Posted:
The 10 Scariest Television Episodes
Ever Produced
http://screencrush.com/scariest-tv-episodes/
With Halloween just around the
corner, it's time to celebrate the
scariest episodes of TV that ever
aired. Here are the episodes that left
a lasting mark in your nightmares.
Some come from genre shows that
always offered a scare or two and
others come from shows that had no
business treading into the horror
genre but did so anyway.
And a special note: this list is
deliberately not including episodes of
anthology shows, so no Twilight
Zone,' Tales From the Crypt,' Night
Gallery' and so on. After all, we could
fill this entire list with Twilight Zone'
episodes. But we digress. Onto the
list!
10
"Sylvia"
'Little House on the Prairie'
It may seem weird for a show as
generally harmless and kid-
friendly as 'Little House on the
Prairie' to have a spot on this list,
but it more than earned it with
"Sylvia."
A two-parter than aired halfway
through the show's seventh
season, the episode deals with a
terrifying, black-clad man in a
mime mask (!) terrorizing and
raping (!!) a young girl named
Sylvia, impregnating her and
causing all kinds of additional
stalking and horror movie
shenanigans. Watching a gentle
show about people trying to make
a living on the American frontier
transform into a low-rent, grossly
tacky '80s slasher flick is odd
(and a little hilarious) today, but
for the countless oblivious kids
who were tuning in to see what
the Ingalls clan was up to that
week, it was downright
traumatizing.
9
"Marionette"
'Fringe'
'Fringe' eared its rabid following
by journeying down the rabbit
hole of truly weird science fiction,
creating a complicated storyline
that found its characters literally
jumping between dimensions.
However, the show was never
afraid to get truly gnarly and it
reached its horror apex with
season three's "Marionette,"
which feels like a shockingly
successful combination of
'Frankenstein' and 'Saw.'
The story finds the Fringe team
tracking down a killer who is
forcibly removing donated organs
as part of a plan to resurrect the
woman he loved. Of course, this
plan also involves stringing her
corpse up and manipulating it like
a giant marionette. Yikes.
8
"The Man Behind the Curtain"
'LOST'
Although 'Lost' was chilling from
the very first episode (remember
the fate of the pilot?), it rarely
tread into genuine horror ... until
season three's "The Man Behind
the Curtain," which brought the
series into genuine 'Evil Dead'
territory for a few minutes. When
the wily Benjamin Linus takes
Locke to a cabin in the middle of
the jungle with the promise of
answers, he (and the audience)
are only left with more questions.
Why is this cabin in the middle of
the woods? Why does Ben insist
the empty chair is inhabited by
the mysterious Jacob? Why does
a ghostly voice ask Locke to "help
him"? Why does the cabin start to
shake like it's full of poltergeists
and why does the fire in Ben's
broken lantern immediately
extinguish itself and who is that
man sitting in the chair that was
empty just a moment ago?!
Naturally, 'Lost' sidestepped any
actual answers to these
questions, but that doesn't stop
the scene from being a sequence
of pure terror.
7
"Everybody Loves a Clown"
'Supernatural'
Although bookended by the dense
mythology that would come to
define 'Supernatural,' the second
episode of the show's third
season found time for a "monster
of the week" that's as unsettling
as anything ever seen on TV.
The ironically titled "Everybody
Loves a Clown" find the
Winchester brothers tackling a
case that involves a string of
murders that coincide with
appearances by a traveling
carnival. Children are seeing a
clown that their parents can't see,
a clown who they invite into their
home late at night when he
comes a'knocking. It's a decision
they regret when this demonic,
face-painted monster tears their
mom and dad limb from limb and
devours their flesh. 'Supernatural'
may frequently deal with the
forces of Hell and Satan himself,
but even its writers knew that
nothing is scarier than a clown.
6
"Dreams"
'M*A*S*H*'
'M*A*S*H*' began as a wacky
sitcom about "meatball surgeons"
on the frontlines of the Korean
war, but over the course of its 11
seasons, it slowly evolved into a
moving (and occasionally
pretentious) anti-war drama that
occasionally had a laugh or two.
Although the show was rarely
afraid to wallow in the horrors of
war, it achieved its greatest
horrors by taking a look into the
subconscious thoughts of its
cast.
In the season eight episode
"Dreams," the surgeons, nurses
and clerks of the 4077th Mobile
Army Surgical Hospital manage to
slip away from 33 hours of
nonstop surgery to catch a little
shut-eye, only to find their
dreams just as haunting as
reality. Margaret Houlihan's
wedding becomes a blood-
drenched battlefield. Charles
Winchester transforms into a
magician, able to perform tricks
but unable to save a dying man.
Hawkeye is "punished" for not
studying in medical school by
having both of his arms removed.
There's a reason this episode
doesn't feature the traditional
laugh track -- theres not a giggle
to be had, only an examination of
a group of people traumatized by
war.
5
"Blink"
'Doctor Who'
Like many of the shows on this
list, "Blink" is a terrifying hour of
television from a show that's
rarely known for being scary in
the slightest. With the
introduction of The Weeping
Angels in its third series, 'Doctor
Who' created an iconic TV villain
and scared the pants off sci-fi
fans the world over. Although they
look like angel statues, they're
actually an ancient race of aliens
that can only move when they're
not being watched.
The result is a villain so creepy
and unsettling that that episode
has been consistently voted
among the best of the entire
series despite the Doctor himself
only playing a small supporting
role.
4
"Seed"
'The Walking Dead'
As problematic as the storytelling
on 'The Walking Dead' is, the
show has never had a problem
being scary when it wants to be.
In the season three premiere, the
show catches up with Rick and
his band of survivors some time
after the conclusion of season
two.
Although they're now an effective
unit of zombie-killers, they live
life on the run, always one step
ahead of the undead horde. So
when they see the chance to take
over an infested prison and make
it their home base, they take it. Of
course, even the most assured
killers of the walking dead aren't
ready for pitch black,
claustrophobic tunnels filled with
an untold number of zombies and
the result is the most intense
extended sequence in the show's
history. It's so good and so
legitimately terrifying that it's
profoundly disappointing that the
rest of the season failed to live up
to this promising start.
3
"Lonely Souls"
'Twin Peaks'
Picking one episode of 'Twin
Peaks' for a list of frightening TV
episodes is a nearly impossible
task since you could fill this
whole thing with episodes of
David Lynch and Mark Frost's
groundbreaking series. Still, we
have to go with season two's
"Lonely Souls" for one reason and
one reason only: the instant
nightmare fuel that is BOB slowly
approaching the camera in a
series of jump cuts.
Screw it. This entry in the list is
officially "Every Time BOB
Appeared On 'Twin Peaks.'"
2
"Hush"
'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'
Despite its premise and title, Joss
Whedon's 'Buffy the Vampire
Slayer' rarely went full-on horror.
Instead, the show usually lived in
a pop-fantasy groove, where
vampires and other creatures of
the night presented a legit threat
while leaving plenty of room for
quips.
That's not the case with the
season four episode "Hush,"
which finds a terrifying group of
well-dressed demons named The
Gentlemen arriving in Sunnydale,
where they steal everyone's ability
to speak and begin a door-to-
door murdering spree. Robbed of
its trademark snarky dialogue, the
show becomes a silent horror
movie for 40 minutes, with its
cast facing off against creatures
that look like they were torn
straight out of a 1920s horror
flick. Fans of F.W. Murnau will
certainly appreciate the nods to
German expressionistic horror,
but everyone else will just have to
recoil at one of the creepiest
hours of TV ever produced.
1
"Home"
'The X-Files'
Due to the fact that cable shows
can now feature graphic acts of
violence, it's difficult to imagine
an episode of TV ever being quite
as shocking as "Home" was when
it first aired in 1996. That the
episode exists at all is surprising
-- when it should have been
coasting at the top of its
popularity, 'The X-Files' chose to
produce its most graphic,
disturbing and controversial
episode.
Entirely separate from the series'
main mythology, the episode finds
agents Mulder and Scully
investigating the death of a
hideously deformed baby, only to
uncover a mystery involving an
isolated house in the country and
the homicidal, inbred family that
lives there. To describe what
happens as "Mulder and Scully
vs. The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre" may not be entirely
accurate (it's not set in Texas,
after all), but it should give you
an idea of the chilling and
grotesque nature of what they
discover. Every 'X-Files' fan
remembers the first time they saw
Mulder and Scully check under
that bed and they flinch whenever
they hear Johnny Mathis'
rendition of "Wonderful!
Wonderful!" Even today, the
gruesome shocks of "Home" pack
a punch.
Ever Produced
http://screencrush.com/scariest-tv-episodes/
With Halloween just around the
corner, it's time to celebrate the
scariest episodes of TV that ever
aired. Here are the episodes that left
a lasting mark in your nightmares.
Some come from genre shows that
always offered a scare or two and
others come from shows that had no
business treading into the horror
genre but did so anyway.
And a special note: this list is
deliberately not including episodes of
anthology shows, so no Twilight
Zone,' Tales From the Crypt,' Night
Gallery' and so on. After all, we could
fill this entire list with Twilight Zone'
episodes. But we digress. Onto the
list!
10
"Sylvia"
'Little House on the Prairie'
It may seem weird for a show as
generally harmless and kid-
friendly as 'Little House on the
Prairie' to have a spot on this list,
but it more than earned it with
"Sylvia."
A two-parter than aired halfway
through the show's seventh
season, the episode deals with a
terrifying, black-clad man in a
mime mask (!) terrorizing and
raping (!!) a young girl named
Sylvia, impregnating her and
causing all kinds of additional
stalking and horror movie
shenanigans. Watching a gentle
show about people trying to make
a living on the American frontier
transform into a low-rent, grossly
tacky '80s slasher flick is odd
(and a little hilarious) today, but
for the countless oblivious kids
who were tuning in to see what
the Ingalls clan was up to that
week, it was downright
traumatizing.
9
"Marionette"
'Fringe'
'Fringe' eared its rabid following
by journeying down the rabbit
hole of truly weird science fiction,
creating a complicated storyline
that found its characters literally
jumping between dimensions.
However, the show was never
afraid to get truly gnarly and it
reached its horror apex with
season three's "Marionette,"
which feels like a shockingly
successful combination of
'Frankenstein' and 'Saw.'
The story finds the Fringe team
tracking down a killer who is
forcibly removing donated organs
as part of a plan to resurrect the
woman he loved. Of course, this
plan also involves stringing her
corpse up and manipulating it like
a giant marionette. Yikes.
8
"The Man Behind the Curtain"
'LOST'
Although 'Lost' was chilling from
the very first episode (remember
the fate of the pilot?), it rarely
tread into genuine horror ... until
season three's "The Man Behind
the Curtain," which brought the
series into genuine 'Evil Dead'
territory for a few minutes. When
the wily Benjamin Linus takes
Locke to a cabin in the middle of
the jungle with the promise of
answers, he (and the audience)
are only left with more questions.
Why is this cabin in the middle of
the woods? Why does Ben insist
the empty chair is inhabited by
the mysterious Jacob? Why does
a ghostly voice ask Locke to "help
him"? Why does the cabin start to
shake like it's full of poltergeists
and why does the fire in Ben's
broken lantern immediately
extinguish itself and who is that
man sitting in the chair that was
empty just a moment ago?!
Naturally, 'Lost' sidestepped any
actual answers to these
questions, but that doesn't stop
the scene from being a sequence
of pure terror.
7
"Everybody Loves a Clown"
'Supernatural'
Although bookended by the dense
mythology that would come to
define 'Supernatural,' the second
episode of the show's third
season found time for a "monster
of the week" that's as unsettling
as anything ever seen on TV.
The ironically titled "Everybody
Loves a Clown" find the
Winchester brothers tackling a
case that involves a string of
murders that coincide with
appearances by a traveling
carnival. Children are seeing a
clown that their parents can't see,
a clown who they invite into their
home late at night when he
comes a'knocking. It's a decision
they regret when this demonic,
face-painted monster tears their
mom and dad limb from limb and
devours their flesh. 'Supernatural'
may frequently deal with the
forces of Hell and Satan himself,
but even its writers knew that
nothing is scarier than a clown.
6
"Dreams"
'M*A*S*H*'
'M*A*S*H*' began as a wacky
sitcom about "meatball surgeons"
on the frontlines of the Korean
war, but over the course of its 11
seasons, it slowly evolved into a
moving (and occasionally
pretentious) anti-war drama that
occasionally had a laugh or two.
Although the show was rarely
afraid to wallow in the horrors of
war, it achieved its greatest
horrors by taking a look into the
subconscious thoughts of its
cast.
In the season eight episode
"Dreams," the surgeons, nurses
and clerks of the 4077th Mobile
Army Surgical Hospital manage to
slip away from 33 hours of
nonstop surgery to catch a little
shut-eye, only to find their
dreams just as haunting as
reality. Margaret Houlihan's
wedding becomes a blood-
drenched battlefield. Charles
Winchester transforms into a
magician, able to perform tricks
but unable to save a dying man.
Hawkeye is "punished" for not
studying in medical school by
having both of his arms removed.
There's a reason this episode
doesn't feature the traditional
laugh track -- theres not a giggle
to be had, only an examination of
a group of people traumatized by
war.
5
"Blink"
'Doctor Who'
Like many of the shows on this
list, "Blink" is a terrifying hour of
television from a show that's
rarely known for being scary in
the slightest. With the
introduction of The Weeping
Angels in its third series, 'Doctor
Who' created an iconic TV villain
and scared the pants off sci-fi
fans the world over. Although they
look like angel statues, they're
actually an ancient race of aliens
that can only move when they're
not being watched.
The result is a villain so creepy
and unsettling that that episode
has been consistently voted
among the best of the entire
series despite the Doctor himself
only playing a small supporting
role.
4
"Seed"
'The Walking Dead'
As problematic as the storytelling
on 'The Walking Dead' is, the
show has never had a problem
being scary when it wants to be.
In the season three premiere, the
show catches up with Rick and
his band of survivors some time
after the conclusion of season
two.
Although they're now an effective
unit of zombie-killers, they live
life on the run, always one step
ahead of the undead horde. So
when they see the chance to take
over an infested prison and make
it their home base, they take it. Of
course, even the most assured
killers of the walking dead aren't
ready for pitch black,
claustrophobic tunnels filled with
an untold number of zombies and
the result is the most intense
extended sequence in the show's
history. It's so good and so
legitimately terrifying that it's
profoundly disappointing that the
rest of the season failed to live up
to this promising start.
3
"Lonely Souls"
'Twin Peaks'
Picking one episode of 'Twin
Peaks' for a list of frightening TV
episodes is a nearly impossible
task since you could fill this
whole thing with episodes of
David Lynch and Mark Frost's
groundbreaking series. Still, we
have to go with season two's
"Lonely Souls" for one reason and
one reason only: the instant
nightmare fuel that is BOB slowly
approaching the camera in a
series of jump cuts.
Screw it. This entry in the list is
officially "Every Time BOB
Appeared On 'Twin Peaks.'"
2
"Hush"
'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'
Despite its premise and title, Joss
Whedon's 'Buffy the Vampire
Slayer' rarely went full-on horror.
Instead, the show usually lived in
a pop-fantasy groove, where
vampires and other creatures of
the night presented a legit threat
while leaving plenty of room for
quips.
That's not the case with the
season four episode "Hush,"
which finds a terrifying group of
well-dressed demons named The
Gentlemen arriving in Sunnydale,
where they steal everyone's ability
to speak and begin a door-to-
door murdering spree. Robbed of
its trademark snarky dialogue, the
show becomes a silent horror
movie for 40 minutes, with its
cast facing off against creatures
that look like they were torn
straight out of a 1920s horror
flick. Fans of F.W. Murnau will
certainly appreciate the nods to
German expressionistic horror,
but everyone else will just have to
recoil at one of the creepiest
hours of TV ever produced.
1
"Home"
'The X-Files'
Due to the fact that cable shows
can now feature graphic acts of
violence, it's difficult to imagine
an episode of TV ever being quite
as shocking as "Home" was when
it first aired in 1996. That the
episode exists at all is surprising
-- when it should have been
coasting at the top of its
popularity, 'The X-Files' chose to
produce its most graphic,
disturbing and controversial
episode.
Entirely separate from the series'
main mythology, the episode finds
agents Mulder and Scully
investigating the death of a
hideously deformed baby, only to
uncover a mystery involving an
isolated house in the country and
the homicidal, inbred family that
lives there. To describe what
happens as "Mulder and Scully
vs. The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre" may not be entirely
accurate (it's not set in Texas,
after all), but it should give you
an idea of the chilling and
grotesque nature of what they
discover. Every 'X-Files' fan
remembers the first time they saw
Mulder and Scully check under
that bed and they flinch whenever
they hear Johnny Mathis'
rendition of "Wonderful!
Wonderful!" Even today, the
gruesome shocks of "Home" pack
a punch.
Kumkum Bhagya
Anupamaa
