Sophia Michaels
Across 100+ years, horror audiences have witnessed some of the most terrifying and disturbing acts committed to film, but it’s not just what the characters are doing that makes for memorable moments. What they’re saying can have just as much of an impact, and the best horror movies of all time are filled with some of cinema history’s most memorable quotes.
To be sure, the following list of memorable horror movie quotes isn’t solely a round-up of the genre’s most famous or overused utterances and declarations. Rather, it’s a more general assortment of wicked, off-kilter, and/or darkly amusing pieces of dialogue that I (and presumably others) have been repeating in the many years since the respective films were released. So some of them will be quite popular, such as the following promise from the Hell Priest himself.
We have such sights to show you. (Hellraiser)
Doug Bradley’s iconic horror antagonist Pinhead remains a disturbing force in horror cinema, with sadism as his guiding force. Thus, he has the power to make those seven words as disturbing a promise as there could ever be. As far as everyday usage goes, it’s best to bring it into completely ironic situations, such as looking for dinner options inside a mostly empty refrigerator. Or, you know, welcoming someone into your own pocket of hell.
Gimme back my hand. Gimme back my hand! (Evil Dead II)
Essentially everything Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams says in both the Evil Dead film franchise and TV series can be considered Best Quote material, but I’m particularly taken with this moment in which Ash makes this desperate plea to the evil possessing the extremity he’s begging for. It’s both sad and delightfully absurd all at once, which is apropos for Sam Raimi’s cabin-set sequel.
You open the beaches on the 4th of July, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for Christ’s sakes. (Jaws)
Roy Scheider’s Chief Brody will always be best remembered for wanting a bigger boat — thanks in no minor part to an old Taco Bell campaign — but his ominous warning to Mayor Vaughn is one of my favorite lines in Jaws. Is it partly because I like thinking about the film’s killer threat hearing a dinner bell in its head upon seeing families splashing around, possibly while licking its lips? Probably.
The third Elm Street film introduced Freddy Krueger’s penchant for calling his victims “bitch,” and he arguably never topped this kill-scene punchline that preceded the electrocution death of the self-harming Jennifer. It definitely helps that Freddy’s head was sticking out of the top of a TV at the time, with the antenna sticking up from his scalp.
To a new world of gods and monsters. (Bride of Frankenstein)
Possibly Bride of Frankenstein’s most influential line of dialogue (at least in terms of setting up the DCU’s first chapter), the line above doesn’t come from anyone in the Frankenstein family, nor the monsters, nor the real-world poets. Rather, it’s Ernest Thesiger’s Dr. Pretorius who delivers the damningly apropos toast to Colin Clive’s doctor. It’s never a bad idea for a wedding toast.
God’s not supposed to be a hack horror writer. (In the Mouth of Madness)
John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness is a mind-twister in lots of ways, and this line delivered by Sam Neill’s John Trent informs the cyclical storytelling in a self-deprecating way. But even beyond the meta-textual appeal, it’s also just a good line in and of itself. I don’t think there are any religions where God is described as a hack horror writer.
Don’t kill me, Mike. I’m basically a good kid, so just don’t kill me. (The Lost Boys)
Sometimes I wish all teens in all movies were as charismatic and fun to watch as Corey Haim’s Sam in The Lost Boys. He’s such a great surrogate for the audience, especially when being lovingly paranoid about being targeted by his newly vampiric brother Michael. No use trying to bullshit his brother by saying he’s a great kid.
I’m the Devil. Now kindly undo these straps. (The Exorcist)
Linda Blair’s demonically charged Regan delivers a slew of A+ lines throughout The Exorcist, and I’ve always loved the matter-of-fact way she asks to be free. It’s the same tone in which I hear, “I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?” Just slightly more ornery.
I never wanted to be your mother. (Hereditary)
Toni Collette’s Annie no doubt delivers her biggest gut-punch lines during Hereditary’s harrowing dinner scene, but all of her rage in that moment is largely gone during her later far-too-frank conversation with son Peter, during which she drops the worst line any parent can ever tell their kid. And the only way to take the power out of that line is to repeat it in ways that have no contextual similarities.
Are you out of your fucking mind? (The Shining)
The Shining has been quoted endlessly since its 1980 release, for good reason. But one of the lines that still hits the hardest with each rewatch is Jack Torrence’s reaction when Wendy runs into the bar and attempts to warn him about the “crazy woman” who attacked Danny. The dude was still in the midst of drinking phantom booze while chatting with a ghost, and still had the gall to act that self-righteous. It may be my favorite line reading of Jack Nicholson’s from any film.
He got hungry. (Halloween)
As awful as Michael Myers is as a character in general, what with all the murdering, one of the most disturbing details about the mentally disturbed killer is that whole dog-eating thing. And Loomis’ three words indicating as much will always get a laugh out of me while watching John Carpenter’s O.G. Halloween.
Where we’re going, we don’t need eyes to see. (Event Horizon)
While not perfect, Event Horizon remains one of the snazziest space horror movies out there, and few genre antagonists can get under my skin as easily as Sam Neill’s Dr. Billy Weir in the third act. Obviously because he’d gouged out his own eyes, and was able to form coherent sentences instead of merely screaming in place due to all the missing eyeballs pain.
I never drink…wine. (Dracula)
No matter how many years it’s been since Tod Browning’s Dracula first brought Bram Stoker’s vampire count to life (so to speak), this semi-vaudevillian line never gets old. “Take my wife…’s blood. Please.”
Don’t you see that killing me is not going to bring back your apples? (The Wicker Man)
The fact that this appeal to logic amidst mob mentality is laid out so sincerely is a big part of why it still disturbs me to this day. Edward Woodward’s Sgt. Neil Howie shouldn’t really have to try all that hard to convince Summerisle’s residents that human sacrifices as a botany tactic are malarkey. But some people just never learn.
I can see your dirty pillows. Everyone will. (Carrie)
Piper Laurie will forever remain one of horror cinema’s most problematic mother figures thanks to her Oscar-nominated performance as Carrie’s puritanical matriarch Margaret White. The fact that she calls her daughter’s breasts “dirty pillows” bothered me in unexplainable ways as a kid. Now, I admittedly kind of adore that gross-ass phrasing.
They’re gazebos! They’re bullshit! (IT)
For a movie so steeped in childhood trauma and the nightmares a dancing clown can provide, the first part of Andy Muschietti’s IT features quite a few big laughs, sometimes mixed with unsettling freakiness. Such was the case when Jack Dylan Graazer’s Eddie Kaspbrak took a stand against his mother regarding his asthma medicine, but didn’t quite nail the pronunciation of “placebo.”
You’ve gotta be fucking kidding. (The Thing)
So often in horror movies, characters don’t make the kinds of rational decisions that people would make in everyday life. But The Thing features more than a few moments where its survivors are completely relatable in their dumbfounded reactions to the madness happening around them, exemplified best by David Clennon’s Palmer dryly expressing disbelief over the ever-evolving and always goopy alien threat.
A man doesn’t always know why he does things, Louis. (Pet Sematary)
Fred Gwynne’s Pet Sematary character Jud Crandall is perhaps most synonymous with the line “Sometimes, dead is better,” which is a nice and practical viewpoint within that film’s dour universe. But I’ve always leaned more into Jud’s oversimplified anti-excuse above, which speaks directly to the parental urges that lead Louis to bring his son Gage back from the dead, without really speaking to them at all. “Sometimes people do dumb shit, Louis” was probably the first-draft version.
That’s my mother you’re pissing on. (Dead Alive)
Peter Jackson’s batshit 1993 splatterfest Dead Alive is filled with depraved and darkly hilarious scenes, characters, and dialogue that are wholly unique to the New Zealand filmmaker’s talents. And of all the singular lines strewn throughout the film, I particularly love Timothy Balme’s Lionel Cosgrove remarking in slight disgust that his mum is being tinkled on. Nothing in Citizen Kane about moms being peed on, just saying.
My family’s always been in meat. (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre)
It can be easy to forget just how much of director Tobe Hooper’s sense of humor shines through in each of his classic films, and even though the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre isn’t anywhere near as bonkers as its 1986 sequel, there are still some big laughs to gnaw on while watching Sally survive Leatherface and the Sawyer family. None perhaps are as on the (half-eaten) nose as The Hitchhiker’s foreshadowing admission noted above, which at first seems like just an innocent reference to slaughterhouse duties, but soon takes on entirely different meanings.
This is only a small assortment of the vast array of memorable and quotable lines from scary cinema. While thinking about your own favorites, be sure to check out all the upcoming horror movies that will hopefully provide some amazing lines that we haven’t heard yet.
