13 Horrific Horror Movie Moments That Come Out Of Nowhere
2. Hereditary - Charlie's Death
OK, this one was just genius.
The marketing for Ari Aster's bone-rattling debut Hereditary played up the presence of the kid character Charlie (Milly Shapiro) and made her look like a major player in the story and so, when she appeared to die in a car accident only half an hour through the film, most people probably thought this was a fake-out.
In fact, many probably spent much of the rest of the film waiting for Charlie to pop up alive and well, even though we saw that horrifying close-up of her severed head on the road - that's just how shocking this was.
Everything about this entire scene, from that grisly shot of the head to the harrowing depiction of the mother's (Toni Collette) grief, is completely brutal and as well as being ridiculously unexpected, it's also so, so upsetting.
Horrible, truly horrible. But absolutely brilliant all the same.