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Your history of Fear - What boogeymen terrified you as a kid (or even today)?

ladyluthien

Member
Oct 25, 2017
768
Fisty said:
ChildsPlay.jpg


This asshole got me really good when I was a kid. My parents rented this and watched it really late at night when I was about 3, problem was I had gotten up from bed and was watching it from the hallway before my parents saw me.
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Yup, this is the one for me.
My Dad forced me to watch it when I was a kid and it scared the shit out of me and he knew it. He would constantly play on my fear. Ever since then, my fear reached to other dolls like baby dolls and barbies. I stuck with stuffed animals as a kid as a result lol.
 
Biteren

Biteren

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,662
I fuckingnlove horror movies but theres one i dont like to watch because of how bad it left a scar on me as a kid.

Go look up Tales from the Darkside Gargoyle.
Im too chicken to post it lol.
 
Squarehard

Squarehard

Member
Oct 27, 2017
26,100
candyman.jpg

Candyman, steered cleared of mirrors for awhile after watching that movie, lol.

Also,
source.gif

For some odd reason, this particular part kept appearing in my nightmares for like a week.
 
GungHo

GungHo

Member
Nov 27, 2017
6,193
That fucking monkey toy that showed up in Toy Story 3 was a real goddamn toy. My mom gave me one when I was a child. Scared me to death, especially when it started baring its teeth and screaming.

 
RPTGB

RPTGB

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,189
UK
Xythantiops said:
My very first boogeyman as a small child was something I called the blanket monster. It was a large brown furry blanket that could move around on its own and would envelop you and eat you. This wasn't some physical blanket I had a fear of but a reoccurring nightmare.

approximation
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You'll probably want to avoid watching the last few scenes of this classic adaptation of the old M.R James ghost story.

 
Ayato_Kanzaki

Ayato_Kanzaki

Member
Nov 22, 2017
1,482
I can think of two boogeymans.

First is Pennywise, but I'm far from alone with this one.

The second is a bit more original, and I didn't find a picture. It was from a Bioman episode, where one of the heroines get captured then released, after her leather...circlet, is replaced by a booby-trapped fake one. The thing tracking and capturing the woman was a two meter tall floating Noh Mask.
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One looking like that.

Seeing that mask slowly emerging from the shadows, stalking the heroïne in the hallways of a building inexorably, no matter how well she was hiding... Shit, I'm shuddering thinking about it again.

I eneded up scared of badly lit hallways for maybe a month after this.
 
Unspoken90

Unspoken90

Member
Oct 28, 2017
956
Bloody Mary is the reason I was so afraid of mirrors in the dark. Whenever I had to go into windowless bathroom I would have to turn on the light before I would even enter it.
 
Doctoglethorpe

Doctoglethorpe

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,214
Mine has always been, fundamentally, a fear of the dark. Darkness in all its forms (both literally and just the general unknown) is a canvas for imagination. And unfortunately my imagination frequently goes to bad places. It usually manifests as something not supernatural though, like someone is in my house and going to kill me, or there's going to be a fire, or I'm gonna walk into a fuckin giant spiders web, shit like that. Though when I was much younger there was a fair amount of ghosts and demons in my thoughts too. This general fear ties into my general anxiety issues I'm sure. I still catch myself doing it all the time, though at least now that I'm older I can kinda just laugh at myself instead of being a paranoid little kid turning on every light in the house while they're alone at night.

The most prevalent and disturbing fear is literally just that someone is behind me when I should be alone. Even with lights on or in daylight I still sometimes get that feeling and it drives me a little crazy. Like, I know I don't need to check, but doing so is so easy that I might as well, so I end up feeding that idea instead of resisting it.
 
Threadkular

Threadkular

Member
Dec 29, 2017
2,424
This character from the Catholic Church called the Devil prevented me from sleeping alone from 4th-7th grade, and I had to sleep on my older sister's floor. Thought I was going to be demonically possessed, or equally as terrifying to a child, I would get a vision from an angel (which was supposed to be some wonderful thing the nuns told us).

I still have a bit of a resentment today, and in struggling moments my thinking can go back to that shit which was drilled into me and now lived in my subconcious.
 
Siggy-P

Siggy-P

Avenger
Mar 18, 2018
11,869
When I was small and it got to this bit of the film, my older brother warned me I probbaly shouldn't watch it.

I did though. Shouldn't have done that.
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Sunster

Sunster

The Fallen
Oct 5, 2018
10,070
when i was a little kid my parents were watching some old black and white movie in which a little girl was in bed and a large slimy hand came from under the bed and grabbed her. this, for some reason traumatized me I guess because I had nightmares literally every. single. night. until I was like 9 or 10 years old after that. the nightmares were not always about the hand but the hand, sometimes killer clowns or burglars but the hand was always there in the dream too. usually it would end with me being killed in some way. i hated sleeping because of this.

the final dream i still remember, i was in my living room and the hand grabbed my ankle and dragged me under the sofa and into hell... and that was the last scary hand dream and the last of my chronic nightmares.
 
Look! The Pie!

Look! The Pie!

Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 27, 2017
794
5974673.jpg


This image haunted me for years and even though it's since been debunked as a double exposure, it still gives me the shivers if I happen upon it unexpectedly.

Background: A woman supposedly took this picture while visiting her mother's grave. When the film was developed, she was shocked to see what appeared to be her dead mother sitting in the backseat of her husband's car. I think what scared me so much was that the shadows made it look like "mother" was decomposed and had literally crawled out of her grave. That and the reflections on her glasses making it look like her eyes were glowing.

I just found it horrifying. My dad had a book called "Photographs of the Unknown" which I loved flicking through habitually, as a kid with a budding interest in the paranormal, and I ended up memorising the page number this monstrosity appeared on so that I could close my eyes as I turned past it...but then inevitably this morbid fascination would kick in and I'd have to look at it anyway, even though I knew it'd give me nightmares. Brrr.
 
Kain

Kain

Unshakable Resolve - One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
7,669
Pennywise terrified me as kid, so did ET.
 
Stinkles

Stinkles

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
20,459
This lady would show up in my sleep paralysis dreams - and I'd wake up as I floated through my own ceiling, as she floated quickly towards me, matching my rise through the ceiling into the attic so that when I was up there in the darkness, she would be face to face with me.

The Black Nun. From Armchair Thriller: "Quiet as a Nun"





This was featured in a daytime thriller show and apparently traumatized half of the UK.
 
Bengraven

Bengraven

Powered by Friendship™
Member
Oct 26, 2017
27,067
Florida
  • I went to a state fair and there was an installation where people could walk past this window and look inside to see a woman who had supposedly been decapitated in a car accident and was still able to be alive thanks to machines. I didn't go up and look, but they played the video right next to the line. It was like something out of a 70s or 80s PSA: the car launched in the air and the roof ripped off by an underpass, the blood pouring down from the top of the screen, the eerie synth music. For days I would stare at my open bedroom door at night, terrified the headless woman would appear in my dark doorway.
 
Mariachi507

Mariachi507

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,359
a97PFa2.jpg


My boogeyman was the boogeyman. It took me three years to be finish the movie because I would be too scared to continue. That sense that he is everywhere, watching, and waiting.

Hell, I'm still scared of it, I just don't have to hide my head anymore like I used to.
 
golguin

golguin

Member
Oct 29, 2017
3,763
Killer clowns from Outer Space and the aliens with big heads and big eyes and alien abductions.
 
Robin

Robin

Restless Insomniac
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,504
Aliens scare me in general, mostly from watching X-Files as a kid. I had a vivid dream as a child that I was abducted by aliens and it took a long time growing up to fully convince myself it was a dream. Classic grey aliens are the worst and I still have dreams about them. The Thing too.
 
Xalechim

Xalechim

Member
Oct 28, 2017
126


I'm 100% serious when I say that 3 year old me never expected that this scene would lead to YEARS of nightmares. I was freaked out by everything in this scene: the cave, the look of the bear costume, barney and friends screaming and running away. It scared me as soon as I saw it and it was etched in my mind for many years.

What's weird is that the recurring nightmare I would have had very little to do with the scene. Basically, all through my childhood I would have nightmares that it was late at night in my house and if I looked out the window the bear in pajamas would be walking towards the house. What followed was a race against time to lock the front door (it was always unlocked) before he came in and grabbed me. It would always happen like this. Eventually as I got older, it wasn't even the bear in pajamas I was afriad of, but the guy UNDER the suit. Always walking towards my house.

Total vindication when someone finally uploaded this clip to YouTube and every comment is about how this bear terrified them for years. It clearly does something to a child.
 

Deleted member 11985

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,168
That one episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark where a Q would appear on your wall and some dude would come out to take you away to the nether realm. I used to fall asleep staring at the one blank spot on my wall large enough for a Q to pop up, and whenever I'd go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I'd always check for Q's on the walls before I fully committed to starting to piss. The shit legitimately shook me up for a couple years.

vlcsnap-2012-10-15-21h16m35s185.png

latest
 
Sulik2

Sulik2

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,168
I've never heard of pumpkinhead. That is some absolutely incredible practical effects work.
 
Ogodei

Ogodei

One Winged Slayer
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,256
Coruscant
Fear itself, effectively. I was scared of the unknown behind things that friends, relatives, or my parents (them being in a separate category than relatives as the main gatekeepers of my experiences, being an only child) labeled as "scary.". So anything that people around me labeled as "scary" had a lurking dread for me, and so the covers of books or the boxes for movies became a symbol of fear. They got it into my head that Home Alone was scary, for instance, and to this day I see the symbol of the house with the lone lit window to be far more ominous than what's basically a live-action Looney Tune. Or the picture of Pennywise's hand reaching out of the storm drain, or any number of Ghostbumps book covers.

Ghostface had a particular terror for me for whatever reason, possibly just through sheer repetition as he became so overplayed right around when I was in the tween years and just starting to develop my own, unfiltered experiences.

Eyes in the dark have always had a certain terror for me, which is amusing because I love cats but will still get the willies from an eye-ful of those gimlet peepers glaring out of a dark room. To me, some of the most enduring shots in horror come from things like this scene in Amityville Horror:



Got one of those full-body chills just seeing that clip now. "Jody" in that film is used to tremendous effect.
 
Red Liquorice

Red Liquorice

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,094
UK
All of them? I'm a huge pussy.

The Thriller video shit me up as a kid. Freddy Kruger was a huge one for me too and I didn't even see an Elm Street movie until I was over 30. American Warewolf In London etc. Just the covers were bad enough, I used to be scared to be in the horror section of the video shop as a kid. Any horror films I have on DVD (not many), I NEVER put them on top of a pile, they always have to go in the middle so I don't see them (or so they can't escape?! I don't know) Seriously I would happily sleep with the light on every night if I could, I have a very active imagination and still think there are monsters in the dark when I go to the toilet in the night.
 
deimosmasque

deimosmasque

Ugly, Queer, Gender-Fluid, Drive-In Mutant, yes?
Moderator
Apr 22, 2018
14,324
Tampa, Fl
When I was a kid the scene from Killer Klowns from Outer Space where they blast the guy who opens his front door made me afraid to open my front door for like a month.
 

Deleted member 13015

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,266
Dolls, because of Child's Play.

Once I stayed at my aunt's house who had a porcelain doll and I couldn't sleep half of the night because I was so scared, sweating and having nightmares.

I got over it... kinda. Stories with AI that look human or get consciousness creep me out.

source.gif
 
pixelation

pixelation

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
3,548
Gene Simmons with make up, My dad used to be in a band and he had this big ass Kiss poster and he used to terrify me as a kid. Having never listened to their music before and going on their image alone I imagined it would be some heavy ass shit... lol. But yeah at night time and in the dark if I think about Gene Simmons in make-up I still get a little scared.
 
Serein

Serein

Member
Mar 7, 2018
2,358
Seems daft now but the Antareans from Cocoon really freaked me out as a kid. I have a vivid memory of a nightmare where I was in a cupboard in my bedroom, peering through the slats as one of those fuckers was flying around, occasionally trying to get in at me. Come to think of it, it's not that far removed from the scene in Silent Hill 2 when you first see Pyramid Head.

 
PhoenixAKG

PhoenixAKG

Member
Aug 14, 2019
7,884
Mariachi507 said:
a97PFa2.jpg


My boogeyman was the boogeyman. It took me three years to be finish the movie because I would be too scared to continue. That sense that he is everywhere, watching, and waiting.

Hell, I'm still scared of it, I just don't have to hide my head anymore like I used to.
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Hell yes. This guy was the bane of my childhood and middle school life. Still gives me the chills. That mask. So soulless.

Also Tim Curry's Pennywise. He made me so terrified in middle school that I was afraid to go into my garage when it was dark.

The Exorcist. Possessed Regan gave me HUGE nightmare fuel in middle school that even going to sleep was scary as I thought I could wake up like her....

The Dark Knight Joker. I saw a picture of him in elementary school and was scared as hell to watch the trailer.

Vampires in general. As a kid I was afraid to go in a room in the basement as I feared vampires were living there. Every time I saw a Vampire on tv I was on the edge.
 
Nox Potens

Nox Potens

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
844
I sneaked out of my room and watched part of Alien when I was around 4 or 5. Fucked me up for years with nightmares about xenomorphs crawling around on the ceiling.
 
Volimar

Volimar

volunteer forum janitor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
38,970
Not a specific bogeyman, but a fear of ghosts in general. Ask people in my family and you'll hear all about their experiences. Growing up on those stories, it's no wonder i had my own "experiences" of things that likely had rational explanations.
 
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