Movies that scared the crap out of you?

[cvanc]

...And the age you first saw it?

I didn't do horror movies much but I've got two worth sharing. As a Michigan kid, maybe 7 years old, the tornado in The Wizard of Oz scared the beejezus out of me. Flying monkeys I could handle, they never came around, but a twister? That was local, man.

As an adult, Poltergeist was the one. It didn't help that A) my girlfriend (later wife) and I may have been imbibing a bit before we went and B) we waited in the lobby as the show before us was ending and the people inside were SCREAMING en masse. I still remember it clearly.

(shudders) (considers more therapy)

 

[MarsLander]

The child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...Maybe 6?



We had a half in ground basement, just like the movie. Our TV was down there. Had a window, much like the window at :30 of this clip. Clearly remember closing the shutters on the window after seeing this scene...

 

[dr wogz]

The episode of Dr. Who, where the guys start turning into slugs.. maybe 6.. or 4.. circa early 70's..

 

[Huxter]

I don't watch many scary movie either. my hair on my neck still stands up when I think about 'Altered States'. The part where the monkey chases the guard up the stairs is super scary to me. Maybe because I know the depths a monkey/human will go?



o, I was 17 at the time (1980)

 

[Rob Campbell]

When I was a kid, "The Blob" really scared me.

 

[NateB]

This 5 minutes with the Ceti Eel in The Wrath of Khan. I was probably 6 the first time I saw it.

 

[mh9162013]

Aliens (only saw the last 30 minutes or so).

I think I was maybe 9 or 10?

Now, I love that movie.

 

[cerving]

Carrie (the original with Sissy Spacek, not the lame remake). The very end... well, if you've never seen it I don't want to spoil it for you. I think I was 18 or 19... saw it with my sister and a couple of her friends.

 

[Azamiryou]

Watership Down, when I was about six.

 

[CoronaDuke]

'The Haunting' (1963) with Julie Harris. I saw it on TV when I was 9 or 10. It's still one of the scariest movies I've seen.

 

[Daddyisabar]

The cartoon opening of the Carol Burnette show with the cleaning lady still frightens my inner two to three year old child.

Alfred Hitchcock The Birds, face eating scene, 3 years old. Skeletal warriors in Jason and the Argonots were super scary but had to watch because they were so cool, like 5 years old. Mamma in Psycho.

As an adult I found the unstable model rocket flights featured in October Sky as simply terrifying. Knowing they were powered with home made motors made it even worse. Childhood visions of the danger drawings in the old Estes technical manuals popped into my brain, sending me to the panic room. Safe space with comfort food, squishy toys, aroma therapy, mood music and lighting.

 

[Hobie1dog]

Watching the movie "The Poseidon Adventure" convinced me to never get on a cruise ship.

 

[stealth6]

As a young lad..............the Omega Man.
Can't recall my exact age, but under 10yo most likely.

s6

 

[tsmmiller]

I must be twisted. I never saw a movie that scared me and was memorable.
I don’t remember my age at the time, early 70’s I was in the AFB hospital when The Birds came on. Several of the orderlies questioned my age and wisdom of watching it. It was no big deal to me.
Bunch of friends and I went to the original Carrie. The last scene? I laughed.

 

[Steven]

"The Screaming Skull" was the only movie that gave me nightmares as a kid.

 

[dhbarr]

8/9, the banshee from Darby O'Gill & the Little People.

 

[cwbullet]

Halloween.

 

[SDramstad]

Them. The giant ants had me looking over my shoulder a lot. My dad had a workshop in an old warehouse that was real dark with lots of places for ants to hide. 8 or 9 at the time.

 

[blackwing94]

I saw Jaws on opening day. It was sold out. The only seat available when I got in was on the front row.
Took me a while to get back into the water. I was 16.

 

[NateB]

I remember seeing Jurassic Park in the theater when it came out with a good friend. We were both 10 and thought it was great. His dad took his little sister (7 or 8 I think) with us too... She was terrified, white as a sheet and shaking.

 

[rcktnut]

The Exorcist, was 17 at the time.

 

[cls]

Night Of The Living Dead, on Creature Features, we were 9 years old.

Alien. The original, the best. The first time.

Exorcist didn't do it because I could see the one frame with the death mask flash every time before something happened. Also I'm not religious so that kitch symbolism is lost to me.

 

[MarsLander]

The Poseidon Adventure

What a cast...didn't scare me, but memorable in the vast vapor of my memory.

 

[Wally Ferrer]

I was 13, I think... The Manster destroyed me for months... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055139/

 

[VernK]

The Day of the Triffids. I think it was 1963 when I was still 7 years old. My parents took the family to see it at a drive-in movie. It scared me so bad it took a year, maybe more, before I could play in the park across the street from our house after dark with my friends. Very traumatic.

 

[GlenP]

Vincent Price in The Pit and the Pendulum, not sure how old I was when I first saw it, but the guy still gives me the creeps and terrorizes y’all’s neighborhood.

 

[teepot]

I absolutely hate scary movies. I have a vivid imagination. Went to see Jaws with a cousin. The opening scene with the girl swimming and getting taken by the shark still bothers me. I was 22. This was 1978. I watched the rest of the movie from under the brim of my cap. I could see the people but not the screen. When everyone would jump I would peek up. In January of 1979 I moved to Florida. I was terrified to go in the water. I never went out farther than I could touch the bottom. I asked some of the surfers if they ever saw sharks. Their answer was, ya all the time. When I would come home after a night of parting I would get in the pool. All the pools in Florida are in a screened enclosure. But I had to turn on the pool light to make sure there wasn't a shark or alligator in it. In September of '79 I joined the Air Force and was glad to get out of Florida. When I was active duty my roommate and girlfriend [ now wife of 42 years] convinced me that Friday the 13th wasn't a scary movie. I remember vividly the scene with a girl laying in the bottom bunkbed when the arrow comes out of her chest. All I have to do is think about it and I can see it in my mind. I could have rung my roommates neck. I didn't like Aliens. That was another movie I was told wasn't scary. The only horror movies I will watch are ones from the 40's and 50's.

 

[ecarson]

"Nineteen Eighty-Four" at 28.

 

[Antares JS]

If I ever felt that way about a movie, I don't anymore.

The books "1984" and "The Gulag Archipelago" though... I feel like a person could get actual PTSD from reading those. After reading 1984, I was seriously tempted to abandon my modern life and go find a cave to live in where "they" couldn't find me.

 

[SolarYellow]

If I ever felt that way about a movie, I don't anymore.

The books "1984" and "The Gulag Archipelago" though... I feel like a person could get actual PTSD from reading those. After reading 1984, I was seriously tempted to abandon my modern life and go find a cave to live in where "they" couldn't find me.

And now, we all pay to carry a telescreen around in our pocket.

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Idiocracy. It used to seem like a dystopian fantasy. Now, it seems more like a documentary.