10 Scariest Movie Paintings

The third film in The Thing director John Carpenter's Apocalypse trilogy, 1994's twisty meta-horror In the Mouth of Madness is a strange and unsettling story of an insurance agent who is sent to retrieve a client in a small town where nothing is as it seems, only for reality itself to begin unravelling around him.

Inspired by the likes of HP Lovecraft and Stephen King, this Sam Neill starring cosmic horror manages to do justice to the oeuvres of both legendary writers in its creepy story. The slowly growing tension ensures that the film begins in grounded and realistic territory, only for its story to become increasingly surreal and nightmarish throughout its runtime.

And that effective approach is mirrored in the movie's creepy changing painting.

Hung on the wall of a quaint little B+B where Neill's protagonist stays in this small, odd town, the painting initially displays the idyllic scene of a couple walking the local riverside together. However, as the film's action grows darker and stranger so does the painting's contents, with it eventually featuring a gruesome monster lurking in the same river in its foreground.

The constantly changing painting brings to mind the titular shifting image in Stephen King’s The Road Virus Heads North, a later short story which takes inspiration from this creepy touch.