10 Doctor Who Scenes More Terrifying When You Know The Truth
8. The Landlord's Nightmare
With its creepy-crawlies, wooden lady, and omniscient landlord, Knock Knock is one of the most unsettling Doctor Who stories in recent years. But like the best haunted house stories, it’s the tragedy rather than the scariness that unnerves you the most.
In a shock twist, we learn that the spooky happenings at 11 Cardinal Road are the result of the Landlord trying to protect his mother, with the house absorbing its tenants to extend her lifespan. The only way this twisted tale can end is with a mercy killing, with Eliza sacrificing herself, and her son, to the lice.
This scene required little acting from David Suchet, who had found himself in a similar predicament 50 years earlier.
As he recalled to Doctor Who: The Fan Show, he once rented a room in Liverpool with nothing more than a horsehair mattress and an old woolly coat in the way of bedding. On one occasion, the young Suchet went to bed… only to wake up “covered in woodlice”!
Being able to pull on a memory that traumatic clearly aided Suchet's performance, and it makes it even tougher to watch when you know that something similar happened to him in real life.