28 Classic Movie Scenes Involving Stairs

22. Spider Walk - The Exorcist (1973)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnxAnDcysvk How do you accent the horrific moment when a woman hears that a close friend has suddenly died, breaking his neck? You show her mysteriously ill 12-year old daughter run down the stairs, arched over backwards, hissing and dribbling blood. This scene has a quick succession of stair usage - one verbally (€œhe fell down the stairs, and broke his neck€), the other visually (spider-girl). The Burstyn house is surrounded by exterior stairs, and uses them to great effect in the film€™s climactic scene. But the most memorable, and until recently, deleted scene, is clearly the more shocking and disturbing use of stairs in the film. Director William Friedkin was originally very unhappy with the sequence and had it removed from early releases of the film. But pressure from Warner Bros and from writer William Peter Blatty saw him revisit the scene and augment it with visual effects at a later date, and subsequently placed in later cuts of the film. According to Blatty, the sequence was an integral part of the film and was placed specifically to denote the moment when Chris Burstyn (Ellen MacNeil) realizes that Regan (Linda Blair) is experiencing something a little bit stronger than her monthly cycle. In other words, the spider-walk is something that no tampon or sanitary towel can cover up.

21. Countdown - The Raid (2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f6f_kfp1Z8 Stairs play an important role in Gareth Evans€™ The Raid. That and wall tiles, door frames fridges and fluorescent light tubes. For a film set in a tower block, there was always going to be a signature moment surrounding stairs, and The Raid has three explosive uses of the old concrete inclines. It is the third and least exciting moment that comes in the form of a montage - a stair montage. As the tactical unit enters the building, they hustle up a number of stairs, taking out bad guys in stealth mode along the way. Their journey is marked by a series of numbers printed on the staircase walls, in a militant white font. We see them go up - 3,4,5 - until they reach the problematic youth who triggers the alarm. This is a very basic and particularly matter-of-fact use of stairs, but it also creates some great tension. This is essentially an up count of a countdown to the brown bum nuggets hitting the fan. I am no stranger to gushing about The Raid, and now would be another perfect opportunity to do so. I could ramble on about how this use of numbers to create action in what is probably the tamest scene in the film, is a testament to both the director and the editor. I could go on about the importance of the stairs in comparison to the use of elevators, in adding pace. I could even go as far as to say that if it weren€™t for stairs, the film would have lasted all of 10 minutes (go to top floor in elevator, kill the bad guy). But I won€™t. Instead I will just leave you with the trailer for the film, and you can see just how glorious it all is, for yourself.

20. The Chapel - Vertigo (1958)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnpZN2HQ3OQ Hitchcock was a big fan of stairs; he used them very regularly to symbolize a variety of themes, and to help build tension. One of his most iconic stair based scenes comes from the near climatic moments of Vertigo. As Jimmy Stewart€™s fractured Scottie pursues the beautiful and suicidal Madeline (Kim Novak) up a bell tower, he turns over the banister and feels that overwhelming fear of heights. The ground moves, the frame expands €“ we are falling without falling. Hitchcock does it to us twice, and then Scottie witnesses his love plummet to her death. Distraught and alone, he must make the steady frightful descent back to the floor. Framed in distinct isolation at the bottom of the screen, Scottie looks dwarfed by the stairs €“ and we feel his terror. This now famous dolly zoom was originally intended for use in an earlier Hitchcock film, Rebecca. However, technology at the time was too restricting, and even when the director did manage it in Vertigo, he could only achieve it by filming models from side ways on. It would not again be seen in such an influential way until a certain sophomore director implemented it in his film about a man-eating shark. One thing that has always struck me most about the scene is that the stairs are wooden. When Hitchcock originally had the Mission San Juan Bautista brought to his attention it had a tower, which was subsequently torn down before filming. The interior staircase of the bell tower, as previously mentioned, was all model work. The director could have chosen a variety of materials for the stairs, but he chose a rickety looking wood. It could be continuity reasoning, to fall in with the look of the church; but I think Hitch would not have limited himself to such a trivial thing. The use of these thick yet untrusting stairs adds to the tension of the scene. They reflect Scottie€™s unease, the unreliability of Madeline, and his fragile yet tough looking exterior, and hers in reverse. Watch this space, Hitch will return again before the list is done.