10 Most Terrifying Scenes In Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The Gentlemen are the scariest monsters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Featured exclusively in the tenth episode of Season 4, these terrifying creatures arrive in Sunnydale, silence the town with some magical trickery, and go hunting for human hearts.

There are many unsettling scenes with the Gentlemen, but their assault on the dormitories is definitely the scariest. After floating along the corridors with their footmen, the Gentlemen enter the room of a random student and remove his heart with a scalpel.

Again, it’s the lack of agency that makes this scene so frightening. Held down and unable to cry for help, the student looks on in terror as the Gentlemen carry out their twisted deed. And unlike many of the other scenes on this list, there’s no happy ending here. The last thing this young man will ever see is the metallic grin of the Gentlemen as they remove his heart.

It’s been several decades since the Gentlemen arrived in Sunnydale, and scenes like this are precisely why people are still talking about this classic – yet terrifying – episode.