12 Incredible Slow Burn Movie Scenes With Killer Pay Offs

2. Apocalypse Now €“- Sampan Massacre

Another classic Francis Ford Coppola film from the 1970s, Apocalypse Now is a hallucinogenic journey through the Vietnam War that's loosely adapted from Joseph Conrad's brilliant short novel, Heart of Darkness. The film follows the exploits of Captain Willard, as he and the crew of a PBR travel through the rivers of rural Vietnam in search of Colonel Kurtz, who has gone AWOL.

This particular scene opens with a minor confrontation between Willard and the boat's commander, Chief, which sets a tense tone for the scene's proceedings. The scene sees the crew of the PBR performing a standard procedure stop and search of a local Sampan. One of the crew members reluctantly boards the boat and starts rummaging through the various goods, scaring the locals on-board as the whole scene is overlooked by a young and obviously nervous machine gunner.

One of the women on-board suddenly lunges for a basket and the machine gunner opens fire in a panic, joined quickly by the rest of his crew. Within seconds locals are all dead or dying, and it's revealed that the woman was dashing in an attempt to protect a puppy, which was hidden in a basket. The tension that gradually builds up as the search goes on, is used to devastating effect once the gunfire starts, and when the innocence of the locals is confirmed, the scene becomes wholly devastating.