Five Unintentionally Hilarious Movie Scenes - Part 2

Over the next few days, I will be releasing five of my favorite Unintentionally Hilarious Movie Scenes. My end goal for this exercise is to have a complete and entertaining list-style article to submit to Cracked.com. That means I need comments, humorous or otherwise, that will help me refine the final article. Thanks in advance, Nate.

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2) The Horse From The Ring:

The Scene: During this scene, Naomi Watts's character Rachel is taking a ferry out to an island to investigate a woman shown on the movie's infamous Murder Tape. On the ferry, she discovers a horse, which appears to be getting a little spooked by the ride/her presence. She, being the loving, nurturing woman she is, tries to channel her inner Ann Darrow (yes, I'm aware King Kong came out later) and sooth the savage beast, to no avail. The horse freaks out, escapes its trailer, and goes wild in the parking area of the ferry before finally charging forward and diving off the boat.

Why It's Funny: Let me just start off by saying, in premise, this is actually a pretty intense/sad/graphic scene...which makes sense because The Ring is a horror movie. What makes this scene funny to me is not its content, but its execution. So before everyone goes PETA on me and starts throwing buckets of animal blood my way, try to remember that I'm not poking fun at an animal dying, fictionally or otherwise, even if said animal is a sinister, black horse.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about what makes this scene hilarious: the fall. I've watched this movie countless times--to the point where I'll still have the occasional weird dream about wells, outdated technology and overly straight hair--and no matter how much it creeps me out I can't help but lose my shit every time that horse goes over the railing. Watch the five second window from 1:58-2:03 in the clip above without any context and you'll see what I'm talking about. I don't care who you are, I don't care how much you hate scary movies or love horses or whatever, I challenge you to watch that fall play out and not at least crack a smile. That's the thing that gets you: the execution. That's what makes this scene so damn funny to me.

Watch it again. Watch how eerie and intense the lead up to the fall is. Watch how the soundtrack seems to come in slowly as the horse grows more anxious, how different camera angles are used to simulate the sense of terror and foreboding. There's silence and we see an eye. More silence and we see some hoofs. The music starts to come in. The horse starts to panic. After a moment, it breaks free and jumps up on a car, bucking wildly before racing around the ferry's lower level. Our girl Naomi cries out for help. Concerned citizens attempt to corral the animal. Everything seems to be building to a peak and then...boom, the music cuts out just as the horse goes airborne. What happens next, you ask? Oh, not much...except for the horse clipping its back legs on the railing, letting out a ridiculous honking noise, crashing into the side of the ferry, and then falling into the water, where the camera lingers on it just long enough to watch as it gets swept away.

Really!? That's what director Gore Verbinski decided to go with!? I'm no expert here, but I'm pretty sure he just confused a dramatic pause with perfect comedic timing. Seriously, I don't think he could've made that any funnier if he'd wanted to. And that's what earns this scene a place on my list: working so hard to create a tense, palpable moment and ending up with a honking horse crashing into the side of a boat. Classic.