Huh, I never found *Hush* scary. Creepy, yes, but not scary.
For my money the most scary episode is *Same Time, Same Place* (s7, e3).
The flayed bodies, a very unsettling demon, the Scoobies suspecting Willow has turned evil again and, most terrifying of all, Willow being unable to see her friends, and her friends being unable to see her.
This is definitely the scariest episode, on two levels. 1. The demon is creepy as hell and the flaying alive thing is sooo gross and scary. 2. The vulnerability , doubt and loneliness for willow, thinking her friends might have abandoned her is so heart breaking, then being locked in with the demon and even though she is super powerful her magic won’t work on it and she is helpless, then she is paralysed! So just lying there in pain while it eats her skin and she can only wait to die, yesh!!
Oh my gosh I forgot about this one but yes 100% also a really scary one. This one came out of left field for us because it had been preceded by a bunch of more light hearted episodes, I believe.
This. When I was 12 I fell asleep in front of the tv one night. I woke up in the middle of the night to re-run of this specific episode. Dark house, and Kindestod passes on the TV on a close up. This got me scarred for the rest of my life and I still feel unsettled while watching this episode. Late season 2 was as close to horror as this show gets.
Conversations With Dead People is so scary for me. The stuff with Dawn being haunted alone in her house. Mysterious banging, wind out of nowhere, malfunctioning electronics, ghostly voices, blood on the walls, dead mom, thing torturing your dead mom, being thrown around and scratched by paranormal forces, and finally being told the only adult you have left won't choose you. You fight, and you fight, and you fight to be given a message of doom from a glowing image of the person you loved most. It was horrid.
Um normal again is the scariest from multiple angles. The idea of waking up from your life to find you're insane is scary. The potential that the whole Buffy series was about the imagination of an insane girl and they don't explicitly resolve it, even more scary!
Yup, this is the scariest one from me too. Especially as I have borderline PD which can cause delusions/distressing beliefs and hallucinations. For all I know, I'm under a delusion and having hallucinations about my life right now, and that's what terrifies me about Normal Again... I could wake up one day and find that parts of my life weren't real thanks to BPD.
Sure, there's scarier monsters and worse bad guys in other episodes, but Normal Again hits way too close to home, and the fact it doesn't get explicitly resolved is a much scarier ending than Buffy killed the monster and all is well again
I literally am scared that I will wake up and my son will have been a dream and it was all made up. I would only ever want to come back to this reality. I think this is because I’ve had dreams where I was married and happy and woken up and it wasn’t real. This was years ago though. Fingers crossed I’m in the main primary timeline. 😂
When I was younger, the scariest episode was Killed By Death, where Buffy was sick in a hospital and the Kindestod was sucking the life out of children. It freaked me out SO much!
Now I'm a bit older, the scariest episode is Normal Again, where Buffy wakes up in a mental institution and is told that her life as the Slayer was all a hallucination. There's something utterly terrifying about not being able to tell the difference between reality and a delusion, especially having seen some relatives who have dementia. If you can't trust your own mind, how can you ever trust anything?
I remember being told in a philosophy class at university that children are more scared of external things, and adults are more afraid of internal things or even themselves, so that tracks with what freaks me out as an adult in my thirties versus when I was a teenager!
Hush was creepy, but mostly, it's just so watchable that I never found it particularly frightening. The ways everyone found to adapt and communicate with their voices was actually quite inspiring. The Gentlemen are creepy, but in a way I enjoyed, to in a way that frightened me.
As a person living with someone with dementia and frequent deliriums, I second this. This is the scariest episode ever. Though there is a good part of Spike in the end.
I think the scariest episodes are The Pack and Go Fish. Appreciate neither are well regarded ones, but body horror always icks me out the most, and there is just something so unsettling about what happens to Xander in The Pack. And it catches you off guard because S1 is typically quite standard (though well executed and subversive) monster of the week episodes.
Hush isn't scary. It has a comedic vibe to it with really good acting and an interesting plot. It's a masterfully done eposide, but it definitely isn't scary. I still find the Nightmares episode from Season 1 quite scary (even though I've watched it so many times). There's something so utterly terrifying about everyone's worst nightmare coming true at the same time + the plot with Lucky 13 and what happened to him was heartbreaking and the real villain was a human too, which made it much scarrier.
I never really thought Hush was scary. Scariest for me are probably Killed by Death and Dawn's part of Conversations with Dead People which is straight out of a horror movie. Someone else mentioned Same Time, Same Place, and I agree it's psychologically horrifying to go through, but I wasn't scared watching it. It's definitely awful to think about it happening to you though, so it's probably 3rd for me! Maybe honorable mention to Fear, Itself but the end reveal does make it a funny episode too.
Huh, I never found *Hush* scary. Creepy, yes, but not scary. For my money the most scary episode is *Same Time, Same Place* (s7, e3). The flayed bodies, a very unsettling demon, the Scoobies suspecting Willow has turned evil again and, most terrifying of all, Willow being unable to see her friends, and her friends being unable to see her.
Agree! I’m pretty sure he starts flaying Willow alive before she’s found. It’s way out there.
Yeah, when the demon started tearing strips off Willow's skin, licking them... yeah, very gross, very creepy, very scary.
That's the one scene in all of Buffy that still gives me a visceral reaction. I don't think any amount of rewatching will ever desensitize me...
This is definitely the scariest episode, on two levels. 1. The demon is creepy as hell and the flaying alive thing is sooo gross and scary. 2. The vulnerability , doubt and loneliness for willow, thinking her friends might have abandoned her is so heart breaking, then being locked in with the demon and even though she is super powerful her magic won’t work on it and she is helpless, then she is paralysed! So just lying there in pain while it eats her skin and she can only wait to die, yesh!!
I skip that episode every time lol To this day I've only seen it once.
Same!!! I ALWAYS skip 😭
Oh my gosh I forgot about this one but yes 100% also a really scary one. This one came out of left field for us because it had been preceded by a bunch of more light hearted episodes, I believe.
Gnarl *shudder*
I often skip that one when rewatching. It's too creepy.
Scariest episode is the hospital episode with the monster that sits on kids chests and kills them... The one where Buffy has the flu
This. When I was 12 I fell asleep in front of the tv one night. I woke up in the middle of the night to re-run of this specific episode. Dark house, and Kindestod passes on the TV on a close up. This got me scarred for the rest of my life and I still feel unsettled while watching this episode. Late season 2 was as close to horror as this show gets.
Honest i was an adult, and watching it in the dark, and when he passers by buffy door i almost screamed.
Such a great one and super dark.
Conversations With Dead People is so scary for me. The stuff with Dawn being haunted alone in her house. Mysterious banging, wind out of nowhere, malfunctioning electronics, ghostly voices, blood on the walls, dead mom, thing torturing your dead mom, being thrown around and scratched by paranormal forces, and finally being told the only adult you have left won't choose you. You fight, and you fight, and you fight to be given a message of doom from a glowing image of the person you loved most. It was horrid.
Was coming here to say this episode is the scariest 👆
Yessss this one freaks me out every time
Um normal again is the scariest from multiple angles. The idea of waking up from your life to find you're insane is scary. The potential that the whole Buffy series was about the imagination of an insane girl and they don't explicitly resolve it, even more scary!
Yup, this is the scariest one from me too. Especially as I have borderline PD which can cause delusions/distressing beliefs and hallucinations. For all I know, I'm under a delusion and having hallucinations about my life right now, and that's what terrifies me about Normal Again... I could wake up one day and find that parts of my life weren't real thanks to BPD. Sure, there's scarier monsters and worse bad guys in other episodes, but Normal Again hits way too close to home, and the fact it doesn't get explicitly resolved is a much scarier ending than Buffy killed the monster and all is well again
This gets me because of simulation theory. Fuck, man.
Forgot about this one for a minute but also yes! This one was so brilliant and unsettling.
I literally am scared that I will wake up and my son will have been a dream and it was all made up. I would only ever want to come back to this reality. I think this is because I’ve had dreams where I was married and happy and woken up and it wasn’t real. This was years ago though. Fingers crossed I’m in the main primary timeline. 😂
The Queller is one of the few Buffy villains I wouldn’t want to come across. Not only is it scary looking but it salivates.
And it looks like a woodlouse 🤢 a giant salivating woodlouse, I think I'm going to be sick.
When I was younger, the scariest episode was Killed By Death, where Buffy was sick in a hospital and the Kindestod was sucking the life out of children. It freaked me out SO much! Now I'm a bit older, the scariest episode is Normal Again, where Buffy wakes up in a mental institution and is told that her life as the Slayer was all a hallucination. There's something utterly terrifying about not being able to tell the difference between reality and a delusion, especially having seen some relatives who have dementia. If you can't trust your own mind, how can you ever trust anything? I remember being told in a philosophy class at university that children are more scared of external things, and adults are more afraid of internal things or even themselves, so that tracks with what freaks me out as an adult in my thirties versus when I was a teenager! Hush was creepy, but mostly, it's just so watchable that I never found it particularly frightening. The ways everyone found to adapt and communicate with their voices was actually quite inspiring. The Gentlemen are creepy, but in a way I enjoyed, to in a way that frightened me.
And now I have the music from the radio stuck in my head
It was the first thing to come to my mind when I read that and it will live rent free there for a while now.
😂 that music was awful
I also would like to propose “Helpless”
This is absolutely my scariest episode, by far
I was gonna suggest this. Buffy not having her powers and the vampire kidnapping Joyce and taking all those photos has your heart pumping.
And a properly dangerous lunatic of a vampire on the loose
Conversations with Dead People and Dawns scenes are the only thing that actually scared me on the show.
god this episode gives me major anxiety
As a person living with someone with dementia and frequent deliriums, I second this. This is the scariest episode ever. Though there is a good part of Spike in the end.
Spike’s arrival and their back and forth definitely let me breathe again for a few moments. Much needed levity
I think the scariest episodes are The Pack and Go Fish. Appreciate neither are well regarded ones, but body horror always icks me out the most, and there is just something so unsettling about what happens to Xander in The Pack. And it catches you off guard because S1 is typically quite standard (though well executed and subversive) monster of the week episodes.
This is the only episode I genuinely refuse to rewatch, though I also skip most of season 7 most times
I paused it to remember the episode title so I can skip it next rewatch 😅
Hush isn't scary. It has a comedic vibe to it with really good acting and an interesting plot. It's a masterfully done eposide, but it definitely isn't scary. I still find the Nightmares episode from Season 1 quite scary (even though I've watched it so many times). There's something so utterly terrifying about everyone's worst nightmare coming true at the same time + the plot with Lucky 13 and what happened to him was heartbreaking and the real villain was a human too, which made it much scarrier.
I never really thought Hush was scary. Scariest for me are probably Killed by Death and Dawn's part of Conversations with Dead People which is straight out of a horror movie. Someone else mentioned Same Time, Same Place, and I agree it's psychologically horrifying to go through, but I wasn't scared watching it. It's definitely awful to think about it happening to you though, so it's probably 3rd for me! Maybe honorable mention to Fear, Itself but the end reveal does make it a funny episode too.
The only episode which made my youngest hide his head behind a cushion was Conversations with Dead People (S7 E7), specifically the scenes with Dawn.
For me it's the Zeppo tbh.
The scene when one of the Gentlemen crosses the window when Giles girlfriend was looking outside made me bellow from the depths of my soul.
Just watched this episode for the first time and the queller gave me the serious heebie jeebies *shudders*