The Cell: 10 Scenes From The 2000 Film That Still Creep Out Audiences

Accomplished actress Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D’Onofrio turned out excellent performances in 2000’s The Cell, which told the story of a serial killer who lapses into a coma. With time running out until his latest victim dies, the FBI convince Lopez’s character Catherine Deane to dive into his mind using an experimental virtual reality technology in order to get him to give up her location.

The movie is renowned for its strikingly beautiful and simultaneously horrifying imagery, especially when the movie turns things inward into the killer’s deranged mind. Here are the scenes from this highly underrated serial killer horror-fest that still creep audiences out even twenty years later.

10 Edward’s Evil Side

The first scene of the film establishes that child psychologist Catherine is using an advanced technological computer system to dive into the mind of her patients in an attempt to help them from inside. Her principal patient is Edward, a young boy suffering from a rare form of schizophrenia brought on by a viral infection.

Catherine attempts to make progress with Edward in an attempt to wake him from his real life coma, but the boy is too afraid to move forward and instead relies on the fictional character Mokelock as an excuse to run away. This being manifests itself as an evil entity that disfigures Edward’s face and turns him feral – an unsettling way to establish the film.

9 The Doll Procedure

Carl Stargher’s serial killer modus operandi was to kidnap his female victims and drown them in an inescapable tank before working on their bodies post mortem. His psychological fascination with dolls pushed him to try and turn his deceased victims into the same in order to fulfill his urge.

This involved the use of a bleach bath which turned their skin white and their eyes a disturbing tint. It’s the first truly frightening and creepy scene of the entire film, and would serve as foreshadowing for the future imagery that would make Stanley Kubrick blush.

8 Carl’s Basement

The FBI make a raid on Stargher’s house and expect a confrontation to ensue, but what they find instead is his body lying on the floor in a coma thanks to sudden trauma. The entire arrest takes place without incident, but it also leaves the FBI with no way of extracting the location of his latest soon-to-be-victim.

As the team rummages through the house for intel, they make their way into Stargher’s basement, which is a twisted and unfinished shrine with dolls and other creepy decorations strewn about, and a television set with VHS tapes of his victims.

7 Convincing Catherine

After Stargher’s mind regressed into itself, it seemed all hope of locating his latest victim had gone out the window. The decision was made to move him to the same experimental therapy clinic that Catherine worked at in order to try and dive into his mind and find the answer.

To convince Catherine, FBI agent Peter Novak played a tape of Stargher’s last victim struggling for air in her last moments while crying out for her father. The video was deeply unsettling to both audiences and Catherine, who ended up agreeing to the procedure.

6 The Horse Dissection

One of the first things Catherine witnesses when she enters Carl Stargher’s mind is a room with a horse in the middle. It’s an opportunity for her to reach out to Stargher’s suppressed childlike persona – the part of him in direct opposition to his dark serial killer self.

Although child Carl is afraid of Catherine, he nevertheless rushes to save her after watching a clock count down which triggers a set of glass blades to fall from the ceiling and slice the horse into segments. The two watch as the panels separate to reveal the horse, still alive and apparently unharmed, but with internal organs visible through the panels of glass.

5 Evil Stargher’s First Appearance

After passing through a museum showcasing Stargher’s victims in a variety of scenarios and settings, Catherine is attacked by a large female bodybuilder servant who knocks her out and carries her to Stargher’s main chamber – a throne room of his own making.

Catherine awakens to see purple tapestries pulling away from the walls which are connected to Stargher’s back. She turns to face him and is startled to the point where she signals to be woken up from the dream. This version of Stargher is far above and beyond the more realistic interpretations of horror movie villains.

4 Stargher’s Childhood Abuse

Catherine’s second visit into Carl’s mind proves to be much more explicit and revealing than the first. She finds herself in the mental manifestation of Carl’s childhood home where she bears witness to his horrendous family life and the systematic abuse of his father.

Unable to break free from the closet and do anything to save him, Catherine watches as Carl is psychologically tormented, beaten and burnt with a hot iron. It’s a pivotal moment in the movie which helps reveal more about the reasons for Carl’s mental instability while simultaneously staying with the viewer long after the scene has ended.

3 Intestines On A Crank

Novak decided to take the risk and dive into Stargher’s mind after he successfully took over Catherine’s. Realizing that the only hope of finding his last victim was to wake Catherine up, Novak waded into the unknown recesses of the serial killer’s mind with no experience on how to handle it.

Unimpressed by the attempt, Stargher’s evil persona subdued Novak and strapped him down to a table before cutting his abdomen opening and yanking out his intestine, which he wrapped around a barbed crank. The torture was all-too-real for Novak’s inexperienced mind (not to mention quite creative among horror films), but he was able to wake Catherine up long enough for her to retaliate and drive Stargher away.

2 Evil Stargher Vs. Child Stargher

After rescuing Novak from a particularly terrifying bout of torture, Catherine found Stargher’s child persona hiding near a mental manifestation of his latest victim in a tank. Novak noticed symbols on the side of the tank which corresponded to a company in the real world – his first true lead.

Realizing that the jig was up, the evil manifestation of Stargher emerged from the shadows in creepy fashion to grab his child persona from behind and steal him away from Catherine, signaling his evil side’s complete mental takeover.

1 Catherine’s Revenge

To save Stargher from his evil self, Catherine drew the serial killer into her own mind to act as a foundation from which to mount a defense. Child Stargher enjoyed a safe haven in Catherine’s mind for a brief period before his evil side manifested.

Inside Catherine’s mind, she held the power not only to keep evil Stargher at bay, but to inflict severe damage on him. After nailing his body to the ground with a golden crossbow, she grabbed onto Stargher’s nipple-pierced chestpiece and yanked it clean off of him in one of the most heinous scenes of the entire film. As far as insane horror movie revenge plots go, this was one of the more creative.

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