20 Scariest Horror Movie Moments Of The 21st Century

James Wan’s dark and dusty 70s period-horror is host to several terrifically atmospheric scenes, and the best of all takes a simple children’s game and turns it into a pant-wetting fright.

After having carefully established the game “hide and clap” whereby the Perron kids seek each other by way of listening for the guiding sound of clapping, The Conjuring indicates that sound as well as the unseen are particularly key factors in its creation of tension.

Sure enough, one night Lili Taylor’s protagonist Carolyn is lured into the basement by an unseen terror seeking to innocently scare the living daylights out of her, as such entities do. Since this is a horror film, the lights end up failing, meaning Carolyn is forced to navigate her surroundings with a match.

That makes it the perfect time for a demonic child to ask out of nowhere “hey, wanna play hide and clap?” followed by a pair of hands emerging from the darkness and clapping. In that moment, a simple clap feels louder and more forceful than thunder, and more frightening to boot.