10 Terrifying Scenes In Psychological Thrillers

As the story goes, Alfred Hitchcock missed out on the rights to the book by a matter of hours, such was his enthusiasm for the source material. Disappointed by his failure to snag Les Diaboliques as his next project, he went on to make Psycho, later sourcing the story (She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac) as the inspiration for his next film.

If it got Hitch all hot and bothered, you know you're in safe (terrifying) territory - Les Diaboliques is a French 1955 thriller classic, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, that set the mould for suspense filled, slow-burn chillers and the terrifying finale has now become legend in the movie world.

The plot focuses on a Parisian boarding school, run by the tyrannical Michel Delasselle, who's wife Christina and mistress Nicole have had enough of his caddish ways and decide to do away with him by drowning him in a bathtub and dropping his body in the school's swimming pool, making it look like an accident.

When Michel's body disappears, Christina finds herself faced with his reanimated corpse as it rises back to life from the bathtub, in a twist ending that ultimately kills her when she suffers a massive heart attack, the victim of a gas lighting conspiracy hatched by Michel and Nicole all along.

This sequence would be used as model for other thriller noir classics like Hush (and basically everything by M Night Shyamalan) and is widely considered one of the scariest moments ever put on celluloid.