20 Scariest Horror Movie Moments Of The 21st Century

What The Ring did for cupboards and televisions, Korean chiller A Tale of Two Sisters did for kitchens.

Set in an unnervingly quiet house populated by a family haunted and scarred by past traumas, the biggest fright of the film arrives at the halfway point. During one of the more subdued and tense dinner parties on celluloid, guest Mi-hee suddenly collapses from a violent seizure. It’s hard to watch as she convulses and shrieks on the floor despite the efforts of her husband to calm her, but our curiosity is piqued as her eyes seem to widen upon catching a glimpse of something underneath the kitchen sink.

A conversation in the car on the way home reveals that she saw the ghoulish image of a spectral girl lying in wait, before a brief flashback sears the image into our mind. It’s particularly unnerving due to the ghost’s pitch-black and disfigured appearance, as though covered in the grime and decay of death, coupled with the already somber, intensely uncomfortable mood created by the seizure.

A later scene drenched in atmosphere finds the film’s step-mother character crawling on all fours searching in the kitchen. We wait on bated breath for the ghost to strike, and so it does with a brilliantly timed jump scare, but it’s so effective purely because we know what lurks underneath the sink, and the thrill is in the waiting.