10 Horror Movie Background Scares That Will Scar You For Life

It's hard to know where to begin when it comes to Black Swan (2010) and background scares. After all, Darren Aronofsky's dark masterpiece trades almost exclusively in confusion, deception, madness and subliminality.

Starring as ballerina Nina Sayers, Natalie Portman has a crisis of identity while preparing for, and competing for the lead part of, the white swan against Mila Kunis's Lily, in an off-Broadway production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

The film's pivotal, red-tinged nightclub scene is where Aronofsky does his darkest work. Here, eagle-eyed viewers can spot apparitions of all kinds swirling in the background as Nina dances, her partners changing; the clubbers around them becoming other people, their faces distorting; hands and limbs multiplying. But, most frightening of all, are the many faces of Nina herself, shifting in and out of focus behind her, often so quickly you miss them altogether.

This crescendo of visual textures is textbook Aronofsky (see the ending of Requiem for a Dream, or the brutal, war-torn scenes leading to the climax of Mother!), but nowhere is it done more subtly or to greater horror than in Black Swan.