Personal Favorite Loud Movie Moments

The craziest loud sound I've ever heard in a movie was an Alan Bates movie called The Shout. It takes places among the aborigines of Australia and involves a shout that can kill. I saw it when it was making the art house theater rounds ca. 1979. When the character finally demonstrates the shout, they turned on surround and rear speakers that had not been active up until that point and the effect was huge. I jumped out of my skin!

I don't recall that the theater (The infamous Orson Welles in Cambridge, MA, home of one of the longest running movies of all times: The Harder They Come) was otherwise equipped with surround speakers, so it may have been specially set up for this movie.

Jurassic Park I, at a high end stereo store, was also pretty impressive when the T-Rex starts stomping around (the scene with the water in the glass). I had to leave because the low frequency sound pressure was making me nauseated. I doubt it would have had that effect in the theater. These subs were insane and it was a small room.