Most frightened you've ever been watching a movie - Page 2

In The Mouth Of Madness. Bicycle-albino scared the living fuck out of me.

THE OMEN IV on television. I was a goody-two shoes do no wrong christian and was shocked to see the devil win. On the other hand, those freak accidents were fuckin cool. Kind of a precursor to the FINAL DESTINATION series.

My two childhood moments that belong in this thread, much to my embarassment:
1) Luke getting zapped to death by the Emperor in ROTJ freaked me out a LOT the first time i saw it.
2)The Joker killing a guy with a high voltage hand buzzer in "Batman"...I left the movie theater, my older brother stills mocks me to this day.

Here's the trailer for Magic that Keith Fordyce, Cylon Baby and I were talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezkx0...eature=related

Pretty tame now, but when I was 3? Pure terror.

The scene in that movie where the tarantula can be seen in the window approaching the house scared the fuck out of me. I think we're talking about the same movie. With the giant tarantula that terrorizes the countryside?

Fire In The Sky was kind of so late into my UFO-phobia that it didn't have as much of an impact on me. I will, however say that the first time I watched the show Sightings and they detailed all those alien abductions, it scared the shit out of me. I'm talking borderline trauma here. My dad tried to take the rational adult thing when he realized I wasn't sleeping and explained to me that Fox is sensationalized storytelling and until I see it from a reliable news source or read it in the newspaper, I shouldn't be worried. This kind of backfired a bit when The Boston Globe ran an article on local UFO abductions, a couple months later.

The scene in Night Of The Living Dead where the Bill Heinzman zombie is chasing Barbara through the woods really creeped me out when I was a kid. I remember being like five or six and watching it as pat of some Halloween marathon on public access. I only watched the first few minutes but that scene always stuck with me. It wasn't even a zombie thing. It was the idea of her being all alone running away from this guy. I can't quite verbalize why this registered as being so scary to me but it was. The scene doesn't work as well on an adult but as a kid, being all by yourself in a strange place and being pursued by some strange old man is fucking terrifying. The scene in the farm house of the zombies coming out of the trees and moving toward them also remains to me one of the creepiest sequences in any zombie film period.

Christopher Lloyd in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

I think I was probably 8 when my dad let me watch Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time. He later told me that he really wondered if he had made the right decision considering how much the face melting scene freaked me out and kept me awake the entire night after I saw it. However, when I requested to watch it again the next evening, he knew it was ok.

Oh, and when I saw Jaws around the same age, it gave me shark nightmares for weeks afterwards.

When I was about 11 I saw Jason Goes To Hell (I think - the one where he gets blown up at the beginning) and had a few nightmares after that.

Other than that I haven't ever really been frightened by any movies. A few Octobers ago I watched a lot of the classic horror movies and the only truly creepy one was the original Halloween.

However, I was in a 600+ seat theater, right in the middle, seeing a movie alone and there were only about 10 other people in the room. The ending of the trailer for The Exorcism of Emily Rose, with the wicked laughter echoing around the theater, made me want to put my back against the wall.

me and Ambler have the same stories, more or less!

I was probably 4 or 5. Saturday morning, me and my sister are flipping through the channels when we stumble upon poltergeist. Its just starting and I have no idea what it is, but my Dad recognizes it from the opening credits and simply says, "This is a good movie, you guys should watch it."

I make it through all of the first one only to realize that they were playing the 2nd and 3rd right after. As soon as that old man knocked on their door in the first sequel, i was promptly out the door, to play outside for the entire rest of the day.

Not exactly fit for this thread, but I just watched the "Alien3" extra features disc, and Im pretty damn sure im going to dream about Giger's "kisser" Alien concept; holy crap, that guy's messed up in a brilliant way.

Toss up between Large Marge from Pee Wee's Big Adventure and that god damn librarian from Ghostbusters.



I loved those movies so much though that I would watch one or the other at least once a week

At least your dad tried to be rational with you. My dad had books on all kinds of paranormal shit around the house, and when Fire in the Sky came out, he would regale me with the story it was based on. Sightings was something that would give me nightmares, but I couldn't help but watch.

Also, Stephen King's IT. As shitty as it is watching it now, to a six-year-old kid, Pennywise is fucking terrifying. It didn't help that I was the same age as Georgie, the kid that buys it at the beginning.

I also happened upon Rawhead Rex one afternoon when I was around the same age. The scene where the farmer's wife looks out the kitchen window to see that big fucker coming towards the house kept me up for weeks. I refused to look out my kitchen window after that for a long time.

I have a horrible memory it seems and need people here to mention something before I remember it scaring me as a child.

I'm gonna have to second James Kimbell with Christopher Lloyd in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That scene at the end where he gets the Dip on him.

The eyes, and that nightmarish scream made me literally have to hide under my chair when I saw it at the theater.

I forget how old I was, but watching Alien on t.v scared the holy living fuck out of me. The worst part was I was watching it with my mom, who had seen it and didn't warn me what was coming. She was rewarded with me having nightmares for months. Funny considering how much I love that movie now.


Also, MOTHERFUCK Sightings.

Everyone is going to say Alien or Jaws, but for me, nothing was more horrifying than watching a drama called Eye For An Eye with Sally Field and Kiefer Sutherland. It came on TV and I felt like hanging with my mom, so I went into the den to watch with her. I was maybe 11 or 12, and the opening of this movie features a girl, who was my age, prepping for her birthday party. She's at home, on the phone with her mom, who is out picking up party supplies. The doorbell rings, the girl answers, and Kiefer storms in, brutally raping and murdering the girl in her own home. The phone line is still active, and her horrified mother can hear her daughter being attacked. I was so frightened by that scene that I ran out of the room into the bathroom, puked, and sat there crying my eyes out for about fifteen minutes while my mom comforted me. To this day, she feels terrible for letting me watch that scene. Needless to say, I never finished watching that movie.

I'll also be brutally honest - six years old, Michale Jacksons Thriller video clip is released to the world and little Rain Dog doesn't sleep right for 6 months.

...and to this day, at nearly 32, The Exorcist still gives me the heebees if Im in the right mood watching it.

- pet semetary. the zelda scene, clearly, but also his wife. yikes.

- pet semetary 2. something about clancy brown when i was a little kid.. the man scared the bejeesus out of me. the look in his eyes!

- ringu. saw the ring in the theatre and was definitely off put by it, but watching ringu alone in the dark for the first time blew it away completely. it had to do with the photos, there was some looming uneasiness growing on me there, and also the way sadako walked. like her legs were broken. scary as fuck.

- the shining. the twins. my dad nearly forced me to watch it when i was very young, and it certainly made an impact.

I didn't watch horror movies as a kid. Like, none. I didn't enjoy them and my parents weren't movie people, so it was never forced. The first time I really saw a horror movie was when my parent's took me to see The Sixth Sense, I was 11. That didn't scare me too much. However, three years later when I sat in the theater for Signs, that scared the living fuck out of me.

That movie did the most for making me appreciate the impact of sound design in a movie. The climax, as the aliens are slamming and bumping around, combined with a theater with an excellent sound system... pants were shat.

I don't know if I'm going to get shit for that, but my 14 year old self was petrified.

Since then, I've yet to see another movie that truly scared me in the same way. I've come to love Alien, The Thing, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of...., Halloween, and the like, but I've only had that truly visceral feeling of terror once. It's almost as if I was desensitized immediately.

I still have The Exorcist to watch, anyone got anything else that might scare the shit out of me?

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, but it's not in the jump scare vein. It's take a shower afterward and hug a puppy for reassurance scary.

There are some good jump scares, but they're equivalent to going upside down on a rollercoaster. A really scary scene is like when you think you just felt the rollercoaster break a little.

You should remember Henry, Strange. It just screams good times.

I'm a little afraid to watch it again. That camcorder scene is probably not as funny as it was back when I killed people.

Candyman, without a doubt my most terrifying theater experience ever. I was eleven years old and still shaking on the ride home.

Silence of the Lambs. I suppose it was Lecter's escape sequence that really did me in, as well as the general craziness of Buffalo Bill (though from start I loved his "Goodbye Horses" scene).

Finally, multiple nominee, Fire in the Sky. I'm not impressed with abduction stories, and really, the film is only good for the spaceship scenes alone, but they're extremely effective and managed to put the fear into me, bullshit or no.

Mulholland Drive. Winkie's. The way the camera floats around the corners makes my whole body seize up in fear.

That's gonna have to be "It's Alive". The trailer was terrifying enough, I'm not sure how I made it through the movie. It still gives me the heeby jeebies just thinking about...

*bbrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

There was a filmed called "Gargoyles" that was pretty creepy as a kid. And The Blob always had the upper hand. I knew that no matter how many "Blankets of Security" I would suffocate myself under, that damn thing could ooze right through.

I remember Gargoyles! It was one of those movies where you get all stiff thinking "okay, I'm gonna get scared now, I can feel it, look at the scene, it's getting scary, any moment now...oh, no, that wasn't scary". After two or three moments like that you realize the movie is crap.

This from the guy who was scarred by Killer Klowns From Outer Space when he was, like, 7.

I saw American Werewolf in London when it first came out in a Theatre built in the late 1800's early 1900's complete with balconys. I was in about the middle of the lower level. When the scene came on where he met his victims in the movie theatre, almost everyone in the place turned and looked around the place, then laughed. Scared me shitless!

That´s exactly it. In fact all these cheesy 50 B-movies freaked me out. But Tarantula had an unwanted lasting effect on me.

The opening sequence of Tales From The Darkside still creeps me out to this day, but it fucking terrorized me as a child. The simplicity of it is amazing, but when it goes negative and the music drops down the blood runs out of my goddamn face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnE3-0X-174

Ditto. If I remember correctly, it occurs again and again, yes? That freaked me out.

Oh, good God, yes. This opening so terrified me that I'd immediately flee the family room the second the opening strains began playing. That's right. I wouldn't change the channel or hit the mute button. I'd simply drop the remote and run like hell.

Wow, I forgot all about that. That scared me to the point that I would change the channel, just for the intro, and then change it back when the episode actually started. I couldn't sit through it.

You shouldn't get shit for this, Signs worked over our packed preview screening (myself included) as well. It really was a great theatrical experience. Too bad the movie falls apart if you think about it too much afterward and has zero replay value.

Also popped in to jump in with the Lynchian dread, which also ties into what Renn was saying about sound design. Nobody does sound like Lynch. I love/hate it.

I'll add my log to the fire for The Shining and The Entity. I saw both of those around the age of 9 or 10 and they both scared the crap out of me. The twin girls in The Shining, especially. And yeah - the "based on a true story" aspect of The Entity had my imagination going nuts, to the point that I thought if I watched the movie long enough the Entity itself would come through the TV and haunt where I lived. That's why I have only seen the entire film in segments.

The one movie that really got me (and I haven't seen listed yet), was the original Nightmare on Elm Street. I saw it when it first premiered on Showtime, back in '85 (I think). I was 10. I had nightmares for a week.

One nightmare in particular was especially memorable. I dreamt that Freddy was chasing me, and at the last moment I turned around and grabbed his glove, remembering that if you grab something from the dream you could bring it into the real world. I figured that if I grabbed his glove, I'd bring it out and he would no longer have a weapon to terrorize kids.

I woke up to morning sunlight streaming through the windows, and something cold and sharp poking me in the back. I laid there, unmoving, frozen in terror, for what seemed like a half hour. My mind was racing with the notion that I had succeeded and that Fred Krueger was actually real, not just a movie character. When I finally mustered up the courage to roll over and see what was poking me in the back, I found I was lying on the zipper to my sleeping bag (I liked using sleeping bags as covers on my bed when I was little). The zipper had been positioned so that the long, thin side was jabbing me in the back.

A few months later I got my parents to buy me a NoES 2 Freddy Krueger poster at a carnival to put on my wall. I've loved the first movie ever since.

*Edited because I can't type today worth a damn.

I saw OUTBREAK in college and there's a scene in the film that takes place in a theater. Someone infected is coughing and there's a panic. In the real-world theater I was in, someone coughed and people jumped (in William Castle fashion), followed by uncomfortable laughter.

EDIT: Growing up, I was deathly afraid of Freddy Krueger and zombies (would leave the room if they were on TV). I think it was the burnt/rotting make-up.

EDIT 2: It's funny, because last night, I had a dream that The Tall Man (PHANTASM) was stalking me. I wasn't horrified, but it sure made me uneasy. Even as an adult, those flicks manage to get under my skin. And it's awesome.

Thinking back, I was kind of a pussy. All kinds of lame crap scared me shitless. Sure, you had your Alien and your Shining, but for every one of those there was Nightmares(a crappy horror anthology) and The Being(a crappy radioactive monster movie).

Considering the being, though, I have a kinda funny story. We watched it on new years eve(on our brand new vcr), and some dumbass hit my dad while he was backing out of the driveway. It was still drivable, just the back right side was all fucked up. Later, we all drove to a NYE party(keep in mind i was all of like, five or six years old).

For whatever reason, my young mind fixed on the idea that the rattling in the back of the car was not damage from the accident, but the Titular Being hanging on to the back of the car, hitching a ride to the party so he could kill us all. I refused to get out of the car. I think I fell asleep but i can't remember.

Also, on the way home from seeing Land of the Dead, we drove down a side road through woods and weeds covered lots. One of my friends remarked that the low visibility made a good place for a zombie attack, and we had a good laugh. I get dropped off at my house, and go into the trunk of my friends car to get my stuff, and one of my friends pulled the back seat down and grabbed my arm as i reached in. I jumped about 5 feet in the air and screamed. I still get shit about that.

Watching 1409 while in freakin room number 1409 at the Sheridan hotel in Baltimore

Really? That movie was terrible.

You thought 1409 was scary? Wow you ARE a pussy!

That happened to me playing RESIDENT EVIL on the PSX in college for the 1st time.

I told my buddy the mansion was too creepy, and he recommended I leave out the front door (knowing what was on the other side). I was sitting on the edge of the bed, when the zombie dog lunges thru the door to bite you. I had lept up off my feet and backwards onto the bed. Nearly repeated that performance when the dogs come crashing thru the window in the hallway.

I didn't watch much horror, but the ones that have had an 'effect' on me aside from cheap jump scares have been:

The last freeze frame of Thriller. I cowered behind the couch to avoid Michael Jackson's catlike yellow gaze!

Watching Jacob's Ladder on a VHS tape I found in my dad's collection. Elizabeth Pena doing the Lambada with a tentacle only to have a demon horn stab out of her mouth... I was both intrigued by the sexuality (I was very young) and horrified by the imagery.

The Prehistoric Bitch in Ghostbusters. Her face and red eyes just freaked me out.

The Ring (Verbinski version). I'm culturally susceptible to competently executed ghost stories about pissed off girls with long black hair.

Gotta add to the Lynch love. He does things I can't even begin to quantify. Club Silencio in Mulholland Dr.

There's a scene with a knife in Saving Private Ryan that still, to this day, terrifies me more than anything. More than any horror film.

It's this helpless moment knowing no matter what you do, you're going to die.

I was terrified of knives for several years afterwards.

Seeing Sadako lurch out of the TV when I first caught Ringu was fucking terrifying. This was back in 2001/2002 and I'd accidently found the film whilst channel surfing, didn't know anything about it but I was starting to get into asian film so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm 16 at the time and that first shot of Sadako reflected in the TV, after the tapes been played for the first time, put me on fucking edge. That final scene had me fucking rattled for a week.

When I was about 11 or 12 my mom let me watch Twin Peaks and that first glimpse of Bob cowering by the bedside gave me the creeps completely, the final episode just destroyed my mind.

Lynch always has me on edge, but something about that bizarre shot towards the end of Inland Empire (clown face Dern) just played to something deep inside and completely fucked me up in the theatre.

Oh God yes. The shushing makes me whimper like a child.

I'll throw in Vigo from Ghostbusters II too as well. Just that man's face is terrifying. I would have to leave the room every time he turned to pig-face at the end.

ETA: Hooray! 100 posts!

Now that I think about it, Eraserhead is the last movie that I can remember seeing that, had I seen it in the right environment, probably could have scared the shit out of me.

With Vincent Price's maniacal laughter ringing out.

I was freaked out a bit at the age of 9 by Princess Mombi's shelved head waking up in RETURN TO OZ: "Dorothy Gaaaaaaaale!"

When I was a little kid, the witch showing up in Munchkin Land scared me shitless.

Also when Superman was thrown in the water with the kryptonite necklace in part one was kinda scary to me.

But the two most frightening moments for me was when I saw TCM and that one scene in Exorcist 2 when the demon hand is clutching the heart. Scary stuff.

As an adult Exorcist 1 still scares me half to death.

There is something creepy about the staircase scene in Exorcist 1.

I had never seen The Grudge movies, just went and saw part 2. The first 20 min had me scared shitless, and then the rest of the movie I was laughing.

Oh! Just remembered one.

The Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy cries to the image of Auntie Em in the Wicked Witch's crystal ball only to become horrified when that image turns into that of the cackling witch. Judy Garland's performance and the rich blood red in the ball used to creep me out when I was a kid. When I watched the film again more recently, I found that it still gave me some chills.

The Wizard of Oz, man!!!

I know this has been brought up in other threads, but the Jabberwocky from the Irwin Allen Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass. That bastard scared the shit out of me as a child. I saw it on DVD last year and I was amazed at how fast they made that thing considering it was a giant puppet.