Films that terrified you when you were a child...

[trancejeremy]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. For some reason, UFOs have always scared the heck out of me. To this day I still get nightmares about them.

 

[Krieg]

The one that still stands out in my mind is "The Legend of Boggy Creek", about a bigfoot monster down in the swamps of western Arkansas. Scared the snot out of me. My brother managed to find a DVD of the movie and bought it for my birthday last year. The opening sequence with the young boy beating feet across the farm fields at dusk, with the creature screaming in the background, still touched some deep, primal fear in me. Too much fun.

THAT was the film that I associated with CDBs "The Legend of Wooley Swamp" as a child.

I miss the 70's when Bigfoot was a giant hairy monster & not a cuddly house-pet for John Lithgow or some sort of mascot for Sierra Club Jane Goodall wanna-bees!

The only film to creep me out as an adult?

Misery

God I hate Kathy Bates.

 

[demiurge1138]

This choice shows both my age (young) and how much of a wuss I was when I was a kid. I mean, here we've got Alien, The Howling, real classics and movies that were intended to be scary. Mine was...

The Little Mermaid.

Especially Ursula the Sea-Witch. Nothing with tentacles should be allowed in Disney movies. Maybe it triggered some deep-seated Fruedian complex in my four-year-old mind, but I was absolutely horrified.

Now, I eat calamari while reading Lovecraft. So either I'm over it, or the complex has merely evolved...

Demiurge out.

 

[MaxKaladin]

Barsoomcore: I remember that story about the miners in the cabin being attacked too and it creeped me out just like the Patterson film did. I got creeped out by all sorts of Bigfoot/Alien type stuff, but I went and sought it out anyway.

I saw Wizard of Oz as a very young kid (preschool age), but I wasn't scared at all. That's about the only one mentioned here that I can remember seeing prior to my teen years. Frankly, I just didn't see that many movies when I was a kid, not even the usual Disney stuff. I've still never seen about 99% of the Disney kids movies. I think I saw 101 Dalmations once when I was a kid and was in the same room as the Lion King a few years back but that's about it.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

I'm surprised I didn't see Gremlins on anyone's list. (maybe i just missed it). But, that's definately on mine. I had to leave the theatre.
Oh, and the reptile baby on V really scared me too (because of gremlins).

Now, Creature from the Black Lagoon didn't scare me, but my best friend was freaked out by the hand and the mood music. We got to see it in 3-D at the local arts cinema.

 

[Desdichado]

Watcher in the Woods by Disney of all things.

 

[knitnerd]

Old Twilight Zone

One episode of the old B&W Twilight Zone terrified me as a child. Little Girl Lost, where a child fell through a wall into another universe. I wanted to move my bed away from the wall.

 

[Harp]

I'm surprised I didn't see Gremlins on anyone's list. (maybe i just missed it). But, that's definately on mine. I had to leave the theatre.

Perhaps it's an age thing, but I was about 13 when it came out and remember howling with laughter at some story Phoebe Cates' character told about why she didn't like Christmas. If I remember correctly, her dad had tried to play Santa one year and had broken his neck when he tried to come down the chimney. The family didn't find him until weeks later when he started to smell. Apparently, my mirth was not appreciated by the movie-going crowd and in retrospect was likely not particularly respectful. But, hey, I was 13 and a bit of a punk. And for all I know, the scene was meant to be ironic and funny. I was too young to be able to discern intent at the time and haven't felt the need to go and re-watch the movie.

 

[Bill Scott]

I think the movie that scared me the most as a kid, and still gave me the creeps the last time I saw it which was around ten years ago, was a movie called Shock Waves. It starred Peter Cushing, who was a nazi scientist who was exiled to a deserted island, who created a pack of aquatic zombies. The zombies rising out of the water, even a darkened pool, made me afraid to go swimming a for a few weeks after that. Here is the IMDB link if anyone is interested http://amazon.imdb.com/title/tt0076704/.

As far as tv is concerned, I remember three specific things that scared me but I can't remember what series they were from;

1, Roddy McDowel played a rich young adult who left his father's, or grandfather, window open and he died of exposure. The old man was buried across the way in the family cemetary. In the house, there was a painting which showed the front of the house and cemetary. Now every time the RM character looked at the painting, which he does several times, he sees the old guy climb out of the grave and walk closer and closer to the house.

2, A man killed his wife and partner and buried their bodies under the tool shed out in the yard. Then he hears scratching noises coming from it. He checks it out and sees that the graves are disturbed. Thats all I remember of this show but I remember it scared the crap out of me as a kid

3, A movie tech, I can't remember what field, finds out that actual ghosts of movie monsters are killing off the people he works with. To stop these ghosts, he has to break into the film warehouse and burn the movie

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I watched Aliens when I was 8. I still have nightmares about facehuggers, chestbursters, and being chased around by the huge drones from time to time.

Watching it now, at age 21, still kinda freaks me out.

E.T., Close Encounters, and Jurassic Park all kinda got to me as well. Steven Spielberg must have it out for me or something...

And let's not forget They Live. Although that movie was kinda cool.