What movies scared you as a kid?

[CJ]

The Shining is the one that scared me the most. I was about seven years old when I watched it. It gave me nightmares for weeks, and I have never watched it again. I was also scared by The Birds and IT.

[Loomis]

I agree with Zol, IT was a very scary film. Tim Curry added such a scary factor to Pennywise, and plus clowns are scary as is

Oh yes! That would be my vote too. I couldn't walk near a storm-water drain for months! I haven't gone near the film/mini-series since, although I still have a deep-seated fear of clowns.

Anything to do with alien abductions used to scare me no end as a kid as well.

[Lazario]

There was a part in Neverending Story that always scared me, when they show the valley that people had to get through, where the statues had laser eyes and would kill whoever walked through- and they showed a man getting killed. That always scared me.

One of my big movie freak-outs happens in this movie. Those shots of the ultra-black skies when The Nothing would be descending upon... someone, it happened at some point in the movie. I don't remember exactly when. But the sky was like pitch black, like a normal clear night sky. And then the big grey clouds with that loud thundering / storm cracking sound effect came right out of nowhere. I'm more than 90% sure that happened in this movie, shots of the Nothing depicted as big clouds descending upon the land or characters looking up at it (before the wolf in the cave scene). Of course I think it just happened inbetween short scenes with Atraiu (spell?) journeying on the big white flying dog and/or that big Rock person.

And I just remembered another movie scene that freaked the bejuses out of me - Damien: Omen II had this scene outside on a frozen pond where a bunch of people are playing ice hockey and the ice underneath one of the players opens up and they fall underneath. The scene is just incredibly brutal and terrifying, the other players try for at least a minute or more to get him out while the score is just screeching like insanity, a lot of shots of the person's face underneath and him under the ice struggling, to really maximize the incredible horror someone must experience dying that way - vivid, slow, and agonizing! One of the hardest scenes in any movie for me to try and watch.

[TurdBizzler]

I've always got a lot of crap from people about this.....but I got scared when i watched Hocus Pocus as a kid. The beginning of the movie didn't scare me, but the part when the Sarah Jessica Parker is flying on the broom and singing for the kids to come really terrified me.

[Lazario]

I could see that. I mean, she is almost middle aged in this movie playing an early-20's woman (in witch years). Anyway, I always loved that sequence. It's not supposed to be funny or sad or dramatic or exciting... what other reaction is left but to be either disturbed or scared by it? I was about 11 or 12 when I saw this for the first time. After I saw it again in my late teens, I felt very strange about that scene where Winnifred was using her magic to throw Zack all about the room, that was a weird sequence... It was very silly to consider those witches any kind of threat in that movie, and I think that was mostly because of the fact that Zack and the girl he liked a lot were both a little too old to be scared by wacky Salem witches in this movie.

[The Little Merman]

I was, and still am terrified by Tim Curry's Pennywise from It. As well, the finale to The Blair Witch Project creeped me out.

*tlm

[Timon/Pumbaa fan]

Hmm, while I did get freaked out with several movies as a kid I never really got so scared with many movies as a kid that I refused to watch them again.

But The Wizard of Oz and Beauty and the Beast are exceptions.

I'm surprised seeing some of the movies people saw as small kids though.

[Spongebob Squarepants]

I'd say the Psycho movies and Anaconda!

[cydney]

I forgot that The Wizard of Oz also scared me, but Return to Oz scared me even more.

[Just Myself]

When I was little...

The Rescuers Down Under - I was TERRIFIED of this film. McCleese just spooked me so much.... Now I like it.

The Goonies - Whenever Sloth or the Fratelli's came on screen, I would hide behind the couch. I now think that Sloth is one of the funniest if now THE funniest character in the film.



...but then I got older...

IT - 'Nuff said.

The Omen - This was when I was about 8-9. I was frightened to death by Damien. I have come to love this film and hate the remake.

[Pluto Region1]

Three movies come to mind immediately.

When I was little, my parents made the mistake of taking me to the drive-in movie to see "The Shuttered Room." This was in the later 1960s. If you've never seen or heard of the movie, its basically a black/white horror movie about a haunted house. There is a little girl and when she goes to sleep the dolls in the doll house sort of come alive (from what I remember) and then there is a terrible fire and her parents are burned to death. After that, I was terrified of old Victorian houses. There was one on the edge of our 1950s track neighborhood in La Habra and whenever we had to drive in and out of the neighborhood and pass by that house, I hid my head because I didn't want to see it!

When I was also a kid, another movie that scared the heck out of me was "Oliver Twist" (this was the 1960s one). I was terrified of the bad kid and the old guy that made him be in a gang and steal stuff. I was terrified that would happen to me if I ever became an orphan. This movie really scared me. My dad took me and my mom would never forgive him for that since she recalls I was really traumatized by it. No kid should see that movie!

When I was 16, it was "Jaws." By then, I lived 4 blocks from the beach and I was so terrified after seeing that film, that I never went in the water after that and I was actually scared in the shower. I went to work with my parents every day (they owned a store so I just helped out in the store) all through the summer because I was just freaked out from that film! My mom would not allow me to see the Exorcist based on my experience with Jaws and Oliver Twist. It was probably a wise decision, as I get scared way to easily. I don't go to see scary movies at all because I get too affected.

[GOGOinVegas]

What was that movie where something got somebody through the toilet??
I wanna say C.H.U.D. but im not sure....
also Poltergeist like a lot of you.
Creepshow 2 always got to me, that lake episode, but I dont remember what it was called.
There was also this show that came on late at night called Tales from the Darkside that FREAKED ME OUT! I was not supposed to watch it, but I couldnt help it. Even the opening credits scared me.
some others:
Cujo
The Excorcist
Halloween
Family Matters

[Pluto Region1]

I'm surprised seeing some of the movies people saw as small kids though.

I agree. You guys were seeing Psycho, The Birds, Blair Witch project, Nightmare on Elm Street, Carrie, as kids? You must have snuck these movies in behind your parent's back, no? They are scary enough for adults and not meant for children..... then again my parents shouldn't have taken me to see "The Shuttered Room" as a kid, so I guess there are several ways this happens (poor judgment on appropriateness, sneeking behind parents' back, etc).

What is funny about this, is I hear about these films and will NEVER watch them when they come on TV because I already have heard how scary they are. Films I've never seen include: All of the Nightmare Before Elm Street films, Carrie, The Shining (ok, I admit I snuck a peek of the film a few times - usually I turn it on and they are at that scene where Jack goes psycho in the house and someone has written "redrum" on the mirror, but that is the most I've seen of that film, before I flip the channel out of fear). Oh and that includes any movies where dolls come alive, forget it.

I can handle Hitchcock's "The Birds" now, but it is still got those scary moments like when they find people with their eyes picked out, etc. Have to agree with whoever it was that said the kid in Damon was scary.

Has anyone here seen "the Night of the Hunter" or the original version of "the Bad Seed?" These are more chilling than absolutely scary, but I'd say probably too intense for a child.

[Pluto Region1]

There was also this show that came on late at night called Tales from the Darkside that FREAKED ME OUT! I was not supposed to watch it, but I couldnt help it. Even the opening credits scared me.

I recall watching a show called Night Gallery when I was a kid; but I don't think it was that scary or I couldn't have watched it (I'm probably really dating myself now!) also there was some serial/soap opera called "Dark Shadows" does anyone recall that one? It was like General Hospital (came on afterwards from what I recall) but it was gothic and pretty cool, at least it seemed cool but then again I was only 7 years old!

[Timon/Pumbaa fan]

I agree. You guys were seeing Psycho as kids?

Well, I saw this film around 10 years old. Not so young, but probably young enough to get scared by it.

Weird thing is, I wasn't scared of it that much.

But I still haven't seen The Birds, Blair Witch project, Nightmare on Elm Street(well I saw parts of it) or Carrie.

[Lazario]

What was that movie where something got somebody through the toilet??

You came to the right place. It was most likely Ghoulies or Ghoulies 2. The first film famously depicted a bald-headed ugly-baby Ghoulie popping out of a toilet on it's theatrically-released poster, though that as a scene didn't happen in that film. The makers of the sequel however, decided that was a great idea that the first film seemed to promise yet never delivered. So, they waited until about the 3rd quarter of the film and saved it for the film's most hated human character - the sleazy young jerk carnival manager. He runs up to his trailer after seeing something that terrifies/disturbs him and is killed on the toilet while relieving himself.



The first film's tagline was quaintly, "they'll get you in the end."

[memnv]

There was also this show that came on late at night called Tales from the Darkside that FREAKED ME OUT! I was not supposed to watch it, but I couldnt help it. Even the opening credits scared me.

I recall watching a show called Night Gallery when I was a kid; but I don't think it was that scary or I couldn't have watched it (I'm probably really dating myself now!) also there was some serial/soap opera called "Dark Shadows" does anyone recall that one? It was like General Hospital (came on afterwards from what I recall) but it was gothic and pretty cool, at least it seemed cool but then again I was only 7 years old!

I have always like those shows, along with Twilight Zone, Outer Limit and Tales from the crypt. Night Gallery was another show fron Rod Serling Creator of the Twilight Zone. I was trying to think of Tales from the darkside the other day and could not remember the name. Thanks



C.H.U.D. - Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers

[Pluto Region1]

But I still haven't seen The Birds, Blair Witch project, Nightmare on Elm Street(well I saw parts of it) or Carrie.

I actually broke my usual rule and went to see Blair Witch Project with my husband when it came out because that was THEE thing to do... well it scared the pants off me, but luckily I don't have to sleep by myself since I'm married. We saw it at night and I remember coming home from it and still being pretty freaked out. My husband doesn't bat an eye at these movies, being a veteran movie-goer of just about every horror film you can think of when he was a teenager!

Speaking of freaking me out, I am a bit of a fan of the Titanic and a few months back they were showing those documentaries of the James Cameron final voyage and it was late at night and boy even that creeped me out (the scenes of the ship and thinking of the people buried in the water) and I had problems sleeping! Now I do not watch any Titanic shows late at night.