Horror films that changed your lives

I was a kid when I saw Dawn of the Dead and it convinced me that the dead rising could possibly happen.
I asked my school science teacher if that could ever happen, and then proceeded to ask every science teacher in my middle school the same question until I was satisfied that a bunch of teachers weren't wrong.

Beware the Blob was the first movie to keep me awake at night when I was a kid, and since that day all Blob movies are forbidden in my house, and I've never watched one since. (Creepshow 2 doesn't count for me). I'm 28 years old, and I'm afraid of the Blob.

When Nightmare on Elm Street came out in the theatres, my sister saw it and told me it was about a burned up guy named Freddy with knives for fingers who came into your dreams and killed you while you sleep. The whole night I layed awake thinking of Freddy from the Scooby Doo cartoons, burned with knives for fingers. I had a hard time watching Scooby after that for a few weeks.

But Dawn was the first movie that made me think that horror could happen to me. I mean, zombies were everywhere...in cities, in the malls! I think the opening scenes in the news studio freaked me out because back then, as a kid, if you saw it on the news, you thought it was true. If they were having a hard time, how must everyone waiting for the news feel? Informationless and in trouble.

I went from Godzilla movies and Hammer movies right to zombies. It was great discovering all this monster/horror stuff out there, and Dawn of the Dead made me the horror fanatic I am today.

Then again, as a kid I thought I was always safe from monsters on a school night: They can't kill me, I have school tomorrow.
But on weekends I was fair game.

The Shining.

Back when Kubrick died there was a bunch of his movies shown on TV. And one of them was The Shining. So it was late at night, I was all alone and sitting there watching the movie.

Some backstory: I used to live in a really old house. A minor mansion from the 17:th century. The kind of place that looks very haunted. And, it had one door that no matter how many times I closed it, it was always open the next time I passed it. At first I thought it was other members of my family, but then it did the same when I was all alone in the house, five times in a row on evening. So who knows what went on in there...

However, I thought that the hotel in the Shining reminded me alot of that house, in style and looks. So besides the movie being it´s the quite scary self, there was the added bonus of me thinking "this looks just like that room" every now and then.

So, that was the horror movie that had the most impact on me. And also one of the movies that made me interested in movies as art, and not just entertainment. And without that, I probably wouldn't be posting here today.

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET really changed my life. And a few years later I became totally obsessed with THE FLY.
2 other movies that come to my mind, not really horror though: LABYRINTH and GHOSTBUSTERS.

Halloween

Cat People......don't ask

and I'd have to say The Shining also

Hammer's DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS
THE EXORCIST
JAWS
DAWN OF THE DEAD

Hellraiser. It made me a horror fan.

Jaws & Salem's Lot.

Jaws and Chucky

Jaws and The Evil Dead.

Phantom of the Paradise-Still reelin' from it, btw.

Bram Stoker's Dracula-Proved that you can make a monster movie into a work of art, not the schlock of the '60s.

EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE sure changed my life... damn friction burns.

Friday the 13th part 1..

It has safely rendered me terrified of camping and the woods in general.. I saw it when I was 7 or 8 when vcrs were just becoming popular. And while I wasn't scared at the time. The idea of me being in the dark woods at night is just not something I will EVER do..

Ohhh and Nightmare On Elm Street made it so I would not sit or soak in a bath for many years. And I also had a deep fear of sleeping in the middle of the bed..

God I was a wuss back then!

When I was young...Halloween left an indelible mark on me. I saw it for the first time on cable in about 1984 or so, after I had came back from trick or treating..I might have been 8 at the time. It let me know that horror is real..and that damn movie still bothers me to this day

It was a FOX series, Werewolf, and it started with a two hour movie/pilot. And that movie scared the fuck out of me. I was only like nine, maybe ten at the time, had a lsight interest in horror, but not much. But that movie screwed me up, especially when the bad guy werewolf transformed, he pulled his upper lip over his head to reveal the wolf face. Excellent shit. But it gave me nightmares beyond belief, and my parents did the worst thing they could have done. They forbid me to watch the show. So naturally, I tried my damndest to watch it. I think that was the first time, I really started to seel out horror, and my true love for this stuff began.

The Coppola one? As a work of art it's of questionable value, but it did prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that "Dracula" could be made into schlock of the '90s, a very different kettle of schlock.

All of Carpenter's films made their mark on me at a very early age. Got me into films, got me into "the genre".

Dark Star, Assault, Escape, Thing, Halloween, etc along with the Universal Frankensteins, are the only movies I can actually REMEMBER seeing when I was yay high.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre....Made me the man that I am today....