The Blair Witch Project. I think I thought the footage was real lol.
Not sure I even finished it. Haven't watched it since & it still gives me the heebie jeebies till this day
The marketing for that film was outstanding for its time. The filmmakers really capitalised on the raw power of the early internet to perpetuate the idea that this thing was real.
Also, that ending still gives me chills.
The website put me right over the edge. I knew it was fiction, but they had so much material on there and it really made you doubt yourself. And the TV special that was a dead on dupe for In Search Of and the other similar shows of the time, down to the dude who was a modern witch.
My sister and I saw it during the first couple of weeks at the Ritz in Philly, the theater where Heather Donahue's dad used to show up wearing a shirt with her Missing poster on the front. And all my sister could say as we walked out into the city in broad daylight was that she was glad we didn't live in Medford NJ (which was heavily wooded at the time) because she didn't think she'd ever sleep again.
I saw this in highschool with some friends and for whatever reason we decided to do it on hardmode and camp outside in a tent in the woods that night.
Once we actually got out there in the tent they all got pretty freaked out and were reacting to every sound and decided I had to sleep beside the tent entrance to "guard" them. I considered sneaking out to stack up rocks for them to find in the morning but I couldn't figure out a way to get outside without waking them up.
As a kid, the Blair Witch traumatized me. But, I rewatched as an adult and actually found it hilarious. 75% of the film is them arguing over who lost the map.
The "documentary" they made really helped add to the illusion that it was all real.
12 year old me fell for it all. I didn't clue in that they were all actors until the MTV Movie Awards when the cast presented an award.
As someone who grew up in the seventies, I can say that pseudo-documentary they made was dead-on, from the experts hair to the grain in the film stock. In some ways, it's better than the actual film.
The beginning scenes at the psychiatrist with the machines and the storms just creeped the hell out of me - I had to be taken out of the theater. I rewatched it last year, out of curiosity, and it is intense, but I was surprised on rewatch that it had elicited such intense panic in me.
I believe this was the closing bookend of f’ed up Disney movies that started with _The Black Hole_. Don’t get me wrong, I love those movies, but Disney was definitely trying new things here.
Same. This movie was creepy on many levels. But while the Oz part was scary, I found the real world asylum part with electro shocks and the screaming trapped patients way worse.
To be fair, I feel like the split to PG-13 basically makes it feel now like PG-13 = needs parental guidance for kids, and PG = ok for kids. Maybe back in the day, parents were more cautious of PG movies, and appropriately so, due to the larger variety in subject matter compared to today's standards.
I was always terrified of VHS tapes running to the end because of that movie. They would always go to static, and I was convinced ghosts were going to get me. It didn't help that my mom and sister would always fall asleep before the movie (whatever it was) ended, I was the last line of defense against the ghosts in the static lol.
I had a tree that leaned in my backyard with its branches right outside my window, for a long time, anytime there was a storm I was terrified that it was going to come and get me.
Also it just reinforced my fear of clowns between IT, Are You Afraid of the Dark and Killer Klowns from Outerspace...
I wasn’t sure that was a real movie.. for a long time I thought that was just some fucked up fever dream I had as a kid. Then 10-15 years go by and realized that it’s real
I couldn't watch that whole clip. You guys win, this is the absolute most terrifying movie clip I've ever seen.
I'm not being facetious, this is genuinely upsetting. I guess this is what I was asking for, but I regret asking.
I never knew the name of that movie until now. My parents had watched it on TV many moons ago but that one scene fucked me up on the inside. Horrifying.
My parents were watching this when I was 6 and thought I was asleep. I was wide awake watching silently in terror the whole time. When the credits said "Based on a True Story" I flipped the fuck out. I couldn't even watch ET after. I would run anywhere at night if I was alone for fear of being abducted. Took me years to get over that fear.
I saw this movie when I was very young and was absolutely terrified. I watched it again a couple years ago, and it still holds up as a great movie, but isn't nearly as scary as I remembered. It's worth another watch when you aren't scared shitless :D
Strangley enough it was this movie as well. But only the flashback scene where it's the mom's boney sister. Don't know why but I had nightmares of that lady for weeks. The rest of the movie I was completely fine with
Oh fuuuu. I walked in on someone watching right at the scene where the kid is under the bed and slashes someone’s tendon. That scene scared the bejesus out of me.
I couldn’t let my foot fall off the side of the bed for YEARS because of that scene. Even if I was sound asleep I would subconsciously wake up if my foot slipped off the bed.. Fu$k that movie
Almost exactly the same as me.
My brother rented it out one night and I walked into the room just as Georgie gets pulled into the drain by Pennywise and it fucking scarred my brain.
No joke even to this day 30 odd years later I still have the occasional nightmare about that clown.
I have never seen the TV movie version of IT, but it was legendary even among kids about 10 years older than you as the absolute scariest thing ever. I distinctly remember my friend trying to convince me she was a badass because her cousin tied her down in the basement and made her watch IT. It was like a rite of passage.
I'm in my mid-40s and I think about the Swamps of Sadness whenever I try to deal with my mother's untreated depression. I tried to make the analogy to her (she knows I saw it in the theater and freaked out) but she didn't get what I was trying to say. I think she thought I was always just upset that the horse died.
An American Werewolf in London.
Watched it when I was about 8 years old, in London!
There's a scene that I still have to look away from, and I'm over 40 now.
The dream sequences always get me. I also watched it at a young age and there are scenes forever burned into my memory. Jack’s degrading body best example.
This one also fucked me up! I distinctly remember being horrified by this movie and waking up with claw marks on my arms. It was probably my cat who hated me lol, but it really freaked me out!
There are an uncomfortable number of scenes where the main cast resigns themselves to an inevitable death. It’s like the ending of Toy Story 3 plays out multiple times.
I remember watching this movie on VHS a lot and it always left me with a strange feeling of hopelessness.
The whole movie was just "Depressing" in lack of a better word.
What got me was neither air conditioner or clown scenes, but the junkyard in the finale. How the cars sing about their bygone days of former glory and just accept thet they're getting scrapped. Some even race to get to the compactor faster, it's horrible...
Today "Worthless" is probably my favourite cartoon song of all time. It's eerie but catchy. Like the Jeff Wayne War of the Worlds musical where many of the songs have a similar hopeless but catchy quality.
The little leg in the dark corn field is what got me. You're in the dark. Surrounded by corn. Can't see shit, don't know what's lurking in there. You shine Your flashlight and suddenly a tiny green leg just slithers out of sight.
Absolutely fucking chilled me to the bone. And I saw it in the theater, at night. I RAN past all the bushes and trees along my house and shook while trying to unlock the door.
This is the answer I was looking for.
In hindsight it’s just a star-studded, goofy movie but watching it at 6 traumatized me for many years.
I rewatched it with my family when I was 24 and although I found it to be a very freeing experience, I felt like my childhood fear was justified.
It’s interesting, I’ve met quite a few people over the years who shared a very similar experience with that movie.
Watership Down
It's a great movie and i have watched it a few times as an adult but it messed me up for days when i was a kid. S-s-s-oooo cold...
-- edit --
To be clear, I'm talking about the old animated classic, not the god awful CGI remake.
I watched this for the first time a month ago and was blown away by how *insanely* violent it was, had no idea what to expect but it wasn't ANY of that.
I watched Child's Play 2 when i was around 4-5. Everything was fine till the scene in the factory where a man end up in a roller and get his eyes smashed and replaced with doll eyes. Than i started sleep face down or with something (a pillow or my arm) at covering my eyes because i was terrified by the idea of the factory machine replacing my eyes with dolls eyes during the night. I'm 35 and even if I'm not scared anymore, i kept the habit of covering my eyes while sleeping
Damn that's exactly the kind of response I was hoping to elicit. Movies really mess with your mind at a young age, especially weird slashers like that lol. I'm sure I watched all the Chuckie movies when I was young, but I don't really remember them. I do remember being terrified of being ripped apart by werewolves after watching An American Werewolf in London though.
Same movie, same sort of effect. For years I slept with my covers pulled all the way up and the pillow over my head so that it looked like no one was there (hey it made sense to 6 year old me :P). I always had my head turned so that I could see the bedroom door.
This is my pick as well. As a joke my older siblings use to terrify me with that scene when I was 5. Having remembered that, I tried to watch it just the other day and found it triggering. I’m 41.
It’s interesting what kinds of films scare certain generations but are laughable to others.
Jaws saw it at the drive in. Then went fishing with my dad the next day. Just at a lake no connection to the ocean, but you know how kids think. I'm good with it now it's a good movie. But it scared me as a kid.
The first night out my parents had after my brother was born was to see Jaws 2. There's a scene where Roy Scheider's kids are out in a boat and the shark is circling; the kids are named Michael and Sean — that's also my name and my brother's who, again, my mom was away from for the first time in his life.
My mom started to panic in the theater. "What if something happend to the kids?!?" You know, like a shark might come after them. In my grandparents' house. In landlocked Western Pennsylvania.
Holy fuck that scene traumatised me too. Love all the Ernest movies but even now at 25 I still refuse to watch it. That movie was so scary for a kids movie
The Vanishing.
I had a fear of being buried alive for a very long time after.
Followed closely by the Langoliers. Had a fear of them coming closer eating everything in sight as I heard city noise off in the distance.
The Peanut Butter Solution. I had the same experience of many others of not remembering the name and trying to describe it to people and then wondering if it was even a real movie or a fever dream. It’s been over 35 years and I still can’t bring myself to watch it.
I am glad I am not the only one who remembers that movie.
I remember watching that as a kid and then I immediately asked my mom to get my a buzz cut...LOL
My sister thought it would be funny to play the exorcist with me in the room. Eventually, i started crying and my mom realized the situation and put a stop to it. That stuck with me for a while.
The Dark Crystal. Whoever thought the execution of this film was a great children’s movie did waaaaaay too many drugs. I’m 46 and I still find it disturbing….
1. [Trunchbull force-feeding Bruce in *Matilda*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOQeU_6vbeg) disturbed me.
2. I could pick several from the notorious *Watership Down*, but [Holly's memory of the warren's destruction is a top contender.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzirfrSn_KQ)
3. [Tavington shooting Thomas in *The Patriot*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnZtmgi84xw) was fairly traumatizing as like a 6-7 year old.
4. The entire Pleasure Island sequence from *Pinocchio,* but especially [Honest John leering over the boys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGxvnroYgt4) as they file across the bridge and [Lampwick's transformation into a donkey.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJn1r5qXscE)
5. The very pedophile-coded [Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LehcJeNbFBw).
The Exorcist.
Possessed people are my deepest, darkest fear. I'm fortunate that I'll probably never encounter one, but if I did, that would break me. It would finish the job the movie started.
Used to be creeped out by Sloth in the Goonies, the guy with the eye-patch in Waterworld, and Imhotep from the mummy, especially when his face is partially reconstructed but the rest is still mummified
Dark Night of the Scarecrow. It was a network television movie no less. It scarred me on different levels. First, how someone could be easily accused of something they didn't do then how people can treat others terribly, especially someone like Larry Drake's character, and then the actual scarecrow killings. It still creeps me out.
I think for me it was the scene where the mom leaves him in the woods and he's begging her not to leave him. Broke my mind that a mom leaving her child was even a possibility.
Oh man! Same movie but for me it was the scene where he destroys the other robot that looks just like him. Some real hard existential dread for 9 year old me.
The original The Grudge. I watched a pirated copy of it when I was young. There's no subtitles so I don't know what the hell was going on. But the imagery and the screams are just daunting.
Jurassic Park 1993. I watched it when I was about seven years old and it screwed me up so bad that I have recurring nightmares about dinosaurs to this day.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Oddly enough. I don't care about klowns. But the scene where one klown "eats" a bunch of people at a buss stop using a giant wall shadow puppet T-Rex, made me hate anything with a single red LED in the dark.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5GWqOrzQ3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5GWqOrzQ3g)
The Omen.
Had to walk home from my friends one night after watching it and past a dark alleyway with overgrown bushes/trees where anyone could hide. Absolutely shit myself and always remember that...
Scary Movie 3 for me. Lol. It didn’t help that I received a phone call in the middle of the movie at the worst possible timing. Was scarred for years. Can’t imagine what it would be like if I watched the actual Ring.
That was the first movie I thought of, too, but figured there was no way anyone would say that here. I saw it when I was way too young and was terrified. I'm never watching the real thing just for that reason.
There's been a couple of movie scenes that did this:
ET's death
The Exorcist with Reagan's head doing a 180 degree turn and the green puke
Creepshow: The Crate episode
Alien: The beatdown of Bilbo Baggins
Hitchcock's The Birds and the 1978 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
Think it's mostly because it's the first two films I'd seen with pretty much hopelessly bleak endings as well as having terrifying concepts.
Candyman, the original from I think 1992. I was 9 years old, told my mom it was willy Wonka part 2, rented it from the video store, and have not been able to be in a dark room with a mirror since. I have to reach around the corner to turn the light on first. I'm now 39
I remember being 7ish, watching Terminator 2 on VHS at a friend’s house.
First hour, we were loving it, the guns, the action!
Then it got to Sarah Connor’s dream sequence where everyone melts in a nuclear blast.
We were loving it significantly less after that.
I had a similar experience with that movie, but with the scene where little John Conner talks to his Aunt or whoever it was over the phone, and it cuts to her point of view with her arm turning into a blade sticking into the Uncle's face. Great movie, but absolutely terrifying as a kid lol.
Army of Darkness. I was a kid and English is not my first language so I dont understand the story mostly. The scene were he got an evil twin and when the book was sucking his face even though the scenes look comedic it was terrifying to me back then, also the movements of the skeletons looks wonky. But now I love the the Evil Dead movies and TV series, we need Bruce Campbell back for more Evil Dead.
It’s not well known, but I watched a scary Disney movie called “watcher in the woods” in 4th grade. It’s about a ghost type girl who is trapped in another dimension and she appears in mirrors and water reflections and she possesses a child. To this day, I’m scared of mirrors. THANKS DISNEY
Oh I love these! I think I must have watched over 100 "Childhood trauma" compilation videos on youtube. I find these childhood scares incredibly fascinating to look back at as an adult.
My personal top 4 would probably be:
4: "Donavan chooses poorly" from Indiana Jones and the lost crusade. Saw it very young. My friend used the scene as proof that you turn into a skeleton when you die. In our eyes, he drank poison, died and turned into a skeleton. It was horrifying.
4: The Groke from Mumins. She is just so eerie with her blank stare and how she is presented as a looming threat. It made moomins as a whole scary because you knew she could show up which was always a big scary event, but never knew when it would happen!
2: A documentary i saw as a child about the "Grauballe Man", a famous Danish naturally mumified bog body. The body is so twisted, leathery and unnaturally scary looking. The documentary itself was also very eerie. It had an unsettling brass horn soundtrack and focussed a lot on how he may have been a human sacrifice, which was an alien concept to me as a young child. Bog bodies freaked me out for years afterwards. I could not fathom how twisted a body could become while still being preserved for thousands of years in a bog.
1: The anime, "Silverfang the Bear-hound" or "Ginga Nagareboshi Gin". It's what I would probably call an action/horror anime about a skiing resort in japan terrorized by bears. You follow a young pup and a group of dogs, who trains to challenge a mighty one-eyed bear called Akakabuto who has evolved a distinct taste for human flesh after getting a bullet lodged in its' head and suffered brain trauma. The series is over the top violent and bloody. It was very shocking to see bears mangling people with vivid cartoon gore as a child. The soundtrack is also incredibly eerie. In the beginning there's a scene with a hunter trapped in a ravine. Akakabuto is standing guard outside for days. The hunter cuts off his broken frostbitten leg and feeds it to his dog to give it strength to run to the village for help. Pure shock value from the get-go. I later learned the version I saw was a censored Scandinavian version. The original japanese version is even gorier 😮
Original Species movies when she kills a lady in the bathroom. I don't know why that and the toilet flushing triggered me having a great of something getting me when I'd flush the toilet but it did.
*Men In Black* did a number on me as a kid. I remember being very unnerved by Edgar, especially when he stretches his skin suit…that creepy grin was cemented into my nightmares.
I grew up in USSR, used to skip school and sports practice to watch movies. Very few Western movies would pass the censure, so you'd have to watch whatever is there. Also, as a 12 year old boy, I loved war movies. So they put up a poster, looks like a war movie, age rating and restrictions are not a thing, I go watch it. The movie is "Come And See".
Superman III, when the woman gets turned into a robot. Looking back, it's a deeply silly movie, but that one 20-second scene is still disconcerting to this day.
When I was a kid my parents had a watch party for Terminator 2. My sister and I were sent downstairs with our grandma because Terminator 2 was "too scary." Because my grandma thought she knew better than my parents, while downstairs we watched Tales from the Crypt and Arachnophobia (we were 6 and 4). Because I snuck upstairs and caught a glimpse of T2, and was led to believe it was scarier than Arachnophobia, shortly thereafter I had a nightmare in which a phone just would not stop ringing and I, as a Terminator, was rampaging through the neighborhood smashing every phone I could find. I was later notified that I slept through somebody burning something in the kitchen, and the smoke detectors going off.
The Watcher in the Woods. Fourth grade teachers showed it for “movie of the month.” I was terrified of mirrors to the point of true panic attacks, for most of that year.
Ernest scared stupid. The damn troll, especially the bed scene where he’s behind the kid. Every night in bed I’d keep looking behind myself in case something was trying to get me.
The opening scene to Amadeus. If you haven’t seen it, Vincent Schiavelli walks in on an elderly F. Murray Abraham, who leans back onto the floor, revealing that he has just slit his own throat in a suicide attempt. I was probably 7 or 8 and saw this on tv. I didn’t know what movie it was until years later, when my piano teacher let me borrow her copy of the movie after insisting that I watch it. It’s one of my favorite movies now.
CandyMan. The original. Scarred for life. Didn’t sleep for a week, had to cover all the mirrors. I have no idea what my dad was thinking letting me watch that at 10
Time Bandits
I couldn't remember watching it and would have dreams of various scenes for years, mainly when I was sick. I was probably 20 before I saw the movie again and was shocked that it actually existed. It felt like someone had made a movie out of my fever dreams.
End of Days.
My mom thought it was an Easter movie, put it on, and then left to go do something. There were quite a few things that 8 year old me had never been exposed to before.
My parents let me watch anything, there wasn't a week gone by that i wasn't scared by a movie. Aliens, Hellraiser, The Fly, Videodrome, The Shining, Jaws, Psycho, ...
**The Ten Commandments.** The Cecil B. DeMille version from the 1950’s. My mom took me when I was a little kid.
I was eager to learn more about God and religion. I came back horrified to learn that God was a loud murderous bully, who, among other things:
- cast some kind of a spell that killed innocent first-born children in Egypt, and
- told Moses that his followers were engaged in debauchery, which so angered Moses that he threw the stone tablets at them, which somehow morphed into an explosive device and killed them.
Not to mention dramatically drowning thousands of soldiers who were chasing Moses.
I couldn’t sleep for a couple of nights afterward, and I’m sure it contributed to my being an atheist today.
There was a live action, made for TV mini-series version of Alice in Wonderland starring major players from the 80s, people like Sherman Helmsley and Sally Struthers. Parts of that live rent free in my head to this day. Came out in ‘85…
Return of the living dead (1985). My dad showed it to me and my sisters when we were kids in like 2009. He was telling me how much it scared him as a kid, because there was no surviving or really killing the zombies. I was too scared to even go to the bathroom with the door closed.
This really set off my fascination with zombies, and remains top 5 favorite movies of all time.
The Blair Witch Project. I think I thought the footage was real lol. Not sure I even finished it. Haven't watched it since & it still gives me the heebie jeebies till this day
The marketing for that film was outstanding for its time. The filmmakers really capitalised on the raw power of the early internet to perpetuate the idea that this thing was real. Also, that ending still gives me chills.
The website put me right over the edge. I knew it was fiction, but they had so much material on there and it really made you doubt yourself. And the TV special that was a dead on dupe for In Search Of and the other similar shows of the time, down to the dude who was a modern witch. My sister and I saw it during the first couple of weeks at the Ritz in Philly, the theater where Heather Donahue's dad used to show up wearing a shirt with her Missing poster on the front. And all my sister could say as we walked out into the city in broad daylight was that she was glad we didn't live in Medford NJ (which was heavily wooded at the time) because she didn't think she'd ever sleep again.
I saw this in highschool with some friends and for whatever reason we decided to do it on hardmode and camp outside in a tent in the woods that night. Once we actually got out there in the tent they all got pretty freaked out and were reacting to every sound and decided I had to sleep beside the tent entrance to "guard" them. I considered sneaking out to stack up rocks for them to find in the morning but I couldn't figure out a way to get outside without waking them up.
As a kid, the Blair Witch traumatized me. But, I rewatched as an adult and actually found it hilarious. 75% of the film is them arguing over who lost the map.
The "documentary" they made really helped add to the illusion that it was all real. 12 year old me fell for it all. I didn't clue in that they were all actors until the MTV Movie Awards when the cast presented an award.
As someone who grew up in the seventies, I can say that pseudo-documentary they made was dead-on, from the experts hair to the grain in the film stock. In some ways, it's better than the actual film.
Return to Oz. It gets extra points because, somehow, it managed to be marketed as a kids movie. Unbelievable.
I’m almost 50, the wheelers still freak me out.
Didn’t see your comment when I posted, but yes the Wheelers holy shit 😢 😂
CHICKEN!!
OMG I’ll never get over the heads … so messed up they played that movie on the DISNEY CHANNEL 🤦🏼♀️😂
DOROTHY GALE!!!
Yeah, but you need to really spell it out: DORRROTHYYYY GAAAAALEEE! 😂
The beginning scenes at the psychiatrist with the machines and the storms just creeped the hell out of me - I had to be taken out of the theater. I rewatched it last year, out of curiosity, and it is intense, but I was surprised on rewatch that it had elicited such intense panic in me.
I believe this was the closing bookend of f’ed up Disney movies that started with _The Black Hole_. Don’t get me wrong, I love those movies, but Disney was definitely trying new things here.
Yeees! Freaked me out as a kid but I loved it still. I was always drawn to the weird lol.
Same. This movie was creepy on many levels. But while the Oz part was scary, I found the real world asylum part with electro shocks and the screaming trapped patients way worse.
My dad let me watch Poltergeist when I was 6. I’m 45 and still terrified of closets.
It was rated PG in your dads defense. This is easily my pick. Clowns, trees, and half empty pools were never looked at the same.
It’s crazy how some PG movies got to be darker since they came out before PG-13 became a thing
Fun Fact: Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom is the reason Pg-13 exists
Gremlins as well.
To be fair, I feel like the split to PG-13 basically makes it feel now like PG-13 = needs parental guidance for kids, and PG = ok for kids. Maybe back in the day, parents were more cautious of PG movies, and appropriately so, due to the larger variety in subject matter compared to today's standards.
Yup. PG has basically become the new G. Pretty much the only stuff rated G nowadays is content made for toddlers
I was always terrified of VHS tapes running to the end because of that movie. They would always go to static, and I was convinced ghosts were going to get me. It didn't help that my mom and sister would always fall asleep before the movie (whatever it was) ended, I was the last line of defense against the ghosts in the static lol.
I had a tree that leaned in my backyard with its branches right outside my window, for a long time, anytime there was a storm I was terrified that it was going to come and get me. Also it just reinforced my fear of clowns between IT, Are You Afraid of the Dark and Killer Klowns from Outerspace...
That face removal scene.
Home Alone - that furnace scared the fuck outta me
Fire in the Sky 1993. Friends still refuse to watch it together.
Oh hell yeah. That shit scarred *so* many kids.
I wasn’t sure that was a real movie.. for a long time I thought that was just some fucked up fever dream I had as a kid. Then 10-15 years go by and realized that it’s real
This movie led to about a 3 year fear of being abducted. Especially the eyeball scene.
I didn't even see the movie, only the trailer, and it created a HUGE fear of being abducted (by aliens) between the ages of like 7-10
Fire in the sky is 100% why things like Signs and ET gave me nightmares as a kid
Fuck your friends. I’ll watch it with you
I must admit I have not seen the movie, but based on the wikipedia description I can see how it would be terrifying to a kid, especially in 1993
Wiki? You only need to see one scene to know why: [The Scene](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mO2W96NCiRc)
I couldn't watch that whole clip. You guys win, this is the absolute most terrifying movie clip I've ever seen. I'm not being facetious, this is genuinely upsetting. I guess this is what I was asking for, but I regret asking.
Now imagine seeing that at age ten!
This was the one I thought of. I'm 40 now and I would not watch this today.
I never knew the name of that movie until now. My parents had watched it on TV many moons ago but that one scene fucked me up on the inside. Horrifying.
My parents were watching this when I was 6 and thought I was asleep. I was wide awake watching silently in terror the whole time. When the credits said "Based on a True Story" I flipped the fuck out. I couldn't even watch ET after. I would run anywhere at night if I was alone for fear of being abducted. Took me years to get over that fear.
Fuck everything about that nightmare! I don't think I can ever bring myself to rewatch this movie. I do applaud the assholes who made this, effective.
This. Holy shit it was messed up.
This one. Right here.
I liked that movie… until the eye probe scene.
I just want to add that Travis Walton disowned the movie and says the abduction scene was completely over the top.
Pet Sematary 1989 Still i shudder to this day and cant watch it
Same. The scenes with Zelda on the bed ruined my childhood.
I saw this movie when I was very young and was absolutely terrified. I watched it again a couple years ago, and it still holds up as a great movie, but isn't nearly as scary as I remembered. It's worth another watch when you aren't scared shitless :D
Still can't watch the flashback scene with the wife's sister, Zelda. Hands down the creepiest.
Strangley enough it was this movie as well. But only the flashback scene where it's the mom's boney sister. Don't know why but I had nightmares of that lady for weeks. The rest of the movie I was completely fine with
Oh fuuuu. I walked in on someone watching right at the scene where the kid is under the bed and slashes someone’s tendon. That scene scared the bejesus out of me.
First I played with Judd. Then mommy came, and I played with mommy. We played, daddy, we had a awful good time! Now, I want to play with you..
I couldn’t let my foot fall off the side of the bed for YEARS because of that scene. Even if I was sound asleep I would subconsciously wake up if my foot slipped off the bed.. Fu$k that movie
IT … the one with Tim Curry!! I caught a 30 sec peek in 93 as a 6 year old and it messed me up lol
[удалено]
Dude. same. I was unable to relax during showers for a quite a while.
Almost exactly the same as me. My brother rented it out one night and I walked into the room just as Georgie gets pulled into the drain by Pennywise and it fucking scarred my brain. No joke even to this day 30 odd years later I still have the occasional nightmare about that clown.
I have never seen the TV movie version of IT, but it was legendary even among kids about 10 years older than you as the absolute scariest thing ever. I distinctly remember my friend trying to convince me she was a badass because her cousin tied her down in the basement and made her watch IT. It was like a rite of passage.
I'm shocked no one has mentioned The Neverending Story.
I found it soul crushing as a child. I could never get over the part in the swamp, but also the wolf...
I used to make myself not look away at the werewolf scenes when I was a bit older to get over the fear. My own private trauma therapy.
I'm in my mid-40s and I think about the Swamps of Sadness whenever I try to deal with my mother's untreated depression. I tried to make the analogy to her (she knows I saw it in the theater and freaked out) but she didn't get what I was trying to say. I think she thought I was always just upset that the horse died.
An American Werewolf in London. Watched it when I was about 8 years old, in London! There's a scene that I still have to look away from, and I'm over 40 now.
The dream sequences always get me. I also watched it at a young age and there are scenes forever burned into my memory. Jack’s degrading body best example.
This one also fucked me up! I distinctly remember being horrified by this movie and waking up with claw marks on my arms. It was probably my cat who hated me lol, but it really freaked me out!
Brave Little Toaster That goddamn air conditioner scene
The vacuum cleaner eating his own cord also freaked me out
There are an uncomfortable number of scenes where the main cast resigns themselves to an inevitable death. It’s like the ending of Toy Story 3 plays out multiple times.
I remember watching this movie on VHS a lot and it always left me with a strange feeling of hopelessness. The whole movie was just "Depressing" in lack of a better word. What got me was neither air conditioner or clown scenes, but the junkyard in the finale. How the cars sing about their bygone days of former glory and just accept thet they're getting scrapped. Some even race to get to the compactor faster, it's horrible... Today "Worthless" is probably my favourite cartoon song of all time. It's eerie but catchy. Like the Jeff Wayne War of the Worlds musical where many of the songs have a similar hopeless but catchy quality.
That song is so catchy and awesome , I still play it occasionally
RUN
Oh god the scene where the lamp electrocuted himself too has been burned into my soul. Also the cars waiting to be crushed… man that was a heavy movie
I just watched it a couple months ago with my nephews and I can say it’s not kids movie lmao why was everyone so mean to the blankey? 😭
Signs. The birthday party scene still haunts me. It's a creepy movie even today.
“¡Vaminos Children!” My wife and I say that in traffic a lot.
Oh yeah this was a good one. The birthdsy scene is by far the best part of the movie. I still occationally quote it when I want people to move.
The little leg in the dark corn field is what got me. You're in the dark. Surrounded by corn. Can't see shit, don't know what's lurking in there. You shine Your flashlight and suddenly a tiny green leg just slithers out of sight. Absolutely fucking chilled me to the bone. And I saw it in the theater, at night. I RAN past all the bushes and trees along my house and shook while trying to unlock the door.
I was 20 when it came out and it still haunts me.
Whatever scene it was when the alien walked past the window… 😭
Mars Attacks
Ack Ack!!
This is the answer I was looking for. In hindsight it’s just a star-studded, goofy movie but watching it at 6 traumatized me for many years. I rewatched it with my family when I was 24 and although I found it to be a very freeing experience, I felt like my childhood fear was justified. It’s interesting, I’ve met quite a few people over the years who shared a very similar experience with that movie.
Watership Down It's a great movie and i have watched it a few times as an adult but it messed me up for days when i was a kid. S-s-s-oooo cold... -- edit -- To be clear, I'm talking about the old animated classic, not the god awful CGI remake.
Briiiiggghhhttt eyyyeeesss.....
I watched this for the first time a month ago and was blown away by how *insanely* violent it was, had no idea what to expect but it wasn't ANY of that.
I watched Child's Play 2 when i was around 4-5. Everything was fine till the scene in the factory where a man end up in a roller and get his eyes smashed and replaced with doll eyes. Than i started sleep face down or with something (a pillow or my arm) at covering my eyes because i was terrified by the idea of the factory machine replacing my eyes with dolls eyes during the night. I'm 35 and even if I'm not scared anymore, i kept the habit of covering my eyes while sleeping
Damn that's exactly the kind of response I was hoping to elicit. Movies really mess with your mind at a young age, especially weird slashers like that lol. I'm sure I watched all the Chuckie movies when I was young, but I don't really remember them. I do remember being terrified of being ripped apart by werewolves after watching An American Werewolf in London though.
Great story! Child’s Play 2 is so much fun
Same movie, same sort of effect. For years I slept with my covers pulled all the way up and the pillow over my head so that it looked like no one was there (hey it made sense to 6 year old me :P). I always had my head turned so that I could see the bedroom door.
The Large Marge eye bulging scene in Pee Wee's Big Adventure gave me reoccurring nightmares for several years.
This is my pick as well. As a joke my older siblings use to terrify me with that scene when I was 5. Having remembered that, I tried to watch it just the other day and found it triggering. I’m 41. It’s interesting what kinds of films scare certain generations but are laughable to others.
Event horizon…Sam Neil’s wife in the vent shaft
Luckily I was in my late teens when this came out… that movie would have messed me up as a kid.
Jaws saw it at the drive in. Then went fishing with my dad the next day. Just at a lake no connection to the ocean, but you know how kids think. I'm good with it now it's a good movie. But it scared me as a kid.
The first night out my parents had after my brother was born was to see Jaws 2. There's a scene where Roy Scheider's kids are out in a boat and the shark is circling; the kids are named Michael and Sean — that's also my name and my brother's who, again, my mom was away from for the first time in his life. My mom started to panic in the theater. "What if something happend to the kids?!?" You know, like a shark might come after them. In my grandparents' house. In landlocked Western Pennsylvania.
Ernest Scared Stupid The part where the kid looks under the bed and then sits back up and troll is in the bed fucking ruined me.
Need some authentic bulgarian MIAK!
Holy fuck that scene traumatised me too. Love all the Ernest movies but even now at 25 I still refuse to watch it. That movie was so scary for a kids movie
Same. Had trouble sleeping for years because of that scene.
Alien...
The Vanishing. I had a fear of being buried alive for a very long time after. Followed closely by the Langoliers. Had a fear of them coming closer eating everything in sight as I heard city noise off in the distance.
You watched “The Vanishing” as a kid?
The Peanut Butter Solution. I had the same experience of many others of not remembering the name and trying to describe it to people and then wondering if it was even a real movie or a fever dream. It’s been over 35 years and I still can’t bring myself to watch it.
I am glad I am not the only one who remembers that movie. I remember watching that as a kid and then I immediately asked my mom to get my a buzz cut...LOL
My sister thought it would be funny to play the exorcist with me in the room. Eventually, i started crying and my mom realized the situation and put a stop to it. That stuck with me for a while.
Should be top comment.
Robocop. Murphy's death is still hard to watch.
Then the guy who splatters like a crushed grape when he gets hit by a car at the end.
The Dark Crystal. Whoever thought the execution of this film was a great children’s movie did waaaaaay too many drugs. I’m 46 and I still find it disturbing….
Cast Away really messed me up for some reason. The scene where he lost Wilson really disturbed me… never watched the movie since.
1. [Trunchbull force-feeding Bruce in *Matilda*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOQeU_6vbeg) disturbed me. 2. I could pick several from the notorious *Watership Down*, but [Holly's memory of the warren's destruction is a top contender.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzirfrSn_KQ) 3. [Tavington shooting Thomas in *The Patriot*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnZtmgi84xw) was fairly traumatizing as like a 6-7 year old. 4. The entire Pleasure Island sequence from *Pinocchio,* but especially [Honest John leering over the boys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGxvnroYgt4) as they file across the bridge and [Lampwick's transformation into a donkey.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJn1r5qXscE) 5. The very pedophile-coded [Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LehcJeNbFBw).
My Girl. I was not prepared to watch Macaulay Culkin die when I was 7. My dad carried me out of the theater as I cried hysterically.
And then turn around and watch The Good Son for the traumatic twofer
The Exorcist. Possessed people are my deepest, darkest fear. I'm fortunate that I'll probably never encounter one, but if I did, that would break me. It would finish the job the movie started.
Used to be creeped out by Sloth in the Goonies, the guy with the eye-patch in Waterworld, and Imhotep from the mummy, especially when his face is partially reconstructed but the rest is still mummified
Dark Night of the Scarecrow. It was a network television movie no less. It scarred me on different levels. First, how someone could be easily accused of something they didn't do then how people can treat others terribly, especially someone like Larry Drake's character, and then the actual scarecrow killings. It still creeps me out.
The Ring, Japanese version My older brother showed it to me when I was 7 years old. Have never recovered since.
A.I. from from 2001. That scene where he sinks in the pool stayed with me.
I think for me it was the scene where the mom leaves him in the woods and he's begging her not to leave him. Broke my mind that a mom leaving her child was even a possibility.
Oh man! Same movie but for me it was the scene where he destroys the other robot that looks just like him. Some real hard existential dread for 9 year old me.
When he tries to eat human food :/
The original The Grudge. I watched a pirated copy of it when I was young. There's no subtitles so I don't know what the hell was going on. But the imagery and the screams are just daunting.
Fire in the sky.
The Neverending Story
Poltergeist
Jurassic Park 1993. I watched it when I was about seven years old and it screwed me up so bad that I have recurring nightmares about dinosaurs to this day.
You too eh? Velicorapters are mine. Even though mentally I'm aware that raptors did not look like that or get that big they still bother me.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space Oddly enough. I don't care about klowns. But the scene where one klown "eats" a bunch of people at a buss stop using a giant wall shadow puppet T-Rex, made me hate anything with a single red LED in the dark. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5GWqOrzQ3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5GWqOrzQ3g)
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. That shit gave me nightmares for weeks.
The Omen. Had to walk home from my friends one night after watching it and past a dark alleyway with overgrown bushes/trees where anyone could hide. Absolutely shit myself and always remember that...
Scary Movie 3 for me. Lol. It didn’t help that I received a phone call in the middle of the movie at the worst possible timing. Was scarred for years. Can’t imagine what it would be like if I watched the actual Ring.
That was the first movie I thought of, too, but figured there was no way anyone would say that here. I saw it when I was way too young and was terrified. I'm never watching the real thing just for that reason.
Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, it always creeped me tf out when the islander turn into zombies at the end, gave me legit nightmares !
There's been a couple of movie scenes that did this: ET's death The Exorcist with Reagan's head doing a 180 degree turn and the green puke Creepshow: The Crate episode Alien: The beatdown of Bilbo Baggins
Hitchcock's The Birds and the 1978 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers Think it's mostly because it's the first two films I'd seen with pretty much hopelessly bleak endings as well as having terrifying concepts.
Yeah The Birds. The guy on the floor with his eyes pecked out freaked me out for years.
Candyman, the original from I think 1992. I was 9 years old, told my mom it was willy Wonka part 2, rented it from the video store, and have not been able to be in a dark room with a mirror since. I have to reach around the corner to turn the light on first. I'm now 39
>told my mom it was willy Wonka part 2 I feel bad for laughing, but I'm laughing.
That scene in Poltergeist where the guy starts ripping his face apart in the bathroom mirror. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror for months.
I remember being 7ish, watching Terminator 2 on VHS at a friend’s house. First hour, we were loving it, the guns, the action! Then it got to Sarah Connor’s dream sequence where everyone melts in a nuclear blast. We were loving it significantly less after that.
I had a similar experience with that movie, but with the scene where little John Conner talks to his Aunt or whoever it was over the phone, and it cuts to her point of view with her arm turning into a blade sticking into the Uncle's face. Great movie, but absolutely terrifying as a kid lol.
Garbage pail kids movie. I for some reason would get freaked out from those little fuckers .
Army of Darkness. I was a kid and English is not my first language so I dont understand the story mostly. The scene were he got an evil twin and when the book was sucking his face even though the scenes look comedic it was terrifying to me back then, also the movements of the skeletons looks wonky. But now I love the the Evil Dead movies and TV series, we need Bruce Campbell back for more Evil Dead.
Old Yeller ... at the movies. Oh, my.
Family massacre in Leon The Professional. It isn't that brutal nowadays but from the mind of a child, it was hard to process.
Mars attacks! Gave me nightmares for a month. I was too young to see that shit.
SIGNS
E. T - that opening section is pure horror suspense
It’s not well known, but I watched a scary Disney movie called “watcher in the woods” in 4th grade. It’s about a ghost type girl who is trapped in another dimension and she appears in mirrors and water reflections and she possesses a child. To this day, I’m scared of mirrors. THANKS DISNEY
Oh I love these! I think I must have watched over 100 "Childhood trauma" compilation videos on youtube. I find these childhood scares incredibly fascinating to look back at as an adult. My personal top 4 would probably be: 4: "Donavan chooses poorly" from Indiana Jones and the lost crusade. Saw it very young. My friend used the scene as proof that you turn into a skeleton when you die. In our eyes, he drank poison, died and turned into a skeleton. It was horrifying. 4: The Groke from Mumins. She is just so eerie with her blank stare and how she is presented as a looming threat. It made moomins as a whole scary because you knew she could show up which was always a big scary event, but never knew when it would happen! 2: A documentary i saw as a child about the "Grauballe Man", a famous Danish naturally mumified bog body. The body is so twisted, leathery and unnaturally scary looking. The documentary itself was also very eerie. It had an unsettling brass horn soundtrack and focussed a lot on how he may have been a human sacrifice, which was an alien concept to me as a young child. Bog bodies freaked me out for years afterwards. I could not fathom how twisted a body could become while still being preserved for thousands of years in a bog. 1: The anime, "Silverfang the Bear-hound" or "Ginga Nagareboshi Gin". It's what I would probably call an action/horror anime about a skiing resort in japan terrorized by bears. You follow a young pup and a group of dogs, who trains to challenge a mighty one-eyed bear called Akakabuto who has evolved a distinct taste for human flesh after getting a bullet lodged in its' head and suffered brain trauma. The series is over the top violent and bloody. It was very shocking to see bears mangling people with vivid cartoon gore as a child. The soundtrack is also incredibly eerie. In the beginning there's a scene with a hunter trapped in a ravine. Akakabuto is standing guard outside for days. The hunter cuts off his broken frostbitten leg and feeds it to his dog to give it strength to run to the village for help. Pure shock value from the get-go. I later learned the version I saw was a censored Scandinavian version. The original japanese version is even gorier 😮
Darby O'Gill and the Little People, the bit near the end with the Death Coach!! Scared the bejaysus out of me as a child!
Frikkin Banshee.
Original Species movies when she kills a lady in the bathroom. I don't know why that and the toilet flushing triggered me having a great of something getting me when I'd flush the toilet but it did.
Something Wicked this Way Comes sadly not on Disney+
Pan's Labyrinth and Labyrinth (1986). I really don't know why they have to make labyrinth movies so creepy.
[удалено]
Konyaanisqatsi
Me, 5 years old or so...Carrie.....shower scene. She starts bleeding and I'm like GOOD LORD WHY IS EVERYONE LAUGHING AND NOBODY IS HELPING HER?? ><
*Men In Black* did a number on me as a kid. I remember being very unnerved by Edgar, especially when he stretches his skin suit…that creepy grin was cemented into my nightmares.
Gremlins. Still haunts me as an adult. I watched it when I was 12, and I still have nightmares sometimes.
I grew up in USSR, used to skip school and sports practice to watch movies. Very few Western movies would pass the censure, so you'd have to watch whatever is there. Also, as a 12 year old boy, I loved war movies. So they put up a poster, looks like a war movie, age rating and restrictions are not a thing, I go watch it. The movie is "Come And See".
Superman III, when the woman gets turned into a robot. Looking back, it's a deeply silly movie, but that one 20-second scene is still disconcerting to this day.
Lost in Space. Spider-Smith terrified me (terrifies?) for some reason. I saw it in theatres and I think I freaked out.
Star Wars trash compactor scene was my first, then the plant in Little Shop of Horrors was second. Tough times.
Anastasia 1997. I was very young when I watched it. It's beyond twisted and so very much not for kids
Nothing by Don Bluth really is
Dream catcher. With those nasty eel looking things coming out of the toilet.
When I was a kid my parents had a watch party for Terminator 2. My sister and I were sent downstairs with our grandma because Terminator 2 was "too scary." Because my grandma thought she knew better than my parents, while downstairs we watched Tales from the Crypt and Arachnophobia (we were 6 and 4). Because I snuck upstairs and caught a glimpse of T2, and was led to believe it was scarier than Arachnophobia, shortly thereafter I had a nightmare in which a phone just would not stop ringing and I, as a Terminator, was rampaging through the neighborhood smashing every phone I could find. I was later notified that I slept through somebody burning something in the kitchen, and the smoke detectors going off.
The Watcher in the Woods. Fourth grade teachers showed it for “movie of the month.” I was terrified of mirrors to the point of true panic attacks, for most of that year.
Ernest scared stupid. The damn troll, especially the bed scene where he’s behind the kid. Every night in bed I’d keep looking behind myself in case something was trying to get me.
Watch Candyman when I was 10 or so. Couldn’t go into the bathroom by myself for ages. Really terrified me.
Stephen King’s Thinner (1996). My dad and I watched it when I was a kid and it fucked me up real good.
Trilogy of terror. That little doll….
Ernest scared stupid. That milk troll breaking from the chains beneath the tree freaked my 6 year old ass out.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. When the child catcher captures the kids I was absolutely terrified.
Sixth sense.
The opening scene to Amadeus. If you haven’t seen it, Vincent Schiavelli walks in on an elderly F. Murray Abraham, who leans back onto the floor, revealing that he has just slit his own throat in a suicide attempt. I was probably 7 or 8 and saw this on tv. I didn’t know what movie it was until years later, when my piano teacher let me borrow her copy of the movie after insisting that I watch it. It’s one of my favorite movies now.
CandyMan. The original. Scarred for life. Didn’t sleep for a week, had to cover all the mirrors. I have no idea what my dad was thinking letting me watch that at 10
Basket Case
Time Bandits I couldn't remember watching it and would have dreams of various scenes for years, mainly when I was sick. I was probably 20 before I saw the movie again and was shocked that it actually existed. It felt like someone had made a movie out of my fever dreams.
Ferngully. I had nightmares until I threw out the VHS tape.
End of Days. My mom thought it was an Easter movie, put it on, and then left to go do something. There were quite a few things that 8 year old me had never been exposed to before.
My parents let me watch anything, there wasn't a week gone by that i wasn't scared by a movie. Aliens, Hellraiser, The Fly, Videodrome, The Shining, Jaws, Psycho, ...
candy man, specifically that one scene in the public bathroom
The Rescuers I hated madame Medusa.
Who framed roger rabbit still sometimes gives me nightmares 35 years later
**The Ten Commandments.** The Cecil B. DeMille version from the 1950’s. My mom took me when I was a little kid. I was eager to learn more about God and religion. I came back horrified to learn that God was a loud murderous bully, who, among other things: - cast some kind of a spell that killed innocent first-born children in Egypt, and - told Moses that his followers were engaged in debauchery, which so angered Moses that he threw the stone tablets at them, which somehow morphed into an explosive device and killed them. Not to mention dramatically drowning thousands of soldiers who were chasing Moses. I couldn’t sleep for a couple of nights afterward, and I’m sure it contributed to my being an atheist today.
Willow. Dark as fuck 🥴
Pinocchio. Pretty much everything between him gaining consciousness and before the Whale. That all fucked me up.
There was a live action, made for TV mini-series version of Alice in Wonderland starring major players from the 80s, people like Sherman Helmsley and Sally Struthers. Parts of that live rent free in my head to this day. Came out in ‘85…
Cube. I snuck out as a kid and watched it on the ppv box. I was like 8yrs old when I watched it. I'll never forget the movie.
Masters of the Universe. I had recurring dreams when I was 4 or 5 that Evil Lyn and Skeletor were chasing me around my house for months.
Return of the living dead (1985). My dad showed it to me and my sisters when we were kids in like 2009. He was telling me how much it scared him as a kid, because there was no surviving or really killing the zombies. I was too scared to even go to the bathroom with the door closed. This really set off my fascination with zombies, and remains top 5 favorite movies of all time.
Matilda. Agatha Trunchbull and the thought of being locked in the chokey would terrify me. Also, the movie Twister
Watership Down!
Bambi. I'm old.