This older couple George and Martha have a younger couple over for the evening and verbally eviscerate each other in front of them. As they're all sitting together in the living room, tensions high, Martha makes one snide remark too many and George excuses himself. We follow him down the hallway, Martha's nagging never receding in volume, and a high-pitched ringing starts. George enters a dark room, takes up a shotgun, we follow him back down the hallway with a cold stare in his eyes (all the while that needling tone sustains itself on the soundtrack, eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, alongside Martha talking and talking and talking). He trains it on the back of Martha's head, then the mousy wife of the younger couple notices and WAILS IN TERROR -- her scream harmonizes with the ringing sound for a looooong beat as we cut to everyone jerking their heads around to the man poised with the shotgun, Martha staring straight into camera in what she thinks is her moment of death.

Then BANG -- an umbrella pops out. Everyone tries to laugh it off, but what lingers is how fucking certain the outcome felt in that moment. George blowing his wife's head off, possibly turning the gun on his guests, then possibly turning it on himself, felt like such a natural conclusion to the hostility of the proceedings that the young wife's bloodcurdling scream was like a cathartic release of so much pent-up fear. Like she knew it could only end this way. Sandy Dennis sold the hell out of that moment.

I can't remember a scene making such a visceral impact on me in recent years, and I'm grateful to know that such a thing is still possible. This is one of my new favorite movies, and if anyone has a similar suggestion (black and white, suspenseful, spooky around the edges if not an outright horror film), I'd love to recapture this feeling.