10 Moments That Literally Stopped Action Movies

Unleashing one of the more impactful found footage big-screen experiences ever to land in a movie theatre back in 2008, Matt Reeves' Cloverfield routinely left audiences with their hearts in their mouths as the likes of Rob, Beth, and the rest of the civilians occupying New York City at the time have their lives turned upside down by a gigantic creature.

One of said tension-filled sequences involved the monster below being bombed to apparent pieces by the military, all while the gang are attempting to escape its warpath in a helicopter above. It's a superbly chaotic piece of action, with the slightly jittery personal camera visuals helping to enhance the adrenaline and anxiety exuding from the screen as the terrifying beast is bombarded.

But you can't keep a good monster down for long, and with one sudden lunge, the monster takes out the helicopter as the petrified passengers crash down to the surface.

The full impact of the helicopter smashing back down to earth doesn't make its way into the end product, however. Instead, the footage cuts to a brief shot of Beth and Rob at a train station and one of the many blink-and-you'll-miss-it monster movie nods in the form of a King Kong frame before returning to an eerily silent crash site in the aftermath.

Just like that, a pulsating moment of dread and potential death is abruptly cut off mid fall, with the film pretty much stopping dead for 30-seconds while the dust settled on another disastrous occurrence.