Outside of his work as the bassist in alt-metal pioneers Life of Agony, Alan Robert is a horror enthusiast. A graphic novelist and comic book artist, he's written and illustrated numerous series' including Wire Hangers, Crawl to Me and Killogy, created an adult horror-themed coloring book series called The Beauty of Horror, and even has is very own Monster Chompers NFT line dropping on Halloween.
The guy knows his stuff, so we wanted to pick his brain and see what he thinks are the most quintessential scenes in horror movie history. Since he could only choose five, iconic moments like the bed scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street and the TV scene in The Ring just barely didn't make the cut, but the below ones did.
"The big question is: how the hell do you narrow it down to just 5?" Robert asks rhetorically. "I'm sure these choices will be debated into eternity, but these are the iconic horror movie scenes that are forever burned into my brain."
From a "hauntingly beautiful" slasher finale to a shot that uses "real organs" to yield maximum scares, these are the incredible scenes from horror history that Robert considers the most iconic of all time.
5. The Exorcist (1973) - Regan's head twist
In 1973, this was basically considered the scariest film ever made. When Regan, played by 12 year old Linda Blair, gets possessed by a malevolent demon, it contorts her body in unspeakable ways, including spinning her head 360 degrees!
4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - Leatherface's chainsaw dance
The last shot of the film is hauntingly beautiful. Leatherface dancing around the road with his trusty chainsaw. The way the sun glare peeks through his silhouette, it's creepy, graceful, and completely twisted. I love it!
3. The Shining (1980) - "Here's Johnny" axe scene
Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) hunts down his family with an axe, in this Stanley Kubrick adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel. The most iconic moment inside the Overlook Hotel, besides the wicked flashes of the creepy Grady twins, is definitely Jack chopping his way through the bathroom door. Believe it or not, Nicholson ad-libbed the "Here's Johnny!" line, as a nod to Ed McMahon's nightly intro for Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show.
2. Alien (1979) - Chest-burster Scene
Everyone's favorite baby Xenomorph made his silver screen debut by violently protruding out of Kane's (John Hurt) chest in this iconic scene that was somehow filmed all in one take. Director Ridley Scott used real organs from the butcher shop to fill in the actor's prosthetic chest cavity in order to mystify audiences into thinking that this creature actually emerged from his body.
1. An American Werewolf in London (1981) - Transformation Scene
American backpackers David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) ignore warnings to "stay off the moors" and ultimately find themselves mauled by a vicious werewolf. Jack is killed off instantly, but David ends up recovering from his wounds in an English hospital for several weeks — until the next full moon that is. David's transformation into the werewolf was so groundbreaking in 1981 that Rick Baker took home the Oscar for his revolutionary makeup effects.
