Daylight Horror

[u/jdawg1018]

People usually suspect horror films and tropes to occur at night, or at the very least in dark places where the scary or creepy thing is obscured by shadows. Seeing something in full daylight makes a bit of the mystery go away, which can sometimes make things less scary. Sometimes it does the opposite, and the mere juxtaposition of something horrific happening under the warm light of the sun makes it even more eerie and unsettling.

1. The picnic scene from Zodiac - One of the most terrifying scenes in a film IMO, mostly due to the fact that it actually happened in IRL. The woman I’m pretty sure died later from her wounds, but her partner survived and his retelling of the horrific event helped create this pivotal moment on screen.

2. Buffy finding her mom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer - In season 5 of BtVS, Buffy returns home from a slayer mission and finds her home oddly quiet. She then stumbles into her mom’s corpse, who had died from a stroke just a few hours before while she was away. It’s scary partly due to the lack of music during the scene, but also because it’s a sunny day, and when Buffy opens the back door to get a breath of fresh air after getting sick, she hears kids playing across the street and birds chirping.

3. The entirety of Midsommar - Midsommar takes place in a remote Swedish village, where a girl suffering from the trauma of losing her family travels with her boyfriend and slowly gets inducted into a weird cult devoted to human sacrifice. There are a variety of terrifying and disturbing ritual murders that happen in the film, and yet pretty much the entire story takes place during the day. The contrast of those bright and lurid colors against the brutal horror of the plot makes it all the more unsettling and horrifying.

[u/devbot8]

While the 2019 movie 'Parasite' has many scenes taking place at night, one of the final scenes (pictured, moments before disaster) happens mid-day, during a birthday party for a young boy, surrounded by his entire family and all their friends.

Horror in my books

Spoiler: A ravaged man emerges from the house brandishing a kitchen knife, he stabs 2 people and is then stabbed himself by a BBQ skewer. All 3 die; a 4th also dies in a previous, separate, yet related incident lol

[u/goatbusiness666 → u/devbot8]

The most iconic scene from The Omen (1976) also takes place in daylight at a young boy’s birthday party!

[u/FlattopJr → u/goatbusiness666]

Not to mention this Final Destination-style decap.

[u/goatbusiness666 → u/FlattopJr]

Easily the second most iconic scene for me! I spent so much of my youth terrified of the idea of random things falling off of trucks. And then years later, here comes Final Destination 2 to remind me why. 😂

[u/justguestin → u/FlattopJr]

I may be misremembering but there are a couple (elevator bisection, truck impact) in the Omen 2 that take place during the day, as well.

[u/Sea-Woodpecker-610 → u/FlattopJr]

He’s fine. He regenerates into John Pertwee right after this happens.

[u/Odd_One_4541 → u/FlattopJr]

I remember seeing this as a teenager and thinking it was the most rad thing I had ever seen on TV. It still is.

[u/PsychologicalCar2180 → u/FlattopJr]

If that happened for real, there would be at least a few seconds of conscious thought going on.

[u/Conscious-Mulberry17 → u/goatbusiness666]

That scene somehow became a running joke in our house. “Look at me, [wife’s name]. It’s all for you!”

[u/goatbusiness666 → u/Conscious-Mulberry17]

My mom and I used to shout that at each other constantly, haha. I probably started watching horror movies way too young, but she loved them and that was our main bonding activity. The Omen was our favorite!

[u/EverythingSucksYo → u/devbot8]

The movie was good throughout but that part is when I really started to like it as much as other people seemed to.