10 Horror Movies Which Broke The Fourth Wall To Scare You

3. Blue Velvet

From the ridiculous to the sublime...

As far from Michel Haneke's Funny Games as cinema gets, infamous screen weirdo David Lynch's Blue Velvet was the Twin Peaks creator's first deep dive into subverted images of picket fence Americana.

A suburban mystery, the film stars future Dale Cooper Kyle MacLachlan as a well-meaning teen who becomes embroiled in all sorts of dark criminal underworld scheming when he spies on his stunning neighbour.

The film's creepy, hypnotic mystery features memorable onscreen psycho Dennis Hopper as its chilling villain. One deeply unsettling sequence sees him assault a distraught Isabella Rossellini as MacLachlan watches, helpless to intervene. It's shortly afterwards that Lynch pulls off an audacious and deeply chilling fourth wall break.

Remember that potent moment when Dennis Hopper’s twisted villain stares into the screen to tell the voyeuristic viewer “you’re just like me”?

Sure, he's technically talking to MacLachlan's character, but there's no shaking the discomforting intensity of the scene which manages to address the viewer directly without losing any narrative effectiveness (cough calling Mr Haneke cough).