Terrifying not because of any of the usual horrific creatures or supernatural occurrences, but because it's just people, there's never any question of that, and they do it all with friendly, reasonable smiles. You'll be looking over your shoulder for days. "Can we borrow some eggs?"
- The sudden appearance of the opening and closing credits featuring "Bonehead" by Naked City are intentionally startling and unsettling. The end credits in particular, with Paul staring straight at the audience for the entirety of them, feel deeply disturbing - after the utter downer of an ending, and knowing what's going to happen to the people in the house Paul has just entered after those credits end.
- The fact that Paul and Peter casually murder Georgie is already bad enough. It gets worse when one considers that the two men were first seen harassing the Farbers' neighbors and that they already killed off the neighbors' daughter, who is a young child just like Georgie.
- Even after Paul and Peter leave the Farbers alone, the scenes without them are still rather tense as given the way the two of them were toying with the family, there is a good chance that their unexpected exit was just another trick...which it was.
- The way one of the killers rewound the movie after the mother kills one of the pair, thereby completely changing the scene, can be very disturbing.
- The final scene where Peter and Paul take the mother on one final boat ride is incredibly tense, due in part to the fact that there's barely anything going on until near the end. It's mostly just Peter and Paul contemplating reality while the Bound and Gagged mother sits between them trying to free herself, only for one of the boys to catch her and toss the knife away, waiting an agonising couple of seconds before the other unceremoniously shoves her into the ocean and they continue talking like nothing happened.
