Leigh Whannell picks the scariest horror film scene of all time

The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell has picked out what he believes to be the scariest scene in the history of horror cinema.

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The filmmaker, whose latest feature Wolf Man is due out early in the new year, picked a tense scene from John Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing in an article for The Hollywood Reporter.

“The blood test scene in John Carpenter’s The Thing is a high water mark of terror for me,” Whannell wrote. “Kurt Russell’s character MacReady is using a flamethrower to heat up a wire and then stab it into a blood sample taken from every member of the science team. We know that the blood will react and reveal which of them has been taken over by the alien, and the suspense is unbearable.”

“As a filmmaker, I’m always trying to come up with scenes that deliver suspense but do it in a way that is somehow new,” he continued. “This scene does that so well. It’s so scary, but it’s such a unique set piece. Simply testing each person’s blood becomes the engine of suspense, and it’s simple – but when the scene explodes, it gets me every time.”

“In a movie that is, in my opinion, perfect in every way, this remains the highlight. The first time I saw it I could barely look at the screen…but even now, after the dozens if not hundreds of times I’ve seen the film, it still works,” he concluded.

Whannell made his directorial debut with the horror sequel Insidious: Chapter 3 in 2015, followed by the cyberpunk action film Upgrade in 2018.

Wolf Man, from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures, stars Christopher Abbott (Poor Things) as Blake, as a San Francisco husband and father who, after defending his family from an unseen animal, eventually transforms into the titular monster.

An official synopsis reads: “Blake inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth).

“But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter.”

Also starring Sam Jaeger, Ben Prendergast and Benedict Hardie, and produced by Ryan Gosling (who was once attached to star, before Abbott took over the role), Wolf Man is scheduled to be released in cinemas on January 17, 2025.

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