7. Helping Hands – Labyrinth (1986)
Labyrinth is widely remembered as a ’80s fantasy classic, but it’s not without its fair share of creepiness.
The premise alone is pretty messed up – a teen girl wishes her baby brother away, and he’s kidnapped by the Goblin King – but the worst part was a short, almost throwaway moment. Shortly after arriving in the Labyrinth, protagonist Sarah falls down a vertical tunnel lined with countless scaled hands, all groping blindly towards her.
Once the disembodied hands catch Sarah, they identify themselves as “helping hands” by arranging themselves into vague face shapes and talking to her. For a full minute or so, hundreds of human hands are groping towards a young girl, and there’s something so pervasively unsettling about the scene that it stands out as singularly disturbing in a film that’s as strange as it is revered.
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