10 Most Bad-Ass Batman Movie Moments

3. The Demon Batman - Batman Begins

For a character so closely tied to the idea of fear as a psychological weapon, there really hasn't been enough horror in the Batman movie franchise - even despite the presence of several watershed horror comics in his catalogue. Tim Burton flirted with it in Batman Returns, but there's very little that is actually scary in his grotesque gallery, which is in stark contrast to the moments of cold terror that we got in Batman Begins.

Scarecrow's toxins offered the perfect opportunity to really mess with the audience, and while there could have been more, the moment when karma revisits Crane's crimes on himself is both chilling and air-punchingly brilliant.

The effects-driven sequence essentially channels the very essence for Batman's origin, since Bruce Wayne chose his image to strike fear into his enemies, and we get a thus-far unprecedented glimpse of everything terrible that he aspired to be. This is fundamentally the purist image of Batman as a symbol we'll ever get to see, and the result is legitimately terrifying.