31 Scariest Movie Moments Of All Time

18. The Torture - Audition

Takashi Miike's excellent Audition doesn't depend on cheap jump scares or bumps in the night to get under your skin: it's more dependent on slow unflinching horror that feels more like watching a car crash in super slow motion. And worst of all, it's so horribly compelling that breaking your horrified gaze is impossible.

Audition's climax is its most famous scene for very good reason: it takes in male control anxiety, claustrophobia, balls-out gore and a villain so calm she makes Hannibal Lecter look like Woody Allen. As she drugs and then methodically dissects Aoyama - starting with slow needle torture and ending with the removal of his feet with piano wire - the real horror is in her demeanour, which only changes from fascinated cool for her to laugh girlishly.

That laugh and that unfazed face is the kind of thing that will return to you in the long dark nights.