Writing a particularly spooky scene, I've been paying close attention to the details of a physical space that can set a reader (or a listener) to twitching in discomfort or dread.

Which onscreen environment creeps you out the most? And why?

The unnaturally sterile environments on the spaceship in Alien always bother me... the visual equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard.

The hotel room in Barton Fink makes me feel as if there are cockroaches everywhere, even though I don't remember seeing cockroaches. Maybe it's that melting wallpaper glue.

Anything from Roman Polanski's loosely related apartment trilogy, particularly The Tenant, which features the creepiest bathroom in cinema history.

The entire island village in the original Wicker Man.

It's not traditionally thoughts of a scary movie - more suspense - but the scaredest I've ever been is when I watched the scenes in the underground tunnel in The Great Escape. So claustrophobic, and so real.

Every time I see a ceiling fan, I think of those crooked shots of the stairway in the Palmer house in Twin Peaks. And I can almost feel the low notes of Badalementi's score resonating in the ground beneath my feet.

The dark apartment in Wait Until Dark

My first thoughts were all related to various David Lynch films. He has locations that just get under your skin more than any other director I can think of.

Club Silencio - Mulholland Dr.

Ben's (Dean Stockwell) house - Blue Velvet

The abandoned railroad car - Twin Peaks

The home of Mr. and Mrs. X - Eraserhead

Oh, yeah. Anywhere in a David Lynch film.

First thing that came to mind for me is in Dario Argento's Suspiria. At the beginning of the film the herione walks through some sliding doors at an airport I think. There is a shot of the rods and pistons on the doors moving that I found really unsettling. It's probably that I was already edgy knowing the film's reputation but something about that shot really creeped me out.

The Overlook Hotel.



In fact, certain parts of the Overlook Hotel...