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10. No Exit
Sam: "Holmes built an apartment building in Chicago. They called it the "˜murder castle.' The whole place was a death factory. They had trap doors, acid vats, quick-line pits,. He built these secret chambers - inside the walls."
So you're a young female, living alone in a crappy apartment. You hate it there. Lights randomly flicker. Electronics fuzz in and out. Unexplainable cracks appear in the walls and ceiling. And worse, you hear strange creaking and scratching coming from inside the walls. Little do you know that something evil is lurking there.
Such is the premise of the episode "No Exit."
First of all, don't watch this episode if you're claustrophobic. The scenes where Dean and Jo are walking through those dark, tight spaces within the walls give me the creeps. Not to mention the metal cell Jo gets locked in, with the bloody scratches on the ceiling from a prior victim. Second of all, ectoplasm? That stuff is nasty, and creepy, like it has a life of its own.
But by far the scariest part of this episode has to be the glimpses of the spirit itself. Peeking through a hole in the wall, an unsuspecting victim sees an eye looking back at her, while another witnesses awful, filthy fingers suddenly reaching through the cracks of a vent. Not to mention the dirty, bearded mouth of the spirit whispering to Jo from just outside her prison.
Whether you like her character or not, Alona Tal did an excellent job conveying Jo's bravery and terror in those scenes. This is not an episode I can watch before going to bed!
So you're a young female, living alone in a crappy apartment. You hate it there. Lights randomly flicker. Electronics fuzz in and out. Unexplainable cracks appear in the walls and ceiling. And worse, you hear strange creaking and scratching coming from inside the walls. Little do you know that something evil is lurking there.
Such is the premise of the episode "No Exit."
First of all, don't watch this episode if you're claustrophobic. The scenes where Dean and Jo are walking through those dark, tight spaces within the walls give me the creeps. Not to mention the metal cell Jo gets locked in, with the bloody scratches on the ceiling from a prior victim. Second of all, ectoplasm? That stuff is nasty, and creepy, like it has a life of its own.
But by far the scariest part of this episode has to be the glimpses of the spirit itself. Peeking through a hole in the wall, an unsuspecting victim sees an eye looking back at her, while another witnesses awful, filthy fingers suddenly reaching through the cracks of a vent. Not to mention the dirty, bearded mouth of the spirit whispering to Jo from just outside her prison.
Whether you like her character or not, Alona Tal did an excellent job conveying Jo's bravery and terror in those scenes. This is not an episode I can watch before going to bed!
Comments
I totally agree with Bloody Mary. When she crawled out of that mirror, the way she moved was just so freaking...unna tural, it creeped me right out. Same with those feral kids in Family Remains. That scene where the girl thinks it's her dog? Yikes!
Honestly, I'm a bit of a horror junkie, and so is my mom so a lot of the stuff doesn't really bother me that much since I've been watching it since I was old enough to not get sent to bed (and a few times I snuck back too). I think what tends to get me, at least on this show is when it turns out to be humans. I think that's why I was so disturbed by Repo Man, too. It was a person who was actually the messed up one. "Demons I get, people are crazy"
Creepy is way scarier than gory. Dean being close to the Scarecrow (which IS moving!) is one of those moments. Sam has a similar moment where he is close to the waxwork of Abraham Lincoln. All the Bloody Mary reflections are scary too.
However my scary moment is from 'The Usual Suspects'. It is the scene where the ghost appears to the police woman in the basement and gets really close to the screen very suddenly. I was watching that episode while falling asleep (wearing earphones) the music gets loud suddenly and I opened my eyes just as she runs at the screen - this is not something I recommend doing unless your heart is good and strong
Last thing - watch the very opening scene of the first episode. There is a branch shadow crawling along the wall of the house in a way that doesn't appear possible - that's pretty spooky!
"No Exit" really creeped me out, because I had read "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larsen, about H.H. Holmes during the Chicago World's fair. Pick it up, it's well worth it. Also "Home" scared the bejesus out of me for the same reason as "Poltergeist" did. My whole childhood I was afraid of whatever was in my closet. To this day, I will not sleep with the closet door open and I will always face it before going to sleep. That way, when something jumps out, I'll see it and run (hopefully). In "Bloody Mary", the girl at the end was like the girl coming out of the tv in "The Ring". Sooo scary! But one of the episodes that scares me a whole lot is "The Benders". There's just something about hillbillies getting their jollies off by catching people and chasing them like animals. There was an episode of the X-Files (season 4 I think) called "Home" (I think) about a family that turn out to be inbreds. It's one of the scariest hours of tv I've ever seen and "The Benders" reminds me of that episode. And if I'm not mistaken, Kim Manners was the director.
Thanks for the creepy walk down memory lane.
Scarecrow gave me the creeps and still does after many many viewings. Scariest scarecrow ever! Dude, you fugly!
indeed.
Provenance is one not mentioned here, but it gets to me every time with that weird creepy painting and that menacing little girl with the straight razor and dolly. Yikes!
The cannibal Benders are frightening because they are human and I remembered a news story about a farmer in the country who had people strung up like cattle carcases in his house and books with human skin covers, so it can happen really! Stomach turning human monster stuff! And that X-Files episode "Home" was an absolute creep-fest!
First time I saw Bloody Mary I was chilled spotting her in the mirrors. After seeing it many many times the fright has faded, but I still enjoy it immensely. When I was a kid I heard an episoe of "The Shadow" (yes I'm that old!) in which a guy gets up in the night to visit the john and sees a floating greenish skull in the bathroom mirror which freaks him out obviously. Turned out he had some kind of disease that made his bones glow in the dark, and it was himself he was seeing. After that, for years, at night I would NEVER look in a mirror I walked by. And in the daytime I was always looking for something in them that shouldn't be there. Maybe part of the blame should be on "Alice Through the Looking Glass" which I loved as a kid.
Great article!
But for me, the scariest episode is "My Bloody Valentine" Famine creeped me out like no other Supernatural monster. I STILL hide behind my hands for him! I've even, on occasion, simply fast forwarded through his parts even though I know what the end is!
I don't find Bugs scary at all though so it wouldn't be on my list, its such a silly episode!
Great list!