MovieChat Forums > Le locataire (1976) Discussion > BEST CREEPY SCENE??

BEST CREEPY SCENE??

posted 21 years ago by BroadswordCallinDannyBoy
34 replies | jump to latest

Ok, this movie had a SUPERB creepy scene.
When Trelkovski goes to the bathroom to see what holds the people there and he sees himself staring at himself! THAT WAS KILLER!! You gotta admit. I expected someone to be looking at him, but, actually, Trelkovski is looking at himself...great scene. Probably one of the best. Then immediately after he sees the lady from the hospital in full body cast in the bathroom...genuine creepiness.

Another great one is in Twin Peaks...when the mother is trying to recall the mornings events and she thinks she saw the killer in her daughter's room...sends shivers down the spine as well.

The sad thing is that these types of scene of vintage suspense have been overshadowed by excessive gore in newer movies.

[–] jasonhurd 20 years ago

Boy, you hit on two of my all-time favorite creepy scenes. Another one is in "Repulsion" when Catherine Deneuve, supposedly alone in the apartment rummaging through her closet, then shuts the mirrored door only to see a menacing figure standing behind her! How about that whole hospital corridor scene in "Exorcist III" that goes on forever and ends so horrifically? That one made me yell out loud in the theater! BTW, to me "gore" and "suspense" are two completely different entities. Those who prefer suspense are more mentally involved in the story and perhaps more "wound up" emotionally, so that the payoff, when it comes, is devastating. Gorehounds, on the other hand, seem to have an almost prurient desire to see dismembered limbs, punctured eyeballs and blood gouting like a fountain. They could save their movie fare and just take a tour of their local abattoir; that's got everything they're looking for.

[–] 20 years ago

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[–] desultory1 17 years ago

Don't know if anyone mentioned this one yet, but the hallway/nurse scene in The Exorcist 3 is great for shock value

See you at the party, Richter.

[–] lordofthelake 17 years ago

Near the end, when the old people start coming towards him, turning into demons, that is very, very scary. I think maybe David Lynch lifted that scene for the one with the old people at the end of Mulholland Drive.

Oh and the funeral was very scary.

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[–] CosmicSlop 17 years ago

I loved that scene, woman with the snake tongue, fishnet, ppl smoking malb...it looked so good.

As for that scene when he's in the bathroom staring at himself, I don't know what would be more creepy, the original way to see himself starting back at him, or to see himself and everyone else standing in the lit windows staring back at him.

[–] Frengers 17 years ago

The whole film was almost nauseatingly creepy - and I mean that in a very good way. But the image of Trelkovsky's severed head in the woman's wig, bouncing outside the window like a basketball, gave me terrible nightmares as a child! A great Polanski chiller.

[–] mitjah 17 years ago

I've been wondering which movie that scene was from but now I finally found it. That same scene scared the p**s out of me as a child.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] Uh-Clem 20 years ago

I don't know why but the creepiest for me is when he moves the wardrobe and finds the bloody tooth in the hole in the wall. That's creepy, but then he puts it back! Gad, that just freaked me.

Fourmyle

[–] crystalrubi 20 years ago

I just watched this movie last night in my room alone and I couldn't sleep afterwards! The creepiness for me was the tension of whats going to happen around the corner. Polanski does a wonderful job of making the audience feel vulnerable. I recall several times when Trelkovsky leaves us in the darkened corridor to go back to his apartment and I was thinking "Don't leave me out here!" But the couple of scenes that really creeped me out were the ones where Trelkovsky just got runned over and sees that old lady and that old man Monsieur Zy and hes wearing that trench coat with the messed up lapels. Especially the scene where shes flicking her tongue. I loved the movie so much but I think next time I won't watch it alone.

[–] 20 years ago

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[–] dark_frances 14 years ago

Well I had found Trelkovsky repulsive from the very beginning, so I wasn't too worried for him, neither had I felt in any way inclined to empathise with him, but this "feeling vulnerable" thing might be a good point - I may have felt like that, in spite of my dislike for the character. Could it be that the one thing that annoys me so about movies like this one, or possibly Lynch flicks, or Kurosawa's Cure is the fact that they make me feel hazily vulnerable, and I hate that state?

I recall several times when Trelkovsky leaves us in the darkened corridor to go back to his apartment and I was thinking "Don't leave me out here!"

- I don't think I got the feeling from this movie, but I sure know what you're talking about

there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder

[–] dark_frances 14 years ago

That's what I was going to answer too, the tooth thing was creepy like hell. Seeing himself looking at the bathroom window was surely unsettling, but to me it felt more like something between a puzzle that made me curious and a sign of the randomness that was about to come, so the tooth gets the cake . Everything that happened after he became (a bit suddenly too) a raving lunatic left me a bit cold, because the worst had already happened (he had already lost his mind or soul, depending on interpretation), we and Trelkovsky had nothing left to lose. The hands fumbling from behind the closet, through the window, were a bit creepy too, but more on a simple visual level, they didn't give me any shivers.

there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder

[–] headnotfound 20 years ago

I agree dizzy.

The suspense building up to that scene is classic.

I also dig the scene when he realizes he is missing the tooth, and goes to the hole in the wall and finds it.

"If I cut off my arm, I say 'me and my arm', but if I cut off my head do I say, 'me and my head' or 'me and my body?'" - The Tenant

[–] MonicaBale 20 years ago

Yes, for me the scene where Trelkovsky goes to the bathroom to find out what holds the people there and he sees himself staring at himself, was really creepy, I wasn't specting to be him at all!

** God...that's weird... What the hell is Goofy!?**

[–] TemporaryOne-1 19 years ago

The opening sequence.

The eerie, organish-jazz music, the snot-green aquamarine lacey drapes and the snot-green aquamarine exterior, a transient face sheathed in pitch-blackness, the camera scaling down the exterior towards the snot-green aquamarine landing which is marked by a snot-green aquamarine splotch (broken glass, courtesy of Simone), the camera sweeping back upwards, nearly tilting upside down, to bring us a view in the same window with the human face slightly projected out of the blackness, closer to the window, then the camera pulling itself rightward, past more darkness, more of the snot-green aquamarine exterior, passing empty window after empty window, then slowing down in front of a window with elegant exterior decor (the bathroom...), with a beautiful woman standing in full, looking outward, and her face and entire being dissolves into Trelkovski's, the camera then scrolling through smoky air to bring us past gaslights and landings and black wrought iron balconies and craggy corners and another window with lacy drapes closed, its tenant walking past folding a bedsheet, then the camera sweeping downward at an angle past a black wrought iron fence and several landings, finally stopping in the apartment's courtyard and huge double doors, which swing open towards us as Trelkovski tentatively enters...

[–] jbross-1 19 years ago

if you all love the creepiness of this film (and i do)...i recommend
"Don't Look Now"
another great one.

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] Mat-37 19 years ago

"Another great one is in Twin Peaks...when the mother is trying to recall the mornings events and she thinks she saw the killer in her daughter's room...sends shivers down the spine as well. "

That scene is the creepiest ever for me - and it's even creepier than you thought; if you look closely, you'll see the killer's reflection in the mirror behind the mother.

The creepiest scene in the Tennant, for me, is a simple one, when he looks at the window and looks down to where the previous tennant jumped. The music is just... creepy.

Another scens that scared me a lot was the twin girls in The Shining.

- A point in every direction is the same as no point at all.

[–] erotomania206645 18 years ago

The bathroom scene in The Tenant was one of the creepier scenes i've ever seen.

i think that my next favorite 'hair-on-end' scene was in Hitchcock's "Rear Window" when you see Thorwald sitting in his dark room after the neighbor's dog is murdered and all you see is the cherry of his cigar(ette?)when he takes his drags. totally creeped me out.

currency and idiocy are man's greatest sins.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] NuYorkie 18 years ago

Temporary you must be reading my mind.

The opening scene when the camera slowly inspects the filthy old brownstone provokes the sense of uneasiness, disgust and depression. The antique, rusty, dirty looking sink and bathroom fixtures give me creeps. If I lived in a place like that I'd jump out of the window sooner or later lol. I hate those dreary, decrepit old buildings with yellowed window curtains from decades of smoking in a closed room or industrial drabness of the commie era(I got a similar feeling with the look of the computer game "Half Life"). When I come to think of it, there's something Eastern European about Mr. Z "decaying petty bourgeois" brownstone reminding me of Krakow or East Berlin, which makes sense because Trelkovsky is a French with Polish roots.

It's an amazing set design work by Pierre Guffroy who created the brownstone from scratch and made it look soooo creepy-real.

[–] spiffyjellybean 18 years ago

I was most freaked out by the hands coming round the side of the wardrobe in the scene where Trelkovsky uses it to block the window. Yep, the bit where he sees himself is super scary too!

[–] jscmedia 18 years ago

definately the LAST one.....

[–] paul-storoz 18 years ago

The ball jumping in front of the window,becaming a head,her/his mother's head...
brrrrr....

[–] yfguitarist 17 years ago

I agree with everyone in this thread. This movie planted itself firmly in my subconscious, really got under my skin. The direction was amazing at making you dread what was around each corner. So unbearably tense! The woman unwrapping the cloths from her head and smiling...jeez...and when he sees himself watching himself, holy cow. House on Haunted Hill (1999) referenced the ball bouncing and becoming a woman's head in a very creepy scene! Vertigo was amazingly creepy as well.

I love suspense films AND gore films! Sometimes both work well together, also. Please don't dismiss modern mainstream horror films like The Grudge, The Ring, The Omen (2006), The Others, etc. because they have wonderfully creepy images as well! All I'm saying is too many times people seem to be divided over generations/genres.

[–] BigEmpty 16 years ago

Since "The Others" was mentioned, it just hit me. The creepiest scene in that movie were the photographs of dead people posing like they are alive.

"It's good to be the King." Camecus

[–] Pearl_Jade 16 years ago

1. The church scene at Simone's funeral is what I most vividly remember when I first saw this movie. The way the music gets eerier as the priest's words become more and more morbid in describing the rotting of a corpse... then the priest even begins to look like a corpse himself. You can feel the walls closing in on Trelkovsky as though he's actually in a coffin. After that scene, I KNEW this movie was going to be brilliant.

2. The opening credits: Trelkovsky peers from the window. When the camera pans back up the window later, Simone is the one peering from the window, wearing the black print dress that Trelkovsky will later find in the closet.

3. The scene where Trelkovsky moves into the apartment -- THAT's how to film creepy. Nothing really happens, but a sense of foreboding hangs in the air. It starts out as rather happy and optimistic: Trelkovsky turns on the transistor radio and some Latin music plays. Then shortly after, we hear the pipes rattle and we see how dark and dreary and haunted this place is. When Trelkovsky sees his reflection in the full-length mirror, I almost expected someone to appear behind him.

[–] julazul 15 years ago

These tie:

A) The scary little ritualistic game in the coutyard below T's apt. where they have the little girl in a fool costume and a Trelkovski mask, and they're prodding and provoking her;

B) When he's in Stella's apt. and the doorbell rings. To me, this is the scariest: when you can make an ordinary occurence frought with fear.