast and pointless. Except for Taraji Henson who comes into the story way to late and I didn't care about her at all. Another gripe is that the special continues the ongoing quest by the Muppet performers to elevate Pepe to top tier Muppet. For reasons that will forever escape me! And I continue to hate Matt Vogel's awful Kermit The Frog voice. It's just painful to listen to. All gripes aside, there is nothing really wrong with the special and it even manages some legitimately creepy imagery here and there. It's perfectly serviceable as a Muppet Halloween Special, especially compared to other Muppet productions I can name, throwing more than enough imagery and spooky atmosphere to make this a nice way to kill an hour at Halloween time. 

Five Comic Stories That Made Me Want to Read More

Ever get a trade paperback or maybe a back issue of a comic that you've never read, and when you finally did read it want to know more? This is something that a good comic will do, make you want to go back and read what you missed (or at vert least learn the backstory for what happened before and after). It's similar to catching a re0run on TV of some show who never watched and liking it so much you want to know more about this show you've discovered. Linkara points to "The Technis Imperative" as his example of this, and I can see why. 

Here are five issues and/or story lines that had a similar effect on me.

Justice League of America #257

I can't find where I talked about this before so if I did, sorry about that. This comic was my introduction to the DC universe proper. Until then I had kinda seen a few comics and of course Superfriends on TV, but this is the issue that got my attention. Is it a good issue? No, not really. It was the end of a story arc and I was totally lost. But the conclusion of the issue had Firestorm teasing the upcoming Legends mini-series. I wanted to know more. Who was this Firestorm? Who were these strange leaguers? Legends..what was that? This issue bought randomly by my mother when I was laid up opened the door for me to a new universe and is a prefect example of the adage "Every comic is someone's first"