20 TERRIFYING Scenes In Non Horror Movies

7. The Cockatoo Jump Scare - Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is held up as many things, but pant-fillingly scary isn't a way many folk would use to describe it.

Or they wouldn't, if not for that damn dirty jump scare near the end of the movie.

As Charles Foster Kane's (Orson Welles) butler Raymond (Paul Stewart) begins a recollection, we transition to a flashback with the sudden presence of a loud, squawking cockatoo. 

A jump scare is naturally the last thing anyone expects from a lavish drama about a media baron, and absolutely nothing in the film before or after this makes said jump scare feel like it belongs.

In addition to the jolting screech, the cockatoo is also incorrectly composited into the scene, meaning its eyes are entirely transparent, making the moment even more unnerving.

Hilariously, in an interview Welles claimed that he included the screeching cockatoo in order to wake up audience members who might be nodding off at this point in the story.