Movies that scarred you as a kid

[wafflebrain]

...Or movies that gave off a "I probably shouldn't have seen that just yet" type sentiments. For me it was a one-two punch of seeing both Akira (Streamline dub) and The Shining around age 12. For the former I had recently started a friendship with a kid at school whose mom didn't really take that much of a close look at the anime she rented for him from the local mom n pop video rental place, so I got to reap the benefits of this oversight.

To put it mildly that first viewing fucked.me.UP. I was raised on the standard Saturday morning cartoon and Disney/Don Bluth fare of American animation so going from that to Akira was like getting thrown into the deep end of all the existential body horror madness and "life really is shit innit" themes of mass destruction and futility that was inherent to so many anime. Of course over time Akira became one of my favorites (yes I know its a mess vs the manga don't really care) but at the time scenes like Tetsuo hallucinating his guts falling out, the bedroom milk bear parade of insanity, and the infamous final transformation scene were a bit much for kid me's psyche to take in.

Then there's The Shining, which would later become my all time favorite horror film but that first viewing scared the tar out of me. Nicholson's descent into homicidal psychosis, the gradual ramping up of ghost activity in The Overlook, and of course the Room 237 scene in particular didn't really do much to dispel earlier childhood fears that spoopy ghosts are lurking about. Shit practically felt like a documentary with how it depicted the supernatural. Still the GOAT.

What are your picks Era?

 

[Armouredpriest]

Watership Down. I saw it when I was 4 back in 1980. It's just a movie about cute bunnies, right?

 

[SteveMeister]

Jaws. Saw it in the theater when it first came out. I was a few months shy of 11 and it scared the crap out of me. It took years before I overcame my fear of sharks.

 

[Dan Thunder]

Jaws. Still not overly keen on going into the sea beyond paddling depth!

 

[sir_crocodile]

Ghostbusters 2 (Vigo)
Return to Oz (Mombi, Wheelers)

None of the 18 rated action films did though lol. Robocop 1/2 was fine for instance. I just found Akira boring apart from the night cycling bit back then

 

[Illuvatar]

IT when I was 6 years old. Watched it together with my family and it gave me one of the worst nightmares I ever had. We rented it again years later and it wasn't scary at all, but my brother (who is 6 years older) refused to watch since the theme still freaked him out.

 

[Mr. Snuffleupagus]

The Blob (1958)

 

[Waffle]

Nightmare on Elm Street gave me nightmares for years when I was a little kid. My older cousin made me watch it with him lol

 

[darz1]

Watership Down. I saw it when I was 4 back in 1980. It's just a movie about cute bunnies, right?

Click to shrink...

Lol. No. It most certainly is not.

For me it is Pink Floyd's The Wall, I don't know if it was a movie or just a film clip but my friends older brother was watching it and I saw kids jumping into a sausage machine and that imagery stuck with me for years. I could not shake it.

Also nightmare on elm street. I used to have nightmares about Freddy. Which, of course I did, that was the whole point of the movie

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

Flowers in the Attic

A 5 year old probably should not have watched that.

 

[TAJ]

Nothing. They didn't care what I saw as long as it wasn't nudity, either.

 

[Ploppee]

Saw both Alien and Terminator 2 way too young. I used to think I'd get stabbed by that metal arm blade through my mattress at night.

Also caused me to start having nightmares again when I played Alien Trilogy on Saturn. Dunno why I thought that was a good idea.

 

[Ravelle]

The Fly.

I was not ready for this amount of body horror.

Terminator 2 was also quite scary in certain moments, the part where he cuts off his flesh to show he's a robot was some freaky shit.

 

[Squarehard]

Probably Candyman.

Took me awhile until I could get in front of a mirror by myself again.

 

[KingBrave]

Gremlins.
We rented it one weekend after it came out on VHS. The first night was fine, loved it. The second night I was scared shitless and had nightmares for months.

 

[DeltaRed]

I was around 8 or 9 when i saw Robocop, the unedited version, and it still disturbs me to this day and I won't watch the Murphy death scene even now.

 

[Massive Nights]

I remember being traumatised by the woman getting assimilated by the computer in the Superman 3.

 

[Spiderman]

Robocop 2. Those eyes and the brain in the jar.

 

[DIE BART DIE]

Jaws - the decapitated head popping out
RoboCop 2 - the brain and spine in a jar
The Exorcist - most of it
The Elephant Man - a lot of it

.
.
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Flight of the Navigator - the existential dread of losing my family

 

[Temp_User]

If i had watched Transformers the Movie(1986) first, it would've traumatized me. But since i watched the similar Zombie Optimus Prime TV episode first, that's the one that got me as a kid.

 

[Pixieking]

Watership Down. I saw it when I was 4 back in 1980. It's just a movie about cute bunnies, right?

Click to shrink...

Yeahhhh... That shit is scary. Wonderfully voice-acted though.

Might have to give it another watch, actually.

 

[Deleted member 26591]

Another for Watership Down

And quite pathetically, Greyfriars Bobby. It's left an indelible mark on me that even 35 years later I watch it and end up a blubbering mess.

 

[pochi]

Stigmata.
I don't remember how the movie plays out but it scared the shit out of me. I couldn't sleep well for many nights.

 

[Cvie]

American Werewolf in London, not the gore/blood but the transformation scene.
I had nightmares about my bones growing so fast that my skin burst.

 

[LegalEagleMike]

Jaws, I still dont relax in the ocean lol, and going scuba or snorkeling gives me intense anxiety.

 

[AllThingsPurple]

Childs Play. I think I was about 4 or 5 when I snuck into a room filled with older siblings and cousins and watched it or part of it.

Being that young seeing a toy coming to life and trying to kill you.. it really fucked me up. All my older brothers had to do to shit me up was mention his name. Seeing him? That was a huge no no. I think I slept with the light on till I was about 12.

I'm 32 now and over it, I still just absolutely hate the design and look of the og chucky doll and I've watched the movies and recognise they are mostly dumb rather than scary. But damn if for the longest time I was scared shitless of that little doll.

 

[RagingAardvark]

The Exorcist, all of it. Me and my brother watched it together (8 and 11 at the time). The video rental store clerk was OK with renting that movie out to 2 little kids. I guess my brother made up some bullshit excuse, and it worked :-)

 

[FliX]

Alien and IT, I was far too young for both...

 

[IggyChooChoo]

I was around 8 or 9 when i saw Robocop, the unedited version, and it still disturbs me to this day and I won't watch the Murphy death scene even now.

Click to shrink...

Same here. I thought it was going to be like Transformers or something. I was not prepared whatsoever. Very, very disturbing.

Later that year I went to a Halloween party with my parents where the hosts had set up a movie for the kids to watch, so they wouldn't have to supervise us while they partied. That movie was The Thing. I was a big dog lover, so the scene with the Huskies was extremely upsetting. I remember a little girl crying during that scene. I also saw The Fly around that time, which was bad, but not as bad as The Thing or Murphy's torture and execution in Robocop.

 

[eddieXVI]

Deep Star Six (guy exploding)
Jaws (the scene with the severed arm at the coroner)
Robocop (the corrosive acid scene).

My older brother would always watch horror stuff when I was around.

Saw them when I was around 10 and I still don't dare to watch them, except Robocop. But I always have to close my eyes when the acid scene happens.

 

[Doc Laserstein]

The Peanut Butter Solution

 

[ChubbyHuggs]

The Brood fucked me up as a kid.

 

[Matttimeo]

I got messed up by Ring (original Japanese version) for a bit. I must have been very early teens and the complete unworldy horror weirdness of that movie got to me, I had a tiny tv in my room at the time and I did not like having it uncovered when I went to sleep, let me tell you. It's odd, it wasn't the first traditional horror movie I saw, that was Alien a few years earlier but that movie didn't effect me at all (although I got into real trouble for watching it).

 

[Stacey]

Arachnophobia.

I now have an uncontrollable fear of spiders.

 

[Miggytronz]

Signs

 

[Ultimate Bear Cub]

Invaders from Mars (1986):
Saw when I was 5. Gave me paranoia that my parents were mind-controlled and out to get me.

Terminator:
Saw this when I was 5 or 6. The eye removal scene scared me senseless. The plopping noise it made when he dropped the eyeball into the water turned me away from meatballs for about a month.

Ghoulies or Ghoulies 2: Forgot when I saw whichever one it was, but this scared me shitless literally. I dreaded the bathroom for about a week or two.

I think Poltergeist 2 also may have given me existential terror when I was about 6 years old. I couldn't stop crying for a month about what death meant.

Fun times.

 

[eXistor]

Seeing Robocop and Total Recall at a way too young age. In Robocop it's the obvious scene (Murphy getting shot to shit) and for Total Recall I was fine until the end where they suffocate on the Mars surface and their eyes start bulging out 'n shit.

 

[RadzPrower]

While I saw bits of Poltergeist as a kid and that was a recurring memory that would come up, the real thing that messed me up as a kid wasn't a movie but was my parents watching The X-Files.

 

[Flounder]

The Black Hole. This is a Disney film I watched when I was ten and the ending was so disturbing it turned me into an atheist.

I'm not joking. Although I already loved Sci-Fi this film managed to awaken something in me

 

[Taco_Human]

I remember not knowing I was watching Fargo. That scene in the end with the leg sticking out of the wood chipper was so...strong. Watched it again as an adult a few years ago, and it's still a good movie.

 

[Princess Viola]

Eight Legged Freaks. Saw it when I was seven years old and gave me nightmares for weeks, constantly had nightmares about spiders attacking my mom's house and us all dying.

 

[Elandyll]

I think I caught bits of "Tarantula!" as a young child (6 or so), and I think that this alongside finding an actual spider in my hair while in bed shortly thereafter is probably the cause of my mild Arachnophobia.

 

[Temascos]

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark - The opening of the Ark scared the bejeezus out of me. The spirits just outright exploding and melting all the villains was something I did not expect as a kid.

Watching the film now, it's obviously foreshadowed but I didn't pay as much attention to the dialogue at the time.

 

[Deleted member 60582]

 

[Fall Damage]

Nightmare on Elm Street ruined my life for a week or two. Laying in bed at night heart racing, not fun.

 

[Red]

I watched Akira at 3a.m. when I was four years old. I didn't know it was Akira until years later. Used to think about it a lot.

 

[stew]

Child's Play and Nightmare on Elm Street.

Also an obscure movie named Ratman, this one really fucked me up.

 

[The Stig]

Fire in the Sky. That scene will be forever burned into my memory.

 

[oasis007]

Willy Wonka

 

[Dexterous Gambler]

All the films I saw that scared the shit out of me as a young kid, are all films I love dearly to this day. Part of the reason I love them so much, is because I cherish the nightmares they caused me to have, purely due to how entertaining/exciting they were (easy to say looking back, I know, but I stand by that statement)! No real surprises here:

• Jurassic Park (saw it in the cinema when I was seven).
• Alien - watched on TV whilst staying with my Dad one night when I was around 8/9, and wow, it's something I've never experienced since. Falling in love with a film, and being absolutely terrified due to it at the same time! That of course led into me watching...
• Aliens - because you can't just watch the first one, knowing there's a sequel. My Mum didn't want me to watch it due to my reaction to the first one, but I somehow prevailed in seeing it not long after the first one, and again, same reaction.

The only thing that has come close to giving me that same feeling, was Alien: Isolation. :)

EDIT:

Fire in the Sky. That scene will be forever burned into my memory.

Click to shrink...

My god, I COMPLETELY forgot about this one!
Also one more alien/ET-themed one that I've now remembered (and I'd love to find/watch again), is a home-recording style film (think Blair Witch-esque) about a family out in the country - USA, like a big farmhouse, that suddenly find themselves being confronted at home by little grey aliens. They're climbing up outside the house, and the family eventually hear them inside upstairs, go up, and are then abducted. I'll have to try and seek that one out again, because I thought it was real at first! :D