Misc
Eye Scream, You Scream: The Best of Eyeball Horror
As humans, we pick up important information about our physical and social environment from the eyes we encounter. Brains respond to pupil changes, blinking patterns, and so on. It stands to reason that seeing another person’s eyeball not faring well could trigger the brain to respond unfavorably. In Shudder’s 101 Scariest Movie Moments of All Time, Rebekah McKendry weighed in on the science behind eye screams, explaining that pain involving the eyes is imaginable. Getting a limb cut off is inconceivable to most, but we’ve all been poked in the eye before. Because of this, we can empathize with that pain even when we see it depicted on a larger, more devastating scale in scary movies.

“But here, we must stop peremptorily. We are in danger of digging deeper than the eye approves.” -Virginia Woolf, 1927. Street Haunting: A London Adventure
Did you know that the brain’s amygdala is triggered whenever it sees someone with more whites in their eyes than usual?
Your amygdala is the part of your brain that fires up when it’s time to be alert. The whites of the eyes (sclera) tend to be more noticeable when someone is afraid (e.g., their eyes are wider)
So, your brain is hardwired to respond when it sees a change in someone else’s eyes to help keep you alert in case of danger.
The sudden change in eyes could be one of the things that gives people the ultimate ick when someone’s eyeball is ripped out in a horror movie. That’s an awful lot of sclera; the amygdala must go wild.
In all seriousness, extreme eye horror (otherwise known as eye screams) can make even the most hardcore horror fans wince, and it could have something to do with the value our brains put on others’ eyes.
As humans, we pick up important information about our physical and social environment from the eyes we encounter. Brains respond to pupil changes, blinking patterns, and so on. It stands to reason that seeing another person’s eyeball not faring well could trigger the brain to respond unfavorably.
In Shudder’s 101 Scariest Movie Moments of All Time, Rebekah McKendry weighed in on the science behind eye screams, explaining that pain involving the eyes is imaginable. Getting a limb cut off is inconceivable to most, but we’ve all been poked in the eye before. Because of this, we can empathize with that pain even when we see it depicted on a larger, more devastating scale in scary movies.
How devastating can eye horror get? I’m so glad you asked!
In honor of our gore-filled theme this month, I bring you the best of eyeball horror. These are some of the most disturbing eye screams in scary movies.
The Best of Eyeball Horror in Scary Movies
A Razor to the Eye: Un Chien Andalou
We are coming out of the gate with one of the first to do it: Luis Buñel’s collaboration project with Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou (also known as An Andalusian Dog). This 1929 French-Spanish surrealist horror is a silent black-and-white film with a 16-minute runtime. The most notable moment occurs when a razor blade is dragged across a woman’s eye. The shot cuts to a close-up of an eyeball being cut with a razor. Un Chien Andalou used an actual sheep’s eye, making the gooey result one of the most haunting moments in eyeball horror.
The New York Ripper would present a similar scene in 1982, though arguably not to the same squirm-inducing effect of its predecessor, opting for a bloody show rather than a gooey one.
That’s far from the last time we’d see the old razor to the eyeball, with it being one of the required dares in Would You Rather and the key to surviving the Death Mask trap in Saw 2.
But eyeball horror doesn’t always have to be about a brutal direct attack on the eye to be horrifying.
Forced Viewing: Fire in the Sky
One of the luxuries that anyone who watches a horror movie can afford is the ability to look away from what they see. At any point, no matter how bad it gets, we can shut our eyes, turn away, or turn it off at any time.
When we see that taken away from a character on screen, not only are we appalled by imagining the physical sensation of having our eyes clamped open like in A Clockwork Orange, but we also relate to the psychological aspect of being forced to watch something that we don’t want to see.
We saw a similar notion in Opera when a woman’s eyes are held open with pins, and she’s forced to watch her boyfriend get murdered. Also, in Bird Box, when the grubby man holds someone’s eyes open to make them see the horror that was driving everyone crazy. Bird Box has the added haunting factor of leaving us to wonder where those hands had been.
Yet, dirty hands or old-fashioned brainwashing are no comparison to the eye-clamp scene from Fire in the Sky. Talk about nightmares upon nightmares. The various slimes the alien abductee is subjected to are horrible enough without the machines that follow them, all while his eye is held open, forced to watch all of it.
The concept of being forced to watch your demise is haunting beyond words. Final Destination 5 most certainly got the memo on that and decided to up the scare factor.
Eye Surgery: Final Destination 5
While the Final Destination franchise went for the eyes more than once (here’s looking at you and your fire escape ladder, Final Destination 2), Final Destination 5’s take on laser eye surgery ensured some people would be in glasses for life.
Final Destination 5 showed us a patient about to undergo corrective eye surgery. She ends up left alone in a room where her head is locked down, her eyes are clamped open, and there is a giant laser beam shooting directly into her eyeball.
While films like Minority Report and The Eye could give anyone the jitters about eye surgery, they are no match for a high-powered laser to the eye.
As a friendly aside, you can take solace in knowing that eye surgery doctors have gone out of their way to point out all the inaccuracies in Final Destination 5.
Intraocular Foreign Bodies: Zombi 2
We all know the feeling of having something stuck in our eye, but I think most of us cannot relate to the level of impalement we see in films like Brightburn’s shard of glass, The Beyond‘s finger, or Demonia’s cat’s paw.
But amongst all those foreign bodies that ended up in the eyeball, the girl on Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 had it the worst. Unluckily for her, she ran into a pre-Return of the Living Dead era zombie. Before zombies were explicitly known for craving blood and flesh, sometimes zombies were just assholes for no reason. What else would possess a zombie to drag a person, eyeball first, towards a shard of wood? The agonizing slow motion of the shot, coupled with the payoff after the splinter hits paydirt and continues to nestle further into her skull, makes this list incomplete without it.
Feast (on) your Eyes: Naked Blood
When you think eye screams can’t get any worse, they become dessert. We’ve already gone over some of the intricacies of why we don’t like to see things happen to the eyes. But to see them being eaten is violating on an entirely different level.
Once you see an eyeball being eaten, it takes on a new texture. I can picture the veiny slimeball from here. Plus, there’s the whole added insult of not only having your eyeball taken from you but eaten as well. There’s no nutritional value in that! This is me casting an extra-large side eye to the cannibals in Green Inferno.
But worse than having someone else doing it is becoming so disconnected from reality that you do it to yourself. For that, Splatter: Naked Blood receives the ultimate award for serving eyeball in the worst possible way. When an experimental drug makes the pain feel like pleasure, Naked Blood showed us that one of life’s most sumptuous delicacies could be your eyeball.
Two Thumbs Up: The Descent
Going for the eyes is one of our best defenses if attacked. The Descent gives a solid two thumbs up to this idea because we see it successfully used against one of the Crawlers. Of course, we’ve seen someone get the double thumb treatment in films like Evil Dead, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, and Rob Zombie’s Halloween, to name a few. But of all the double-thumb eye gouges in horror movies, The Descent has one of the best.
As much as going for the eyes should be a go-to against villains, it isn’t often enough that we get protagonist-initiated eyeball horror. Topple that with the depth of the knuckles and the ensuing ooze – perfect execution. She had to have tickled that man-bat’s brainstem for how deep her thumbs went into his orbits.
A Plucking Good Time: My Bloody Valentine
As the length of this list should show, there’s no shortage of assaults on the eyes in horror. One of the most common assaults comes in the form of watching the eye be removed from the skull. We can look at the Eye Vacuum Trap in Saw X to see how creative horror has gotten with this idea. However, of all the ways an eye can come out of its socket, the pickaxe through the jaw in My Bloody Valentine will always be an eye-popping good time.
We will also give an honorable mention to the eyeball rip in Kill Bill: Volume 2. Not only was her eye plucked out, but it was also her last remaining eye, and it got squished under bare toes into carpet fibers. There are so many layers of things to be unsettled about.
Speaking of unsettling, I saved my personal most disturbing eyeball horror moment for last.
Don’t Run with Scissors: Hostel
While I can’t go through every weapon or various item that has found a way to end up in someone’s eyeball in a horror movie or two, I must make a notable exception when it comes to scissors. We’ve seen scissors to the eye before, with Unhinged coming immediately to mind.
Yet no scissor-to-eye stabbing offers quite the unique scissor-to-the-eyeball that Hostel does, as Hostel gave us a double scoop of eye screams. First, as audience members, we had to contend that her eyeball had melted out of its socket via blowtorch and was now hanging there, flapping about.
But then, in one of the most questionable moves ever presented in a horror movie, our protagonist decided to use scissors and cut off the hanging, half-melted, flapping eye. I’m still trying to figure out in what world he thought this would help.
The ensuing yellow pus that oozed out of the severed optic nerve was the cherry on top of a sundae that absolutely zero persons ordered – yet it will forever go down in infamy as one of the most ick-inducing eye screams of all time. (Well done!)
One of the childhood stories I frequently heard growing up was the time I gouged out part of my dad’s eyeball. Apparently, as a baby, I took a scoop out of his sclera with my little toddler fingernail. Does this make me an expert on all things eyeball horror? Of course not! If there are any fantastic eye screams you think are missing from this list, let us know @HORRORPRESSLLC on Twitter and Instagram.
Misc
Celebrating Shudder: A Decade of Chills, Thrills, and Horror Nirvana
Whether your journey has just started, or you’re a seasoned viewer of frights, this app has got you covered. As someone who has seen over 400 of the titles currently available, I can curate a selection of Shudder Originals and Exclusives that might leave your eyeballs sizzling in one way or another. These are the best Shudder Originals and Exclusives for Horror Lovers to celebrate the steamers 10th birthday.

I am writing this in the middle of the night, bathed in red light and the soft glow of the Shudder stream, as I have spent many nights. A decade feels like forever ago, yet it feels like yesterday. Time is a flat circle, a snap, a blink, but it is dense with memories: heavy. My childhood was filled with Horror films. I caught them on TV. My family had a VCR and VHS tapes when I was in 4th grade. If I showed interest in a movie (given it didn’t seem too sexy), my mom would try to take me to see it. We bonded over perusing the horror aisles in Blockbuster and taking advantage of the 4 for $20 deals. As the video stores closed (during my college years), and I had less time for the theater, my relationship with Horror grew distant. I would likely have missed a film if I couldn’t get it from Netflix or the $5 Walmart bin. As streaming took over, there weren’t many apps dedicated to Horror. There was no way for me to stumble across a film like Demonic Toys or The Toxic Avenger. I was missing the chaos and charm of indie horror films hand-picked by teens who saw A Nightmare On Elm Street before grade school. I found a few gems along the way, but Shudder changed my Horror experience. My homegirl, Kat, discovered the app and passed the word along to me (down the hall) 8 years ago– or more. Shudder was like (is like) having a personal video store Horror section to browse through from under a cozy blanket, while the world was (is) on fire.
From VHS to Shudder: A Horror Fan’s Journey
I’ve been kicking it with Shudder before there was a “start from the beginning” button: you had to manually rewind the movies if you were using a Roku (I was using a Roku). I felt annoyed, but nostalgic for the “Be Kind, Rewind” days. I remember when the Ghoul Log launched. We, Girl, That’s Scary, used to record with it streaming in the background. I was there when Host (2020) dropped: I never wanted to open Zoom again (despite teaching online for a living). I was tuned in before The Last Drive-In, which has connected Horror fans across the internet with live updates across social media. Shudder has been with me through three apartments, a few jobs, and major life events. When I wanted to tune out of reality for a tight 90 minutes (give or take), I could lean on Shudder to show me something wild enough to pull me from the gloomy grips of the world around me. Disassociating while spending 45 minutes browsing movies, just to fall asleep with the remote in my hand. I could silence the noise around me by rolling the dice on the Shudder stream and hoping I caught something I hadn’t already seen, or the beginning of a new movie. There’s nothing like punctuating a fresh nightmare with the tail end of City of the Living Dead (1980) playing on the Shudder stream. The world feels a little lighter when you aren’t living near an open portal of hell (although sometimes it feels like it).
Shudder has helped me escape during hard times, and deepened my love and appreciation for the genre. The app was my gateway into Italian Horror and nurtured my love for Giallo films. I learned I love the French Extreme subgenre with titles like Frontiers (2007) and Inside (2007). Shudder put the Gates of Hell (City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, and The House By The Cemetery) and The Vengeance trilogy ( Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance) in my lap. Late nights scrolling through the titles is how I experienced Dream Home (2010) and The Untold Story (1993): I was exposed to the world of Hong Kong Category III films. I discovered the unsettling scares in Terrified (2017) and Satan’s Slaves: Communion (2022). It’s hard for me to find scares that chill me to the bone. The ability to touch the fear that kept me awake as a child feels like home. Shudder also keeps me connected to new Horror films by creating a pathway from the festivals directly to my screen. I have discovered so many films, I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.
Whether your journey has just started, or you’re a seasoned viewer of frights, this app has got you covered. As someone who has seen over 400 of the titles currently available, I can curate a selection of Shudder Originals and Exclusives that might leave your eyeballs sizzling in one way or another.
Shudder is dedicated to the Horror fan in you: embrace it.
The Best Shudder Originals and Exclusives for Horror Lovers
The Hell House LLC Franchise
The Hell House LLC franchise holds a special place in my heart, and I have Shudder to thank for it. I remember when there was only one movie, but the clowns pulled me back for multiple watches. While the sequels lack the punch of the first movies, waiting for them to release was a time to be alive! They are all worth a watch, however, the fourth installment might be the scariest after the original movie. Fans of found footage horror will get their fill with this franchise. These flicks are perfect for a late-night watch in the dark. The first three films follow the fatal events at the infamous Abaddon Hotel. The fourth movie takes the scares to The Carmichael Manor and expands on the lore.
MadS (2024)
MadS is a recent addition to the Shudder catalog, and it breathes new life into the zombie/infection subgenre. The film is a one-take as viewers bounce from one viewpoint to the next as the infection spreads. The infected have unique traits like the soft glow of their eyes and animal-like movements paired with human expressions of madness, dread, and despair. The pacing keeps your blood pumping like an action film, while focusing on a few characters. Mads follows a teenager who has a wild encounter with an injured woman after testing out a new drug from his dealer.
V/H/S Beyond (2024)
Many Horror fans were already familiar with the V/H/S franchise before it came to Shudder (I highly recommend the second installment). This franchise has been tweaking its recipe with each installment, and V/H/S Beyond is one of the best entries to date. This film centers on alien encounters and space, differing from the last few movies, which focused on a particular year. It feels more cohesive than other installments with the mockumentary format, as opposed to the “tape within a tape” format audiences were used to. Within fifteen minutes, V/H/S Beyond launches us into invasions from hell and drops nightmarish creature designs on viewers like anvils. I will never look at planes or oranges the same again.
Satan’s Slaves (2017) and Satan’s Slaves: Communion (2022)
This one-two punch is perfect for a Friday night fright. Joko Anwar knows how to craft a nightmare. The scares, lore, and deaths will make audiences squirm with dread. After their mother dies, the family is haunted by a dark presence. The stakes are high and scares cling to you like wet clothes. The less you know about the story, the scarier it will be.
One Cut of The Dead (2019)
While there is a trailer for this movie, I implore you to skip it. It’s difficult to discuss this movie without spoiling the plot. I recommend that you stop reading and press play now. You will go through various states of emotion while watching One Cut Of The Dead.
Bliss (2019)
Joe Begos delivers a trippy vampiric film with Bliss: He also knows how to bring the blood (See VFW and Christmas, Bloody, Christmas). The music and the lighting will seduce you, while the blood spray will give you a jolt of energy. The film follows an artist who turns to experimental drugs to deal with their creative block. The repercussions are deadly.
Cold Hell (2017)
I was happy to press play on this film. I blindly chose this movie and was pleasantly surprised by the action scenes and hand-to-hand combat. Cold Hell has elements of a noir film, a slasher, an action film, and a giallo. The plot focuses on a taxi driver who witnesses a murder and becomes a target. The cat-and-mouse ordeal is unique because the “mouse” is a trained boxer who doesn’t go down easily.
Tigers Are Not Afraid (2019)
I love a dark fairytale, especially when it’s international. Issa López intrigues viewers with magic and terrifies them with the horrors of the real world. We follow a group of young children who are left on their own as they escape the terrors of the cartel. The blend of magic and realism is masterful. Have your Kleenex ready because the movie takes tragic turns.
Psycho Goreman (2021)
Horror fans who love Power Rangers, Sci-Fi, and comedy should sprint to watch Psycho Goreman. The dialogue is quotable (for the Ironian tongue, of course!) and the special effects are great! The movie feels like an R-rated episode of Power Rangers, especially the battle scene in the forest. Psycho Goreman is wildly upbeat for a film that discusses destruction on a grand scale. The plot involves two siblings who accidentally resurrect an Alien Overlord with mixed results. There aren’t many scares, but there are plenty of laughs and blood.
Oddity (2024)
I have a lot of love for this self-contained revenge tale. It has Creepshow vibes with much less camp. I appreciate horror films that give us something new without reinventing the wheel. Oddity is the haunting tale of a sister going after those responsible for the death of her twin sister. The haunting atmosphere, biting dialogue, and supernatural thrills make this film rewatchable.
In A Violent Nature (2024)
I didn’t know I needed an arthouse version of Friday The 13th. In A Violent Nature feels like watching someone play an open-world video game as a slasher. The majority of the movie is from the killer’s perspective, even when the killing is not happening: this creates opportunities for moments of comedy. The dialogue can be grating, but the kills are inventive and bloody. One of the kills is one of the wildest kills I have seen in Horror. We follow a group of teens who remove a necklace from a collapsed fire tower in the woods, resurrecting Johnny’s spirit (and corpse) with deadly consequences.
Infested (2023)
Infested is one of the best killer bug movies I’ve seen in a long time. It glued me to my seat and made me want to burn all of my clothes at the same time. The film follows a young man who brings home a venomous spider. The entire building is in danger once the spider escapes and begins to reproduce. Killer bug movies are usually campy due to over-the-top creature design or sound design. Infested leaves the “camp” behind and brings the thrills and high stakes. The fear is tangible through the screen.
If you don’t have a Shudder membership, fix that here!
Misc
Friday the 13th Final Girls, Ranked
While the Friday the 13th franchise helped codify the trope of the final girl, no two final girls are exactly alike. So let’s take a real good look at all of the survivors of the various rampages of the Voorhees family (and Roy) through Crystal Lake and beyond, and how well they acquitted themselves both as final girls and as characters in a movie you’ve elected to generously donate between 80 and 100 minutes of your life to.

While the Friday the 13th franchise helped codify the trope of the final girl, no two final girls are exactly alike. So let’s take a real good look at all of the survivors of the various rampages of the Voorhees family (and Roy) through Crystal Lake and beyond, and how well they acquitted themselves both as final girls and as characters in a movie you’ve elected to generously donate between 80 and 100 minutes of your life to.
Every Friday the 13th Final Girl Ranked
#12 Lori Campbell (Freddy vs. Jason)
The most telling thing about Lori is that she is the only final girl on the list where I struggled to remember her face, her name, or a single thing about her. By virtue of this being a crossover between two horror movie titans, she takes a backseat in her own story once she and her friends set up the smackdown of the century.
#11 Whitney Miller (Friday the 13th 2009)
This is another Lori situation. Whitney simply isn’t that interesting, and she’s not really a central character in her own movie. Even if you’re willing to roll with the weird wrinkle of her being kidnapped by Jason at the beginning of the movie, she only technically becomes the final girl by dint of not being murdered and not for any other reason. Although she does pull off some of the most notable final girl moves from previous movies once she’s activated, she’s just not really part of the action for the majority of the runtime. More than anything, she’s here to be the damsel in distress that fuels the brooding of Jared Padalecki and his bangs.
#10 Pam Roberts (Friday the 13th: A New Beginning)
With one exception, any final girl from a movie in the Tommy Jarvis trilogy is going to rank pretty low. These are “final boy” movies through and through, and only really have final girls as a matter of tradition. Pam does have that fun moment with the chainsaw, but for the most part she is only around to slip in the mud and turn into a quivering heap whenever Jason shows up.
#9 Trish Jarvis (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter)
Trish, Tommy Jarvis’ older sister, offers the movie something of an inroad into the antics of the sexy teens staying in the house next door, but beyond that, she’s a flavorless nothing who has very little to offer either in terms of interest or her own survival. She was never going to outshine Tommy Jarvis, but she doesn’t even try.
#8 Jessica Kimble (Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday)
Jessica combines the worst attributes of all the women on the lower third of this list. In addition to barely making a blip in the narrative of her own story (it’s hard to do that when Creighton Duke is burning through the movie like someone is holding up a magnifying glass to the film reel), she is a boring character who doesn’t even have enough identifiable traits to be called one-dimensional. However, the Voorhees Legend (or whatever) says that she’s the only one who can defeat Jason, and by God she does, ceremonial dagger and all.
#7 Rennie Wickham (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan)
Honestly, Rennie is pretty useless too. She doesn’t put much effort into defeating Jason or using her weird psychic connection to his child-ghost self to her advantage. She pretty much just lets New York City’s toxic waste flood take care of him. Her position on the chart is mainly because of her glorious hair. Also, I like that they put so much work into setting up that she’s been given Stephen King’s pen, and then she stabs Jason in the eye with it. I’m a simple man.
#6 Chris Higgins (Friday the 13th Part III)
I think the final moments of Chris’ battle against Jason are quite superb, but for the most part she just runs around screaming for her boyfriend, Rick, and turning off faucets.
#5 Rowan (Jason X)
Rowan is a decent final girl, when push comes to shove! As a researcher, she has a set of skills, which don’t necessarily come in handy, but it’s nice to have skills. And she’s pretty quick on her feet when it comes to luring Jason into traps and attempting to neutralize him so others can be safe from his rampage.
#4 Megan Garris (Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives)
Megan proves that you can overcome the limitations of being a Tommy Jarvis era final girl through sheer force of personality. She doesn’t assist that much in the eventual defeat of Jason, but she’s a hell of a fun, vivacious person for Tommy to play off of, and she injects the movie with energy whenever she’s onscreen.
#3 Alice Hardy (Friday the 13th 1980)
Alice has her faults, but she is simply iconic. She can’t be number 1, because she doesn’t know she’s in a slasher movie for the majority of the run time, and her response to danger is to laboriously make coffee. But when push comes to shove, she fights for her life hard, and Mrs. Voorhees’ decapitated head is quite a trophy for her mantle.
#2 Tina Shepard (Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood)
Now, Tina’s a bit of a wet blanket when it comes to interacting with the various sexy and/or evil teens in the movie. But when it’s her and Jason, mano a mano, wow does she shine. Her telekinetic powers might be a weird swerve for the franchise, but she wields them with aplomb, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him in her wild, fierce fight for survival.
#1 Ginny Field (Friday the 13th Part 2)
Ginny Field is the final girl we should all strive to be. She’s smart, resourceful, horny (catch her in my previous article about final girls who have sex and survive their slasher movies in spite of it), and fun to be around. She uses her skills as a child psychology major to tap into Jason’s connection with his mother (which, I assume, is how every child psych major assumes they will be applying their knowledge once they’re out in the real world), she knows how to wield a pitchfork, and she’s got the calisthenics training for some solid running and hiding. She’s the total package.