31 Scariest Movie Moments Of All Time

3. Ben Gardner's Head - Jaws

Let's start this list off correctly with the greatest horror movie ever made about a fish. Some might say that the scariest moment in Jaws comes when Bruce the giant rubber shark appears after Steven Spielberg has spent most of the film flirting with the big reveal. It's a shocker, but it doesn't quite make the cut, thanks to another rubber prop that has gone down in infamy despite effects work that could at best be described as Whovian.

It's already a tense enough scene having Hooper jump into the water knowing the shark could be lurking it anywhere, but Spielberg dialled it right up to brown alert with the jump shock of his head appearing in the hole in the hull. At this point we knew not only that the shark meant business, but also that the director was a sadist.

Interestingly, the shock wasn't in the original script, but Spielberg felt that Hooper just finding the boat wasn't explicit enough. That explains why Chief Brody decides against revealing that the shark had killed Gardner when he's trying to get the Mayor to close the beach. You know, in case you just thought he was a monster or something.