What movie scared you the most as a kid? - Page 2

Wasn't William Shattner in the original "Twilight Zone" tv series playing the part that John Lithgow played in the movie version?

Yep.

Does anyone remember a short film about a guy being chased by a spool of recording tape? He had a magnet that he used to fend it off but he eventually dropped it and the recording tape engulfed him. We watched it in school when I was in 3rd grade (around 1981). I don't know why they showed it to us because it was creepy as shit and gave me nightmares.

Lady in White

I had nightmares of my uncle, and I formed a cluastrophobia and was afraid of evelators as a kid.

Yep, I remember that! My friend had a copy of that on VHS way back in the day. He also had one where a fisherman is fishing on a beach, then sees a ham sandwich on the beach. He takes a bite, then drops it because there's a big hook stuck in his throat. He grabs the line and it leads into the ocean, and then he's slowly reeled in...

First fright was probably Jaws, which my folks took me to see when I was 5. I also remember seeing the Exorcist on TV shortly afterward, and freaking out when Regan started doing flopping uncontrollably on the bed, then slams back on the mattress with her eyes rolled in the back of her head. Fucked me up big time.

Like Hellspawn, I got damaged from watching Jaws and Salem's Lot.
The face-tearing scene in Poltergiest freaked me out when I was a kid.

You, sir, are my new hero. Bigger than Santa!

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!! "WHOOOOO ARE YOUUUUUU!?!"


sent me into a panic quite a bit as a kid. Movie stank, I came to find out years later, but that commercial was completely frightening.
I'm glad I didn't see the doll episode of Night Gallery until later, that was one creepy ass doll.


EOD

Shatner played the role in the TV series, Lithgow played it in the film.

EOD

Black Sabbath, the Bava film, I saw as a very young child, and it scared the living be-jeeeeezus out of me. It scared me so bad, I thought for years that I'd had a real ghost experience at the place I'd seen the movie (my Grandma's house). It was of course the one vignette with the nurse who takes the ring from the dead lady's hand. Freakin' terrifying.

then there was the CIRCLE OF FEAR TV series.


EOD

Damn you evil people! I'd successfully repressed all memory of the "Beyond the Door" trailer until now. Eek! The first movie I remember scaring the crap out of me was (now remember, I was very young at the time) "The Legend of Boggy Creek." Did I mention I was very young at the time? Because I was very young at the time, you see. Like, 6 or so. We lived right next to these big scary woods, and I wasn't entirely clear on the fact that the movie wasn't a documentary, and, well, it was scary. My younger brother was so traumatized by "The Blob" that I could terrify him into incoherence with our red beanbag chair.

Thank god for Mr. E, I thought I was going mad! Everyone I've ever talked to has never heard of The Pit.

But, the movie that scared me the most was Prophecy. You know, the 197? something movie with Talia Shire and the dude from Falcon Crest.

We used to go camping all the time when I was a kid. After seeing Prophecy, those were some of the most tiring, non-sleeping weekends of my life.

Ommpa Lumpas are pretty scary too.

Yes! that evil clown truck freaked me out.

I saw just one scene out of this movie when I was like 7 and it scared me for months.

There is a guy out in like a cornfield, he's hunting something. Then there are I think 2 characters in like an outfitted van a ways away. There are tracking some creature as it gets closer and closer to the guy in the field. He can't see it but the two in the van keep yelling, "It's almost on you!" or something like that. Then the creature grabs him and impales him on the handle of some sort of farm machine. Fairly straight forward alien rip-off but it scared the crap out of me. If anyone knows what film this is I'd love to know.

After seeing TCM on acid we would try to find other movies to watch while we tripped in the hopes of reliving the experence. There were times that we got close but nothing is every as good the second time.

When video hit in the late 70's we looked and looked until we found TCM on video. Of course we already knew where to get the acid.

Some people would say that a movie like TCM and acid could only lead to a bad trip. Maybe that's what we wanted. We did get scaried at times but it was always fun. I don't think we ever had a "bad trip".

Anyway those days are long gone. I have done drugs in years. If I could find some acid again, I would get some but that's the only drug I would do again.

Four words: THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN.

Speaking of Night Gallery, the pilot episode with Roddy McDowell and the graveyard paintings that "moved" fucked me up as a kid.

Ditto the "In Search Of" episode on Haunted Castles. Shudder . . .

Scariest movie for me was Body Double by Brian De Palma. I was young at the time and happened to catch a glimpse of this movie while my mom and dad were watching it on cable downstairs late one night. When the guy comes in to the women's house and drills her to the floor-oh shit! His face was fucked up-kinda like Freddy. I was terrified of that movie because of that character.....UGH!
I also remember the short about the guy that gets eaten by the filmstrip...that used to come on HBO during the day in between movies. That was SO fuckin- weird, it freaked my little brother and me out.
Also, Twilight Zone when Dan Akroyd says, "You wanna see something really scary?" and turns around to show that ugly ass monster face.....oh hell yeh that freaked me out.
Nightmare on Elm Street's got me too. The first but more importantly, the second one got me. The opening nightmare with the school bus and Freddy in Jessie's house at nighttime......WHEW! Now I watch it and laugh at the exploding parakeet and all the homoerotic imagery, but when I was little, that shit was HORRIFYING!!!!

www.ibtrav.com

What freaked me out when I was wee little were the animations on Monty Python


I could watch ANY horror movie and not be scared.....but that MP animation just spooked a deep pit in my mind


I think anything that didn't make any sense scared me when I was little


and now I have grown up and became the thing I feared most


a rambling idiot

the thing when i was 7 when that dogs head opened up i went mad would not touch a dogs head for years incase it opened up

it,.... now makes me afraid of clowns

alien..now hate small tunnels damn movies...but they were good so me ok now lol

The ads for "It's Alive" really got to me as a kid. It got worse when I saw the film.

incidentally.. have you seen The Plague Dogs ?? its a better flick.

John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness. That movie scared me so bad when i was 7 or 8 that i was sleeping in my mom and dad's room every night for a week. I just sat up almost every night staring at their dark walk-in closet waiting to screem if i saw that fucked up lady. That movie has a vibe that was made to scare little kids.

Definitly Killer Clowns from outerspace or whatever.. Not only did they scare this shit out of me at like 5 but after my cousins showed it to me i went outside and noticed this big church i never noticed before(i didn't know it was a church) was far off in the distance and it had lights on the tower so it was all lit up at night

My cousins told me it was the big tent from the movie and i was always afraid of them coming to get me and suffocating me in cotton candy.

To this day i'm still deathly afraid of clowns (the only thing though) and i can't stand watching that movie kinda funny how something thats supposed to be funny scares me more than things that are supposed to be scary.

Ok, because I've been a lurker as opposed to a contributor on this board, I'll offer my 2 cents:

For me, the scariest movie as a child was the original Night of the Living Dead. I saw it at age 8 in a campground pavilion movie theatre at night, with my older brothers (i.e., no parents). Afterward, I had to walk into the woods to our family's campsight while my brothers harrased me the whole way. I couldn't sleep that night (or for several nights) as I envisioned zombies ripping through our tent to get me. Not only was I traumatized that night, but 30 yrs later, I'm still a HUGE Romero fan (and of all non-campy zombie movies).

And, to further explain my passion for Romero movies, I snuck into see Dawn of the Dead at age 13, in a mall movie theatre (in Richmond Heights, OH). Seeing DOTD in a mall theatre, during my mallrat days, was to me the ultimate way to experience that great movie.

Welcome Markus, and please post MORE ....... I had an older sister ( who herself was under 17 at the time ) who BS'ed our way into DAWN back in 1979 ....... I sat there frozen during the first 20 minutes, and by the film's end, I was a new man ......... one of my fondest memories of childhood

Never was scared of most horror movies as a child except for some zombie movies, yet one film never ceased to fuck me up.

Pee Wees Big Adventure : The Large Marge Revelation Scene

The Last Starfighter....I dont remember much of this movie, but there is an android who takes the place of the title character when he is in space. In one scene (before it has fully taken on human form) it pulls off a bedsheet that had been covering its face, revealing this weird, horrible gooey mess.

I don't know how I could've forgotten the last vignette in TRILOGY OF TERROR. That truly scared me out of my wits as a kid. It was the one with Karen Black and the freaky little, knife weilding doll.


EOD

Of course I go throught this entire thread and the very last one says mine! Well this is a pretty funny story and a true one. When I was 8 years old I saw "Trilogy of Terror" over at my uncle's house and I lost my f'n mind! When that zulu fetish doll went after Karen Black I seriously freaked out like I never have ever again. I was screaming and crying for them to turn the TV off but they wouldn't. They watched the whole thing and so did I while spazing out the whole time. That night when I got home I couldn't stop thinking about that damn doll. I go into my bedroom and get ready for bed and I see sitting in my room is my Gene Simmons KISS doll. I stare and stare at the thing just waiting for it to jump up and come after to me. Finally I can't take it anymore so I get up and take the doll into the kitchen and stick him in a cupboard. I get back in bed and lay there staring at the light coming from the hallway through my cracked open bedroom door. Just waiting for him to come running in after me. As I get more tired my eyes get heavier but they stay fixed on that open crack in the door. Suddenly like a quick blur I see something run in my room at full speed! I swear my heart stopped! It jumps on my bed and right in my face! I screamed like I had never before! It was my cat. I will NEVER forget that night. Funny to think that 20 years later I would have a replica of the doll from the film sitting right next to my bed. -Clark

The first movie I can remember scaring me:

The year, 1986. My age, 4. The movie, Mr. Boogedy. Yeah, I was scared to death by the peanut butter and jelly faced pilgrim who terrorized Richard Masur and family.

It's true, Karen Black's wonky eye is truely frightening.

I first saw Salem's Lot when I was around four and the scene where the kid knocks on the window for his brother made it impossible for me to sleep with a window open.

Another film that fucked me up was an oldie about giant spiders. No idea what it was called but it was in colour and had a scene where someone went into a shed and a huge spider jumped from the ceiling onto him. Even now I have to look up before I walk into a shed.

What was that film called anyway? It wasn't Tarantula or Kingdom of the Spiders.

When i was a kid my parents sheltered me from scary movies but the one that scared the crap out of me was Critters II Wasnt allowed to see anymore critters after that one.

Silver Bullet scared the crap out of me. I stilll like that movie but it seems like I am the only one. I was actually more scared by books then movies. I used to read books about bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster that would scare me. The one that scared me the most was mothman.

Hey guys, I just joined, and figured this to be the first thread to post in...


When I think of watching horror movies as a kid, the first movie I think of is
Syngenor , I think this was actually one of the first horror movies I've ever seen when I was 7, and, Jesus Christ, when the half syngenor, half woman came on screen I'd sink into my seat and close my eyes, especially when it started melting *ewwwww*

Also, when one of the Syngenors tries to break into the bathroom where the girl is hiding is fucking scary, and that weird propaganda film was always unsettling to me for some reason...

Y'know, while looking back on this post, and all of the responses, I realized this is what I love about horror films. People who can watch a horror film as a kid, and have the odds for them of the movie scarring them for life. Never wanting to see another movie again. But instead, they embrace that movie, and look back at that traumatizing film...fondly.

Viva la horror.

DAMN! I'd forgotten all about that movie. Still can't remember it too well, but fucked if that one didn't creep the hell out of me when I was 6 or 7!

Boys#22 - thanks for the welcome! I started lurking on this board last fall when I heard about the new Dawn movie and have been on it about 4-5 times a day ever since. Real good group of people here! I wanted to respond to your post a couple days ago, but I've been real busy as my wife just gave birth to our third child on Friday (Mark Jr. is 8lbs, 2 oz and 21-1/2" long). His two older sisters have been a hand full, as my wife just came home today (just got free to go on the computer at 1:00 am).

But to justify this post, I also wanted to see if anyone remembered a movie I saw when I was little in the early 70s. Basically, a family in an RV witnessed a satanic killing and spent the rest of the movie fleeing a cult, which were pretty much everyone in this area out west. The last scene is them thinking they got away, but finding that they were actually herded back to the starting point for their sacrifice. Really creeped me out and I have never seen or heard anything about this movie since. Anyone here know of it?

This thread brings up a lot of good bad memories. Most of the movies mentioned here gave me nightmares. Just pulling one out of the pack that I don't think has been mentioned yet was this weird TV movie called Picture Mommy Dead. Brrrr. I'm too scared to rewatch it.

The movie that gave me the most nightmares as a kid was The Exorcist.

The one that utterly destroyed me as a kid was DEADLY BLESSING. In particular, the dream scene in which Sharon Stone leans back and, at the command of a disembodied voice, opens her mouth -- a spider descends on a strand of webbing and plops right down between her lips. I tell you I was WEEKS getting over that.

The trailers for THE SHINING hit me pretty hard, as did the MAGIC trailers as well. And I, too, was one of those who found himself severely bothered by that HBO short with the carnivorous magnetic tape. Brrrrrr!

For some reason, THE BOOGENS also horrified me, and years later when I got the chance to go into a mineshaft in Colorado, I was constantly looking over my shoulder for the creepy little crab/turtle monsters. I know they were there, too...they were hiding just out of sight.

That would be Race With The Devil with Peter Fonda. Pretty routine chase picture, but, yeah, that ending is memorable.

"It". That fucking clown scared the hell outta me.

In later years, learning it was Tim Curry has completely obliterated the fear.

I gotta agree with you there, everyone always says burning to death would be the worst way to go, but I think getting eaten by something is worse. Especially a shark because there so alien. If you get attacked you are out of your enviroment and at a complete disadvantage.

Thanks Ratty! I always what that was called. Its amazing how mediocre movies seem really good when you're a kid. For example, I recently saw a "Three Stooges" episode that I loved as a kid ("Punch Drunks"- the one where Curly was a boxer that went nuts when he heard Pop Goes the Weasal) and it was really disappointing.

Are you kidding me? That one rocked! But I haven't seen it in a while, so you may be right.

Scared the bejesus outta me when I was little.

Now its one of my favourites.

RD

RACE WITH THE DEVIL is an excellent film ( for me at least -I saw it again about 5 years ago ) and the terror is heightened by the fact that you never really get a good grasp as to who the villians are ..... much the same as DUEL .... it's the unknown that is truly frightening .......

The weird shambling antler things/monsters in Time Bandits scared the crap out of me as a kid. In all the old horror flicks I digested as a kid on the horror host shows, you knew the monsters were people in suits or makeup because they had the same form of a human being more or less.

But those things in Time Bandits were so tall and awkward moving and so non-human that they just scared me silly.

As for a horror movie? Hard to remember my first real scare, but watching the Shining on tv one night in my basement with the lights out as a kid was the first and only time I remember changing the channel I was so scared...only to change it back seconds later.

When I was very, very young I saw a movie with some sort of space monster that kind of looked like a humanoid squid/octopus thing that drained electricity or some such nonsense and it was laying eggs everywhere, I think it was some sort of old sci-fi movie and needless to say that I remember that I had nightmares for a very long time after that…

Either that or drugs and alcohol really don’t mix and I’m totally creating childhood events that never took place.

Pretty scary stuff indeed.

++++
Sounds like the Green Slime....an Italian/Japanese coproducton.

Human sized octopoid monsters with hundreds of eyes and and electrocuting tentacles invade a space station with hilarious results.

I'll always remember the shot of the cheap ring shaped space station model with tiny green slime monsters glued to the hull being set on fire.....glorious.

If there's any movie that needs to be remade with modern tech it's the Green Slime. I can only imagine the hentai freaks going to the theatre in droves.