20 Anxiety-Inducing Moments That'll Terrify You Senseless
2. The Wages Of Fear - All Those Set-Pieces
As good as Sorcerer was, it can't quite match its predecessor.
In The Wages of Fear, four impoverished truck drivers are recruited to transport truckloads of nitroglycerin in order to extinguish an oil well fire. The trouble is, the nitroglycerin is extremely volatile, and any bump could set it off... and the drivers are required to transport it through some seriously dangerous, uneven roads, thus setting the stage for one of the most excruciatingly suspenseful things ever committed to celluloid.
The drivers face a multitude of agonizing obstacles: near collisions between the trucks, an unstable platform, an oil-filled crater, and even a boulder blocking the road, which they have to destroy with some of their volatile cargo. The exceptional direction and editing make this a swelteringly tense, heart-stopping thrill ride that'll have entire auditoriums biting their nails in terror, especially as the four drivers are well-developed characters whom viewers will really care about.
Simply put, the tension in this one is genuinely sadistic, and as far as stressful movies go, very few - if any, for that matter - can compare to The Wages of Fear.