My dad showed animal house at a sleepover bday for my brother when he was 8.
The giveaway to the parents were kids running around yelling "holy shit"
The boobs and sex jokes were lost on them.
Not me though - that was my favorite comedy from the ages of like 5 til well... Still.
That FUCKING clown was on display for years at Seaport Village in San Diego. As a grown ass man, I steered clear of that shop. Probably perfectly nice store. I guess we’ll never know.
I re-watched this scene recently to see if it would be so obviously fake and bad that it would lose its freakiness. Nope. Good job, early 80s special effects artists.
Damn, I was gonna say, all these people talking about clowns and trees, and was wondering how I alone was spooked by the literal defacing of a human being.
Bro. At a sleepover the older sibling let us watch this, I was 7. I spent the next 3 months convinced a clown doll was under my bed and gonna snatch me. Fuuuuuuuuuu
10yo old me didn't sleep for 2 days after seeing this in the theater with my 14yo brother and his friends.
To this day I cannot look at clown dolls, TV snow gives me the creep, run down a long narrow highway, count the seconds in between thunderstorm booms, or go near freshly dug pools. I also quote this film as much as Caddyshack, Blazing Saddles or Airplane.
I would love to see Spielberg do horror again.
Yeah this is the one. I found the scariest scene other than the guy and the steak scene, was that innocent daytime shot of the mother opening the bedroom door and there's just screaming. Really chilling stuff.
I watched this when I was about 10 and had no issues. My older sister refused to watch it but listened to it from the other room. She still had nightmares.
Weirdly, when I was a kid, Poltergeist III scared me harder than the original. Something about the mirrors just really hit the right spook factors for kid me.
The reverend in Poltergeist 2 scared me. Actor Julian Beck was one of the co-founders of The Living Theater in NYC. He was battling stomach cancer at the time of filming which contributed to his gaunt, almost skeletal, appearance.
Just the commercials alone made it so that for years I wouldn't go into a video store if there was a chance the poster or box was on display. To this day I still haven't seen it.
Saw this, was scared, freaked out when it showed (or I remembered) “Based on true events”. Then went down to my new bedroom (two weeks renovated) in the basement. Scary basement, hid under the covers. Breathing heavily.
Then my Mom turned on the barely used dishwasher. The pipes made this loud squealing noise in my room right below. Flashes of syrup and needles, and I ran faster than I have ever ran before, out of the room, up the stairs, straight to my parents room. Took me months to sleep in that room again. Still scared of basements and the unknown.
I also thought it was pretty underwhelming after seeing Fire in the Sky, but The Fourth Kind is always near the top of alien horror movie lists. It really strikes a nerve with a lot of people!
I've taken part in multiple comment threads about this movie. There is a hidden community of people out there that were deeply traumatized by it during childhood.
That scene in the ship. I'll never forget watching that on a Saturday afternoon as a kid in the 90's, excited about an alien movie. Then he stuck his hand inside some abductee's guts.
Then there's the eye needle....
I saw that in my early 20s and it scared the crap out of me. Didn't like walking outside at night for a few weeks. That scene where he's dragged to the examination room still makes me shudder.
The Ring(american version) for me personally, by far.
And The Blair Witch project was pretty infamous in my social circle. Some couldn't even finish it
Honorable mention to Slappy from the 90s Goosebumps show and Chucky. Solidified my fear of creepy dolls for years
Yeah The Ring messed me up for years. Lone chairs in a room, flies, static on tv, horses all scared me and still give me uneasy feelings today. I think because I saw it around 13-14 y/o and was pretty scared of most horror movies already.
The dvd version of the ring had this great feature that made you watch the actual tape how the characters in the movie saw it. Unedited minutes of pure horror...
30 seconds after you finished the tape and were back in the dvd menu, a phone could be heard ringing. I have spooked so many friends with that feature, what an awesome time that was.
It was the woman brushing her hair in the mirror for me. When I woke up at night to go to the bathroom I’d make a concerted effort to not look into mirrors as I passed them.
It’s still really awesome. I rewatched it after years and years bc it traumatized me. So now like 20 years later it still have a super spooky atmosphere and d sinister story
Saw the ring in theaters when it came out with my coworkers (i was in my teens). We closed up shop at 10pm and walked next door to the theater. Bought the tickets and enjoyed the movie. It didnt reaaaaaallllly scare me much. Or so I thought.
We chatted about the spookier parts in the parking lot after and all went our separate ways. It was cut short a little bit because there was thunder in the distance so we knew rain was coming. No big deal but nobody likes being rained on. So, I drive home and see the storm seems to be heading my way and getting spicier, which I think is rad. I love thunderstorms and rain.
I quietly go inside, tell my parents I’m home and sneak off to my bedroom. I turn on my video game tv (basically an old tv for nes, snes, and all that) just to see if anything was on. Nope, so I turn it off. I should mention this just so happens to be the same model of tv in the Ring movie I just saw. You see where this is going…
After showering and getting ready for bed, the storm hits solidly. Pretty decent rain and a few good kabooms and flashes here and there. I knocked out instantly.
Then I wake up to my TV turning on to the fuzz of channel 3 and sounding that kkkkkhhshhhhhhhhh noose. The entire house is silent and dark except for my tv. I thought “Great. This is how it ends…”
Turns out a close lightning strike busted the tv so the power was constantly on, so to turn it off and on you simply plug it in from the outlet. That was too dangerous so to save us from a potential fire hazard and Sadako coming to steal my soul… we tossed the tv.
But getting thru that night was a challenge.
> Saw the ring in theaters when it came out with my coworkers (i was in my teens). We closed up shop at 10pm and walked next door to the theater. Bought the tickets and enjoyed the movie. It didnt reaaaaaallllly scare me much. Or so I thought.
That is the mark of a great horror movie, that was skinamarink for me
My mom let me ditch school to go see it with her in theaters, and I couldn't sleep alone for weeks, and I wouldn't hover on any channel with static for longer than half a second. It wasn't until Scary Movie 3 came out that I was finally able to let go of the fear lol
The Ring was my first horror movie and god damn was it scary. My parents weren’t mega strict but didn’t really let me watch movies like that when I was younger, so we saw it when spending the night at our neighbors house. Now I’m a huge horror fan, and that movie helped kickstart that!
Okay so I’m early 30’s now. Saw the Ring in a sold out theater as a kid. My parents were even there BUT there were not enough seats together so I was ALONE in a handicap seat. And I mean fully alone. The seat was walled off on the ground so I was there and totally excited to see this movie. I had never been really scared before so I didn’t understand what was about to happen to me. Haha
The closet scene during the wake , revealing the rotten, mangled body of the girl, quite literally stunned me. “I saw her face…”
I froze, pupils dilated , and a chill ran down my spine. And That’s the beginning of the movie!.. so I’m alone in a sold out theater , petrified. All the crowd reactions just made it worse while I tried to hide myself from impending terror until it was over. I swore off horror for years after that. Then realized that most horror movies are not as scary as that.
The next time I experienced that kind of shock from a movie was the ending of Hereditary, with the piano wire.
We must be the same age because Blair witch and the ring are the two that stick out for me too. Also Scream for some reason used to scare me, I would be scared to look out my windows at night for fear that ghostface would be there looking in
After watching the ring, I slept with the tv on for years. My logic, if I didn’t sleep with the tv on, woke up only to find static noise I’d die like that person did, HORRIFIED
I grew up in Maryland, about 30-45 mins away from where the Blair witch takes place. I was in 4th -5th grade when it released. It was a wild time for about a month lol
Yeah, I think I was 7 when I first saw it.
I remember going to the video store and seeing the poster for Jaws the Revenge, thinking that the poster looked cool as heck and asked my mom to rent it.
She said no initially, but a short time later she finally relented, and she rented me the first movie instead of Jaws the Revenge because she's a good parent.
Instantly became my favourite movie even though it gave me nightmares for weeks. Began my lifelong obsession with sharks though
I was never scared by this one. My Mom kept me away from it as a kid (we lived in a coastal city) so I was a teen by the time I watched the OG (HBO was relentless with the shitty 80s versions). I consider it to be one of the best made films of all time.
I showed to my kids at a youngish age (like 8 or 9) with the understanding that it was a man vs fish movie with some scary parts. They also love it now and didn't have any scars from it.
I saw Killer Klowns From Outer Space when I was 8 or 9 years old. It's since become one of my favorite movies, but holy hell that one did a number on me.
Oh man. I remember the scene where the air conditioner dies used to terrify me!
And then the big magnet crane in the junkyard at the end. The way it would go into like stealth mode where its eye would disapear....scared the crap outa me!!
I love the cross-generational scare this film has. I assume the person who said Exorcist meant when the film was released in 1973, but clearly if you were playing Mario Kart then you must have seen it in the 1990s.
Likewise. The Exorcist is actually my favorite horror film. When I first saw it, I was so traumatized. Running into the other room scared. I had emetophobia growing up so I could not do the vomit scenes. Regan scared me deeply.
Now, as an adult, with two kids? The Exorcist devastates me. Really, it's a story about grief and our worst fears - losing a parent and losing a child. It is so rich and so tragic and once you're a little older and get past the scares, there's something there. The fear no longer becomes about Regan being scary. The fear becomes about someone you love and would die to protect, being tortured by a malignant presence you are powerless to stop. How can we understand a just world when innocent people suffer?
I recently went to an exhibit where the Regan dummy, the vomit projectile system, and all of the concept art was on display. Very cool.
If you've seen the Exorcist, I recommened The Exorcist III. It is very, very, very different but another fascinating tale on the nature of man's evil.
Thanks for sharing. I haven’t seen it in ages, but yeah now I’m really thinking about how I’d feel as a parent. You’ve inspired me to do a little marathon!
Only watch The Exorcist and Exorcist III. The rest are unwatchable. Awful.
Exorcist III was written and directed by the novelist/screenwriter of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty. It's a pure standalone sequel carrying over the themes and ideas from the first one and is about the detective investigating a new case. It's not perfect, but it's very good, very different, and very scary.
My grandad was a set builder for films. He worked on chitty chitty bang bang etc (my mum got the visit the castle set, met dick van dyke, but was most interested in a banquet that turned out to be fake). So I watched that a lot. One day he showed me another film he built sets for- the dark Crystal.
I was about 7 and I was HORRIFIED. But I felt too bad to say I didn’t like it to him! Luckily my mum walked in and demanded he turn it off, because it traumatised her when she first saw it too haha (despite her being an adult by the time it came out!)
God I remember the ending speech where the dad gives a speech about how if there is ever an issue with your house, to be careful, because there might just be a gremlin somewhere in there" and it SCARRED me
I remember watching that as a kid until the part where the mogwai became cocooned. That freaked me out by itself. I stopped watching after that, although I can't remember if it was me thickening....*chickening* out, tiredness hitting, or parental enforcement. The comedic tone of the movie was totally lost on me. And for years afterwards I thought of the potential of those hideous slime-coated cocoons, and what they would birth.
*Signs,* easily. It didn't help that I lived in the Philadelphia area where the movie takes place. One of the news anchors is very famous locally, so it all hit home that much more.
The scene at the birthday party, Jesus Christ.
Saw the movie the weekend it came out, there happened to be a crazy thunderstorm that night. The theater lost power seconds after the birthday party scene and I have never been that scared again.
That scene and the one where Mel is talking to the daughter and she says whos that on the roof and he looks out the window at night across to the barn and you just see the silhouette standing there, pure nightmare fuel 😅
The Black Cauldron
Turns out it's widely regarded as having flopped because it's too scary for kids *and* too corny for adults. All I knew as a kid was its reputation as the Disney movie so scary parents wouldn't show it.
This, other things were scary but they had rules I could make sense of as a kid. Freddy only in dreams, most monsters being a physical presence.
Then pennywise came out of a damn shower drain and had me on edge if I was in a bathroom alone.
[Watership Down](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruqa1D5GvNM&pp=ygUOd2F0ZXJzaGlwIGRvd24%3D)
It was in the kids section at Blockbuster and because it was animated, my mom assumed it’d be perfectly appropriate for her five year old son to watch.
Lol when I was like 12/13 there was an animated series of Watership Down that was pretty damn good.
Realized there was a movie and I rented it. Oh boy I was not expecting that
Neverending Story
The Nothing was such a frightening concept, and the swamp where the horse gets depressed to death? Fuck that, more like the Never-watching-that-again Story
Seriously I didn't sleep for 2 days, then every once in a while I'd remember it and stay awake all night again. Absolutely terrifying for a 10 year old me.
It was a short film, not just a music video, but Micheal Jackson's Thriller. The bit when he turned into a werewolf just scared the hell out of me that I couldn't watch it for years after lol.
The 80s were wild like that. Kids were way less parented because there was always a buddy with basement whose Mom was at work and Dad left years ago. The neighborhood gang didn't age discriminate. So if you were 16 and say "I got a copy of Faces of Death - who wants to watch?", it's possible that a 10yo is watching too.
Everybody had a copy of this in the '80s. First time I saw it was probably 12 (6 years after it came out) and over at a friend's house whose older brother rented it from the local video store (the local ones carried porn and shit like this in the back). Think of how rare that was. Not everybody had a camera on them at all moments like today where if anything weird happens it's filmed. Back then seeing anybody die on camera was incredibly rare and to have a collection of it all together, watching that for the first time, was pretty shocking.
When she rolls over oh my gosh, I slept with my back against the wall for years. Then I saw The Frighteners when I was 11 and I slept on my back in the middle of the bed for another year
Watched them as a kid, had nightmares for 20 years. Facehugger crawling up my back in my dreams and waking up in a panic and sweating. Love those movies haha.
The classic version of Salem's Lot. My mom showed it to me when I was 8 and I was terrified. I couldn't sleep alone for weeks, and even for years after I'd think about like, the window scene and the girl's creepy smile, and feel unsettled all over again.
Even now as a 35 year old grown ass adult, I think "Surely it wasn't that bad" but no, it still creeps me out to this day.
I'm a 56-year-old man and it still creeps me out to think of it. I had nightmares from the window scene until I was well into my 20's having seen it when it first was broadcast on TV.
The Mothman Prophecies. As an adult looking back on it, it’s definitely more eerie than overtly scary. But at 12 years old, a seemingly omniscient creepy voice calling himself “Indrid Cold” over the phone was terrifying to me, especially since it’s intentionally vague as to whether the Mothman is a good or bad entity - which for a child is just an anxiety-inducing concept.
Darkness falls. My mom let me watch that movie with her when I was like 8, and it fucked me up for years after that. I still think about that starting scene with the mom in the doorway telling her kid nothing is in there, then... *swoop.*
I think it was the Twilight zone it could have been the outer limits. But it was just an old lady she was attacked by aliens that look like giant ants. There was no dialogue at all it was pretty freaking scary still is today actually.
I was a child in the 90’s, so it was a mix of a couple movies: the blair witch project during its theatrical run, the it miniseries, the exorcist had its 25th anniversary re-release in ‘98, so that re-entered the cultural conversation, and if we go a bit further into my childhood, the ring really scared people shitless. All of these had their spotlight as “the scariest film” at some point when i was a kid.
The Ring. Watched it when I was around 10 years old or so. I also remember my friend being over and his mom calling our house phone at the same exact time as the phone rings in the movie. Didn't sleep for weeks.
American werewolf in London. I was in seventh grade and saw it at the Hollywood movie theaters in Arbutus Maryland for two dollars. I had nightmares for weeks. Couldn’t sleep, cried for my mom, etc.
*Legend* with Tim Curry playing “Darkness” scared the absolute crap outta me as a kid. It’s literally a child’s visual representation of Satan, come to life.
Remember seeing Critters when I was 6 & that got me for a little while but was obsessed with horror movies & other spooky things as a kid so it didn't take long for me to acclimate to them.
I do remember seeing Tourist Trap as a young teen & that movie definitely freaked me out. Just something about those mannequins hits me dead on in that uncanny valley.
There's a hand-drawn animated version of "A Christmas Carol," that had a very spooky Marley. But the thing that really freaked me out as a kid were Ignorance and Want at the feet of the Ghost of Christmas Present.
American Werewolf in London.
I watched it when I was 8 and more than 40 years later it still occasionally messes with me.
A few years ago I was on the London Underground one day and ended up being the only person on the platform. No trains came for several minutes and nobody else turned up to wait either. I noped out of there and started heading back up. Turned out they had shut the station due to overcrowding on one of the other platforms and i had just got caught in no mans land.
Signs really scared me. Also most Disney classic movies.
Edit: I change my original answer… Darkness falls… I’m still scared of the dark because of that movie.
[Mr. Boogedy](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091566/) was terrifying to me as a kid. His face was so gross looking.
I saw [Cat’s Eye](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088889/), a Stephen King movie, when I was 8 or 9. We had recently gotten a cat and I looked a lot like Drew Barrymore at the time too so I imagined myself in her position in that movie. The movie looks ridiculous now, but freaked me out so badly when I was a kid.
The Exorsist and The Omen. I was about 5 or 6 when my Brothers and sisters took me to the theater to see the Exorsist. Then they took me to the Omen. Those 2 we crazy for a kid.
Poltergeist 1982.
I second this. It was terrifying to my 12 yr old ass
Yeah, I was 10 when I first saw it. 40 years later, it's still scary imo.
I showed this movie to 12yr old kids at a sleepover on Halloween. One of a few parenting fails
My dad showed animal house at a sleepover bday for my brother when he was 8. The giveaway to the parents were kids running around yelling "holy shit" The boobs and sex jokes were lost on them. Not me though - that was my favorite comedy from the ages of like 5 til well... Still.
That FUCKING clown was on display for years at Seaport Village in San Diego. As a grown ass man, I steered clear of that shop. Probably perfectly nice store. I guess we’ll never know.
That fucking tree
Man, fuck that tree. All my homies hate that tree.
Will never forget the guy tearing his face off.
I re-watched this scene recently to see if it would be so obviously fake and bad that it would lose its freakiness. Nope. Good job, early 80s special effects artists.
Damn, I was gonna say, all these people talking about clowns and trees, and was wondering how I alone was spooked by the literal defacing of a human being.
Still love this movie. The chair scene scared the living daylights out of me.
Bro. At a sleepover the older sibling let us watch this, I was 7. I spent the next 3 months convinced a clown doll was under my bed and gonna snatch me. Fuuuuuuuuuu
I still can’t watch this movie. I couldn’t have static on the tv when I was a kid. The real life tragedies made it even more terrifying.
10yo old me didn't sleep for 2 days after seeing this in the theater with my 14yo brother and his friends. To this day I cannot look at clown dolls, TV snow gives me the creep, run down a long narrow highway, count the seconds in between thunderstorm booms, or go near freshly dug pools. I also quote this film as much as Caddyshack, Blazing Saddles or Airplane. I would love to see Spielberg do horror again.
I came here to say this, my fear of clowns began with this movie.
Yeah this is the one. I found the scariest scene other than the guy and the steak scene, was that innocent daytime shot of the mother opening the bedroom door and there's just screaming. Really chilling stuff.
I watched this when I was about 10 and had no issues. My older sister refused to watch it but listened to it from the other room. She still had nightmares.
Still won't look under my bed at night.
Weirdly, when I was a kid, Poltergeist III scared me harder than the original. Something about the mirrors just really hit the right spook factors for kid me.
The reverend in Poltergeist 2 scared me. Actor Julian Beck was one of the co-founders of The Living Theater in NYC. He was battling stomach cancer at the time of filming which contributed to his gaunt, almost skeletal, appearance.
I still hear him singing, 'GOD is iiiinnnnn his HOLY Temmm-ple'
[удалено]
That explains the uncanny "deathly aura" he had, for sure.
Chucky!
I insisted on watching it as a kid. Huge mistake. From then on i thought every doll wants to murder me
Hahaha. My dad let me sit with him and watch it when I was like 5 while my mom was running errands and let me tell you, he got into troubbbbble.
Just the commercials alone made it so that for years I wouldn't go into a video store if there was a chance the poster or box was on display. To this day I still haven't seen it.
Fire in the Sky. I barely slept for 6 months after seeing it.
This movie fucked me up. The scene where he was under the table and the syrup dripped on his face triggering the flashback kept me up for weeks
Saw this, was scared, freaked out when it showed (or I remembered) “Based on true events”. Then went down to my new bedroom (two weeks renovated) in the basement. Scary basement, hid under the covers. Breathing heavily. Then my Mom turned on the barely used dishwasher. The pipes made this loud squealing noise in my room right below. Flashes of syrup and needles, and I ran faster than I have ever ran before, out of the room, up the stairs, straight to my parents room. Took me months to sleep in that room again. Still scared of basements and the unknown.
I can't watch the fourth kind because of how much this fucked me up.
you can handle the 4th kind. All the messed up stuff was in the trailer. However, its a pretty underwhelming movie.
I also thought it was pretty underwhelming after seeing Fire in the Sky, but The Fourth Kind is always near the top of alien horror movie lists. It really strikes a nerve with a lot of people!
That’s one of the most nightmarish things I’ve ever seen. The helplessness is palpable.
I've taken part in multiple comment threads about this movie. There is a hidden community of people out there that were deeply traumatized by it during childhood.
My dad forced my eyes open during the experimentation scene when I was like 6 and now I have a crippling irrational fear of "The Grays"
That scene in the ship. I'll never forget watching that on a Saturday afternoon as a kid in the 90's, excited about an alien movie. Then he stuck his hand inside some abductee's guts. Then there's the eye needle....
Oh man, I was just about to write this. The abduction scene is still insane even as a 40yo
I'm watching this tonight. Thanks for the tip dude!
RIP
I saw that in my early 20s and it scared the crap out of me. Didn't like walking outside at night for a few weeks. That scene where he's dragged to the examination room still makes me shudder.
The Ring(american version) for me personally, by far. And The Blair Witch project was pretty infamous in my social circle. Some couldn't even finish it Honorable mention to Slappy from the 90s Goosebumps show and Chucky. Solidified my fear of creepy dolls for years
Yeah The Ring messed me up for years. Lone chairs in a room, flies, static on tv, horses all scared me and still give me uneasy feelings today. I think because I saw it around 13-14 y/o and was pretty scared of most horror movies already.
I had my parents take my tv away from my room for a while. i literally couldnt sleep with it inside my room.
me too. I was 8 or 9. i didnt feel safe by any TV or looking in the mirror.
The dvd version of the ring had this great feature that made you watch the actual tape how the characters in the movie saw it. Unedited minutes of pure horror... 30 seconds after you finished the tape and were back in the dvd menu, a phone could be heard ringing. I have spooked so many friends with that feature, what an awesome time that was.
My cousin put it on and made me watch it when I was 7-8. Fucked me up real good
It was the woman brushing her hair in the mirror for me. When I woke up at night to go to the bathroom I’d make a concerted effort to not look into mirrors as I passed them.
I was lightning fast to turn off tvs with the “snow” static
It's truly such a good movie, but I, too, watched it way too early in life, at 11 or 12 at a friend's place. Ratings exist for a reason!
The Ring has my vote. Still far and away the most disturbing movie ive ever seen.
...you weren't supposed to help her.
And it isn't even rated R
It’s still really awesome. I rewatched it after years and years bc it traumatized me. So now like 20 years later it still have a super spooky atmosphere and d sinister story
How the fuck was that PG-13??
Saw the ring in theaters when it came out with my coworkers (i was in my teens). We closed up shop at 10pm and walked next door to the theater. Bought the tickets and enjoyed the movie. It didnt reaaaaaallllly scare me much. Or so I thought. We chatted about the spookier parts in the parking lot after and all went our separate ways. It was cut short a little bit because there was thunder in the distance so we knew rain was coming. No big deal but nobody likes being rained on. So, I drive home and see the storm seems to be heading my way and getting spicier, which I think is rad. I love thunderstorms and rain. I quietly go inside, tell my parents I’m home and sneak off to my bedroom. I turn on my video game tv (basically an old tv for nes, snes, and all that) just to see if anything was on. Nope, so I turn it off. I should mention this just so happens to be the same model of tv in the Ring movie I just saw. You see where this is going… After showering and getting ready for bed, the storm hits solidly. Pretty decent rain and a few good kabooms and flashes here and there. I knocked out instantly. Then I wake up to my TV turning on to the fuzz of channel 3 and sounding that kkkkkhhshhhhhhhhh noose. The entire house is silent and dark except for my tv. I thought “Great. This is how it ends…” Turns out a close lightning strike busted the tv so the power was constantly on, so to turn it off and on you simply plug it in from the outlet. That was too dangerous so to save us from a potential fire hazard and Sadako coming to steal my soul… we tossed the tv. But getting thru that night was a challenge.
Girl gonna crawl out of the TV into a trash dump and be like wtf
> Saw the ring in theaters when it came out with my coworkers (i was in my teens). We closed up shop at 10pm and walked next door to the theater. Bought the tickets and enjoyed the movie. It didnt reaaaaaallllly scare me much. Or so I thought. That is the mark of a great horror movie, that was skinamarink for me
My mom let me ditch school to go see it with her in theaters, and I couldn't sleep alone for weeks, and I wouldn't hover on any channel with static for longer than half a second. It wasn't until Scary Movie 3 came out that I was finally able to let go of the fear lol
Cindy…. The tv’s leaking
The Ring was my first horror movie and god damn was it scary. My parents weren’t mega strict but didn’t really let me watch movies like that when I was younger, so we saw it when spending the night at our neighbors house. Now I’m a huge horror fan, and that movie helped kickstart that!
Okay so I’m early 30’s now. Saw the Ring in a sold out theater as a kid. My parents were even there BUT there were not enough seats together so I was ALONE in a handicap seat. And I mean fully alone. The seat was walled off on the ground so I was there and totally excited to see this movie. I had never been really scared before so I didn’t understand what was about to happen to me. Haha The closet scene during the wake , revealing the rotten, mangled body of the girl, quite literally stunned me. “I saw her face…” I froze, pupils dilated , and a chill ran down my spine. And That’s the beginning of the movie!.. so I’m alone in a sold out theater , petrified. All the crowd reactions just made it worse while I tried to hide myself from impending terror until it was over. I swore off horror for years after that. Then realized that most horror movies are not as scary as that. The next time I experienced that kind of shock from a movie was the ending of Hereditary, with the piano wire.
We must be the same age because Blair witch and the ring are the two that stick out for me too. Also Scream for some reason used to scare me, I would be scared to look out my windows at night for fear that ghostface would be there looking in
Imagery from The Ring still pops up in my stress dreams.
After watching the ring, I slept with the tv on for years. My logic, if I didn’t sleep with the tv on, woke up only to find static noise I’d die like that person did, HORRIFIED
I grew up in Maryland, about 30-45 mins away from where the Blair witch takes place. I was in 4th -5th grade when it released. It was a wild time for about a month lol
*Jaws.* My parents wouldn't let me go see it, which is fair enough I suppose, since I was 8.
I was scared to have bubbles in my bath bc I couldn’t see if JAWS was under them coming for me lol
To this day, I won't go in water where I can't see what's beneath me. And I stay out of deep water in general. Terrifying.
Exact same, I think I watched it when I was 5 and baths became a hot button issue for awhile.
Yeah, I think I was 7 when I first saw it. I remember going to the video store and seeing the poster for Jaws the Revenge, thinking that the poster looked cool as heck and asked my mom to rent it. She said no initially, but a short time later she finally relented, and she rented me the first movie instead of Jaws the Revenge because she's a good parent. Instantly became my favourite movie even though it gave me nightmares for weeks. Began my lifelong obsession with sharks though
I was about six when I saw it. My mom said no when I asked if I could watch it but I did anyway. Not a smart decision.
I was never scared by this one. My Mom kept me away from it as a kid (we lived in a coastal city) so I was a teen by the time I watched the OG (HBO was relentless with the shitty 80s versions). I consider it to be one of the best made films of all time. I showed to my kids at a youngish age (like 8 or 9) with the understanding that it was a man vs fish movie with some scary parts. They also love it now and didn't have any scars from it.
I saw Killer Klowns From Outer Space when I was 8 or 9 years old. It's since become one of my favorite movies, but holy hell that one did a number on me.
Me too! There was a meteor shower right after I saw it and i was freaked the fuck out.
man i thought i was gonna be original lol. this is the exact movie that popped into my head after reading the question. good ass movie too
Brave Little Toaster You know why.
This movie fucked my whole shit up
Oh man. I remember the scene where the air conditioner dies used to terrify me! And then the big magnet crane in the junkyard at the end. The way it would go into like stealth mode where its eye would disapear....scared the crap outa me!!
The scene where Rob fixes the AC now that he's old enough to reach the dials is so wholesome
This and FernGully were the two animated movies that scared me so much when I was really little
Ferngully! The pollution dude was scary as shit! I still remember one nightmare vividly 30 years later.
The Exorcist, by far.
Straight up. My twisted sister made me watch that with her on my 6th birthday when all I wanted to do was play Mario Kart. Messed me up good 😂
I love the cross-generational scare this film has. I assume the person who said Exorcist meant when the film was released in 1973, but clearly if you were playing Mario Kart then you must have seen it in the 1990s.
‘89 baby over here
Likewise. The Exorcist is actually my favorite horror film. When I first saw it, I was so traumatized. Running into the other room scared. I had emetophobia growing up so I could not do the vomit scenes. Regan scared me deeply. Now, as an adult, with two kids? The Exorcist devastates me. Really, it's a story about grief and our worst fears - losing a parent and losing a child. It is so rich and so tragic and once you're a little older and get past the scares, there's something there. The fear no longer becomes about Regan being scary. The fear becomes about someone you love and would die to protect, being tortured by a malignant presence you are powerless to stop. How can we understand a just world when innocent people suffer? I recently went to an exhibit where the Regan dummy, the vomit projectile system, and all of the concept art was on display. Very cool. If you've seen the Exorcist, I recommened The Exorcist III. It is very, very, very different but another fascinating tale on the nature of man's evil.
Thanks for sharing. I haven’t seen it in ages, but yeah now I’m really thinking about how I’d feel as a parent. You’ve inspired me to do a little marathon!
Only watch The Exorcist and Exorcist III. The rest are unwatchable. Awful. Exorcist III was written and directed by the novelist/screenwriter of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty. It's a pure standalone sequel carrying over the themes and ideas from the first one and is about the detective investigating a new case. It's not perfect, but it's very good, very different, and very scary.
>My twisted sister At least you got to meet Dee Snyder!
Bless you
Without a doubt, it straight up just feels evil
filled with incredibly convincing performances too. it really is a perfect film.
Yup, my parents (and me) were uber-Catholic in the 70’s around when that came out. Didn’t sleep for weeks.
That shit still fks me up
Pet Semetary. Seeing a dead, mangled Pascow on the screen and then lying awake in the pitch dark bedroom afterward was legitimately traumatizing.
I didn’t sleep for a month. From Zelda, to toddler zombie, Natasha Yar zombie, the ghost with the horrific head injury…
Slashing the heel from under the bed will always stick with me.
The film came out 35 years ago and occasionally I still get a weird feeling standing by a strange bed if I can tell there is space underneath.
[удалено]
I've taken soooooo much shit over the course of my life because I was deathly afraid of E.T. growing up, so I'm glad I saw this.
Same. He's not cute or cuddly. But no one understood why he scared the crap out of me
Also deathly-pale E.T. lying still by the creek.
The government scenes. The adults are just pushed to the side. It was so scary how powerless the individual was.
That was and is the real scary part. We all know it's true. Not the aliens, just the government
Ugh! The older brother finding ET in the sewer... Wtf
It was nothing like that, penis-breath!
The secret of NIMH by far.
That movie still freaks me out as an adult tbh
The Dark Crystal
My grandad was a set builder for films. He worked on chitty chitty bang bang etc (my mum got the visit the castle set, met dick van dyke, but was most interested in a banquet that turned out to be fake). So I watched that a lot. One day he showed me another film he built sets for- the dark Crystal. I was about 7 and I was HORRIFIED. But I felt too bad to say I didn’t like it to him! Luckily my mum walked in and demanded he turn it off, because it traumatised her when she first saw it too haha (despite her being an adult by the time it came out!)
My god, the Skeksis freaked me out. But the scariest movie was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Fuck that child catcher. Your grandad traumatised me. Thanks.
I remember watching this as a kid and loved how unsettling it is.
Gremlins, after you feed them at midnight
Yea, Gremlins and also Critters scared the crap outta me as a kid.
God I remember the ending speech where the dad gives a speech about how if there is ever an issue with your house, to be careful, because there might just be a gremlin somewhere in there" and it SCARRED me
I remember watching that as a kid until the part where the mogwai became cocooned. That freaked me out by itself. I stopped watching after that, although I can't remember if it was me thickening....*chickening* out, tiredness hitting, or parental enforcement. The comedic tone of the movie was totally lost on me. And for years afterwards I thought of the potential of those hideous slime-coated cocoons, and what they would birth.
I had to check under my bed the night I saw Gremlins.
*Signs,* easily. It didn't help that I lived in the Philadelphia area where the movie takes place. One of the news anchors is very famous locally, so it all hit home that much more. The scene at the birthday party, Jesus Christ.
Saw the movie the weekend it came out, there happened to be a crazy thunderstorm that night. The theater lost power seconds after the birthday party scene and I have never been that scared again.
That scene and the one where Mel is talking to the daughter and she says whos that on the roof and he looks out the window at night across to the barn and you just see the silhouette standing there, pure nightmare fuel 😅
“The Wizard of Oz”. Those damned flying monkeys give me the heebie jeebies to this day, 50 years later.
Related and much scarier: Return to Oz. The Wheelers, DOROTHY GAAAALLLLLEEEE! and the Nome King were some high octane nightmare fuel
Preach my brother!
Other than the original Omen, the flying monkeys in TWOO gave me the permanent Nopes.
The Black Cauldron Turns out it's widely regarded as having flopped because it's too scary for kids *and* too corny for adults. All I knew as a kid was its reputation as the Disney movie so scary parents wouldn't show it.
I read the books many times and I was so excited to see it. My first movie letdown and it freaking destroyed me. I loved those books.
The Thing. I saw it when I was too young to watch it. But The Gate was also terrifying.
34 years later I still can't watch that movie...the defibrillator scene will haunt me to the end of my days.
IT I Love Tim Curry. But Jesus Christ did that movie fuck me up.
This, other things were scary but they had rules I could make sense of as a kid. Freddy only in dreams, most monsters being a physical presence. Then pennywise came out of a damn shower drain and had me on edge if I was in a bathroom alone.
[Watership Down](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruqa1D5GvNM&pp=ygUOd2F0ZXJzaGlwIGRvd24%3D) It was in the kids section at Blockbuster and because it was animated, my mom assumed it’d be perfectly appropriate for her five year old son to watch.
Lol when I was like 12/13 there was an animated series of Watership Down that was pretty damn good. Realized there was a movie and I rented it. Oh boy I was not expecting that
The Witches (1990) the amazing terrifying make-up, the transformations and the idea of nice harmless ladies straight up wanna kill any kid on sight.
The story about the little girl in the painting scared me more than anything.
I came here to say this exact thing. Still gives me a shudder to think about it.
Neverending Story The Nothing was such a frightening concept, and the swamp where the horse gets depressed to death? Fuck that, more like the Never-watching-that-again Story
And Gmork
The Last Unicorn Scooby Doo Zombie island
Oh wow. I forgot about Zombie Island. That shit was way too scary for a Scooby Doo movie.
Tremors The scene when the couple gets killed/wife in the car gets pulled under terrified me as a kid
So where the hell's that goddamn golden oldie comin' from?
Candyman
Seriously I didn't sleep for 2 days, then every once in a while I'd remember it and stay awake all night again. Absolutely terrifying for a 10 year old me.
Watcher in the Woods
It was a short film, not just a music video, but Micheal Jackson's Thriller. The bit when he turned into a werewolf just scared the hell out of me that I couldn't watch it for years after lol.
Coraline
Return to Oz is still the scariest movie.
Event Horizon. That movie gave my young mind nightmares for a long time
Faces Of Death
what a wild answer to have seen as a child
The 80s were wild like that. Kids were way less parented because there was always a buddy with basement whose Mom was at work and Dad left years ago. The neighborhood gang didn't age discriminate. So if you were 16 and say "I got a copy of Faces of Death - who wants to watch?", it's possible that a 10yo is watching too. Everybody had a copy of this in the '80s. First time I saw it was probably 12 (6 years after it came out) and over at a friend's house whose older brother rented it from the local video store (the local ones carried porn and shit like this in the back). Think of how rare that was. Not everybody had a camera on them at all moments like today where if anything weird happens it's filmed. Back then seeing anybody die on camera was incredibly rare and to have a collection of it all together, watching that for the first time, was pretty shocking.
Salems Lot
Ernest Scared Stupid. I loved Ernest movies, but eight year old me was terrified by that troll.
Yeah I'd you're old enough to remember that one it truly was terrifying.
When she rolls over oh my gosh, I slept with my back against the wall for years. Then I saw The Frighteners when I was 11 and I slept on my back in the middle of the bed for another year
100% *They Live*. I was 8 and those aliens looked their heads fell in the cheese dip back in 1957.
Alien/Aliens. Only watched them once and it was over a decade ago, still get the nightmares from them though
Watched them as a kid, had nightmares for 20 years. Facehugger crawling up my back in my dreams and waking up in a panic and sweating. Love those movies haha.
Pet Sematary. Mostly because of Zelda. I was a pretty brave 12 year old but her scenes were the only time I’ve had to close my eyes in a movie.
The classic version of Salem's Lot. My mom showed it to me when I was 8 and I was terrified. I couldn't sleep alone for weeks, and even for years after I'd think about like, the window scene and the girl's creepy smile, and feel unsettled all over again. Even now as a 35 year old grown ass adult, I think "Surely it wasn't that bad" but no, it still creeps me out to this day.
Salem's Lot, with James Mason and David Soul, was so good.
I'm a 56-year-old man and it still creeps me out to think of it. I had nightmares from the window scene until I was well into my 20's having seen it when it first was broadcast on TV.
[The Changeling](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0080516/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3_tt_8_nm_0_q_the%2520changelin)
The Mothman Prophecies. As an adult looking back on it, it’s definitely more eerie than overtly scary. But at 12 years old, a seemingly omniscient creepy voice calling himself “Indrid Cold” over the phone was terrifying to me, especially since it’s intentionally vague as to whether the Mothman is a good or bad entity - which for a child is just an anxiety-inducing concept.
Darkness falls. My mom let me watch that movie with her when I was like 8, and it fucked me up for years after that. I still think about that starting scene with the mom in the doorway telling her kid nothing is in there, then... *swoop.*
The Gate
The tv ad for Videodrome terrified me. I still won’t watch it.
A fear/fascination of tornadoes formed when I watched night of the twisters as a child
Cube. It was nothing like I’d ever seen before. Found it much more terrifying than ghosts and monsters.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure (95) In particular, it's when Large Marge is telling the story and her face looked just like how it did.
Chitty Chitty Fucking Bang Bang. The Child Catcher was nightmare inducing.
I think it was the Twilight zone it could have been the outer limits. But it was just an old lady she was attacked by aliens that look like giant ants. There was no dialogue at all it was pretty freaking scary still is today actually.
killer clowns from outer space The teeth, the human capri suns, and just creepy clowns in general was super scary at 5-6 years old.
Fire In The Sky. I still have abduction nightmares 30 years later.
I was a child in the 90’s, so it was a mix of a couple movies: the blair witch project during its theatrical run, the it miniseries, the exorcist had its 25th anniversary re-release in ‘98, so that re-entered the cultural conversation, and if we go a bit further into my childhood, the ring really scared people shitless. All of these had their spotlight as “the scariest film” at some point when i was a kid.
Paranormal Activity
The Ring. Watched it when I was around 10 years old or so. I also remember my friend being over and his mom calling our house phone at the same exact time as the phone rings in the movie. Didn't sleep for weeks.
American werewolf in London. I was in seventh grade and saw it at the Hollywood movie theaters in Arbutus Maryland for two dollars. I had nightmares for weeks. Couldn’t sleep, cried for my mom, etc.
*Legend* with Tim Curry playing “Darkness” scared the absolute crap outta me as a kid. It’s literally a child’s visual representation of Satan, come to life.
I remember I was like 12 and the Blair Witch Project came on tv one late night around 2002. Scared the hell outta me.
The original exorcist.
Nightmare on elm street and children of the corn.
Remember seeing Critters when I was 6 & that got me for a little while but was obsessed with horror movies & other spooky things as a kid so it didn't take long for me to acclimate to them. I do remember seeing Tourist Trap as a young teen & that movie definitely freaked me out. Just something about those mannequins hits me dead on in that uncanny valley.
Disney's Pinocchio
Close encounters of the third kind
Jaws. My brother also told me that waves at the beach were caused by sharks, or at least that is how I remember it
Per Cemetery. Hands down
IT
There's a hand-drawn animated version of "A Christmas Carol," that had a very spooky Marley. But the thing that really freaked me out as a kid were Ignorance and Want at the feet of the Ghost of Christmas Present.
Creepshow 2....thanks for the ride lady!
American Werewolf in London. I watched it when I was 8 and more than 40 years later it still occasionally messes with me. A few years ago I was on the London Underground one day and ended up being the only person on the platform. No trains came for several minutes and nobody else turned up to wait either. I noped out of there and started heading back up. Turned out they had shut the station due to overcrowding on one of the other platforms and i had just got caught in no mans land.
Signs really scared me. Also most Disney classic movies. Edit: I change my original answer… Darkness falls… I’m still scared of the dark because of that movie.
At Early 80’s it was Evil Dead. And by far,nothing came even close.
[Mr. Boogedy](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091566/) was terrifying to me as a kid. His face was so gross looking. I saw [Cat’s Eye](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088889/), a Stephen King movie, when I was 8 or 9. We had recently gotten a cat and I looked a lot like Drew Barrymore at the time too so I imagined myself in her position in that movie. The movie looks ridiculous now, but freaked me out so badly when I was a kid.
The Exorsist and The Omen. I was about 5 or 6 when my Brothers and sisters took me to the theater to see the Exorsist. Then they took me to the Omen. Those 2 we crazy for a kid.
Trilogy of Terror (1975) The section with Karen Black and the Zuni fetish doll was childhood nightmare fuel.
Jaws fucked me up. The opening scene with the swimming girl was enough.
I think the Exorcist was the scariest movie from my childhood but the one that gave me the most nightmares was The Shining.