The Top 15 Most Terrifying Moments in Scary Movie History

Within the realm of horror movies, we witness characters confronting their worst nightmares, some emerging victorious while others succumb to their fate. However, there exists a rare breed of characters who possess the keen foresight to anticipate the horrors ahead and make the wise decision to flee as fast as their trembling legs can carry them.

In these hair-raising moments, our protagonists recognize the imminent danger lurking in the shadows and opt for self-preservation above all else. They become the embodiment of survival instincts, choosing to leave behind the terrors that await them.

On a popular internet movie forum, one horror fan asked others to share examples of a character seeing what's happening and saying, "Nope, I'm out of here," in their favorite films. Horror buffs came together to share their favorite characters who have the common sense to get out of the situation.

When a team of space investigators goes on a mission to explore the Event Horizon, a spacecraft that mysteriously disappeared many years prior, one character quickly realizes they're making a grave mistake.

After Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) sees the eerie video log left behind on the ship, he immediately says, "We're leaving," to his crew.

In this classic horror film, a family is haunted by spirits that live in their TV. At the end of the movie, when the family is staying in a hotel room, the dad prevents a similar situation from happening by pushing the hotel's TV out onto the balcony.

Nope is about the threat of aliens and takes the concept of a character escaping the movie's horrors to a whole new level.

At one point, OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) is driving down the road when he pulls over, opens the door, and looks up into the sky to see that the UFO is directly overhead. He quickly shuts the door before saying, "Nope!"

When a woman rents a place to stay in a new city while there for a job interview, she soon discovers a secret door in the basement. She sees a long, dark, creepy tunnel when she opens it. Instead of walking down it, she shuts the door and walks away.

In this excellent sequel to the famous '90s slasher Scream, a new murderer is on the loose. Gale Weathers, reporter, and survivor from the first film is dedicated to discovering the new killer's identity. But her cameraman feels differently. He quits his job pretty quickly after the murders begin. A great call considering her cameraman in the first movie is killed by Ghostface!

This famous found footage horror film follows a family who moves into a home in the suburbs only to realize it's haunted. When they hire a demonologist to check things out, he tells the couple that they have a problem on their hands and is so scared that he leaves the home quickly and never returns.

When three students interview an older woman with dementia for their thesis project, they have no idea what they've gotten into. As the woman's behavior grows more peculiar and unsettling, one of the three students decides to quit the project and never return.

When the infamous killer Michael Myers escapes from the psychiatric ward he was held in for forty years, he's determined to kill the survivor of his prior murder spree. At one point in the movie, a young boy realizes Michael Myers is on the loose once more and runs away, escaping with his life.

When a group of college students on a rural vacation begin getting infected with a flesh-eating disease, one of the kids decides to get the heck out of there before he gets sick. On his way out, he grabs all of the alcohol in the building. But he still doesn't get a happy ending despite his efforts.

Wolf Creek is a terrifying thriller that follows a group of friends whose trek into the outback goes horribly wrong when a psychopathic killer targets them. Once they're captured, one of the three friends is able to free himself, and instead of trying to help his friends, he escapes into the outback.

At the beginning of The Wailing, two police officers at the station are frightened when the power goes out. They spot a strange figure lurking in the doorway. Instead of approaching the mysterious person, the two cops hide behind their desks, whisper-shouting back and forth to argue over who should be the one to investigate.

When a group of American treasure hunters begins to pry open an ancient Egyptian chest in search of valuables, they unleash a curse locked away for thousands of years. As they're opening the chest, one of the characters senses that this is a terrible plan and screams, "Beware of the curse!" while running away.

In Jordan Peele's 2021 version of Candyman, the mythical killer returns, haunting the mirrors of Chicago's housing projects. At one point, a character pulls open a basement door while searching for her boyfriend. After she peers down the dark staircase, she slams the door shut and looks elsewhere.

Fresh follows a psychopathic butcher who abducts young women to slowly harvest their flesh over time to eat and serve to his elite customers. At one point in the movie, a victim's friend begins a mission to save the captured women, only to run for his life the moment he hears his first gunshot.

As a mysterious thick cloud of fog descends upon a small town after a storm, people slowly realize that danger lies within the mist. While many townspeople are trapped in the local grocery store, one mother "nopes" out of there and decides to face the mist head-on in order to save her children.

This thread inspired this post.