Terrifying things from your childhood.

Twin Peaks' Killer Bob scared the living shit out of me. Continuous nightmares.

Bigfoot and Charles Manson. Bigfoot was big in the culture in the 70s and it terrified me. I thought Bigfoot could be hiding in the trees outside the house or looking in the windows at night. I caught beginning of the Helter Skelter TV movie when I wasn't supposed to, and it scared me to death.

Remember when they remade that old horror movie “The Fly” with Jeff Goldblum? I was about 10 at the time and the previews gave me nightmares for weeks.

"Jaws"

"Son of Sam"

Etan Patz

The Vietnam War...I remember at the end of the evening news broadcast each night, they would list theAmerican dead, wounded, and MIA that day. I was little, but I can remember how it frightened.

"Creature Features:" horror movies broadcast on TV. "The Wolfman" scared the shit out of me.

The original Halloween soundtrack scared the heck out of me as a child. I didn’t even have to watch the movie.

Movies about alien abductions and especially “Fire in the Sky” terrified me.

I think I was about 12. A nearby theater was running a bunch of old Hammer Horror movies. My buddy Catherine (early fag hag) and I decided to go to see "The Brides of Dracula." I loved it, but Catherine spent a considerable amount of time hiding in the washroom. When I got home that night, I went to bed, read for a while, then turned the light off.

It was a hot summer night, and my window was open. I had barely settled down to sleep, when I heard a flap-flap-flap sound in the darkness. I opened my eyes. There was just enough light coming in the window to show me the form of a bat flapping around above my bed. My whole sense of reality went completely out of kilter. I knew that there was no such thing as a vampire, but this happening immediately after seeing the movie was too much. My father's room was across from mine, and I yelled to him that there was a bat in my room. I was practically crying. He got up, mumbling something about no more vampire movies for me. When he turned on the light, there was the bat soaring around the room. Out into the hallway it went.

My father searched for it, but he finally gave up and went to bed. In the morning, he told me what happened next. He settled down for the night. In a short time he heard the bat flapping around in his room. He turned on the light, rolled up a newspaper, and (gently) knocked the bat to the floor. picked it up and put it in a jar for the night, making sure to punch holes in the top of the jar so that it could breathe.

The next morning he showed it to me. In the morning light it didn't look nearly as large. When dusk came, we opened the jar and let it go. The last we saw of it, it was winging its way toward a maple tree in the yard.

Robert Stack’s voice and the Unsolved Mysteries theme music.

Nazi's ...I always had nightmaresas a child where I was trying to hide from them. In another nightmare, I would be a few blocks from my house but I couldn't find my way home.

Just though of another one. My older brothers brought me to see a Saturday matinee showing of "Beneath the Planet of the Apes." This must have been 1970/71 or so. I was 7 0r 8. It scared the shit out of me. I thought it would come to pass. I still don't think monkeys are all that cute.

Basements/cellars

The raisin-faced creatures from “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”

Any house that had windows like the ones in “The Amityville Horror”p

The Wicked Witch of the West

Sybil, the movie with Sally Field. Ice water enemas and Beethoven, 'nuff said.

The Gremlins freaked me the fuck out.

Real stuff: Nazis, and the European police sirens I would hear on TV when videos from WWII would play on TV. That sound still freaks me out.

Movies: Rodan, Godzilla, Nazis

I saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit when it came out -- so I must have been around 5.

I was scared for many weeks. I remember laying in bed and looking at my door, waiting for this guy to show up. If I shut the door, then I'd stare at the doorknob waiting for it to turn ...

Have never watched the film since.

The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

[quote]Sybil, the movie with Sally Field. Ice water enemas and Beethoven, 'nuff said.

R12, the 'cat' sequence from 'Sybil' was the worst.

[quote]Bigfoot was big in the culture in the 70s and it terrified me. I thought Bigfoot could be hiding in the trees outside the house or looking in the windows at night.

For you, R2:

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐨𝐠𝐠𝐲 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐤 (1972) trailer:

Same here, R3 - 'Fire in the Sky' scared the shit out of me. Also, with the #$%^ Bigfoot, everywhere, in those days. However, there was this weird family that lived in the alleyway behind our row home - - I remember about five massive red-haired girls, and a couple red-haired boys - all tall, all massive, all wearing weird old-fashioned clothes. They would just stare silently at you. And no, I didn't live in, 'Deliverance' country - I was raised in a small PA steel town outside of Philly. My mother didn't remember them, but my brother does. Creepy AF.

When I was five years old, my parents made the mistake of taking me to see the movie Jaws (at a local drive-in). I was so traumatized that I have not watched the movie (again) in 45 years.

My reaction to "Sybil" was beyond scared. I was completely traumatized. That picture of the decapitated cat brought it all back. BTW that wasn't an enema Sybil's mother gave her, she put water in her BLADDER and then made her sit with her bladder against the piano leg while she played it. I still can't believe they showed that on broadcast TV.

Londoner here; listening to the regular flood-siren tests when I was a kid, and we would wonder if it was an incoming nuclear strike.

Ditto the above poster about Bigfoot. I was a kid in the 70s when all those movies and TV shows were on---and I had a crazy uncle who swore he'd seen one. We lived on the edge of the woods, and when I'd play in the backyard I'd creepy myself into thinking I saw Bigfoot staring at me from the trees.

Frankenstein meets the Wolfman. I fell asleep aged 7 at my grandmothers house on the sofa and woke up to this.

For the next few years I slept with the bedside lamp on each night.

I went to Catholic school from kindergarten to 8th grade, and the bible story about Noah's Ark and the 40 days/nights of rain that wiped out everyone used to haunt me. I was always wondering when the next flood was coming and if I would survive it.

Pubic hair and pussy. I have memories of bring in a particular room and my face being close to something which I later realized was a vagina and I was struggling and pulling away and crying I was aged maybe 3, and was being babysat.

I guess it was an attempt at abuse and the idea of snatch always repulsed me.

The movie "Darby O'Gill and the Little People."

My dad took me to see it (in the 1970s) because it was a Disney film, but I was TRAUMATIZED. It was terrifying! I have been freaked out by leprechauns, gnomes and the like ever since.

I was afraid of the dark. Mainly due to a movie I saw where a creature was going from house to house and looking in windows. I remember a woman getting ready to close her bedroom's window drapes and the creature is looking back at her. Even now I close the curtains in the evening and keep a night light on before I can go to sleep.

I saw a werewolf movie and had nightmares about them for a while.

Ya'll are a bunch of fucking pussies. I was mugged and stabbed and I got over it. You bitches are scared of a fucking movie.

[quote]I was a kid in the 70s when all those movies and TV shows were on---and I had a crazy uncle who swore he'd seen one. We lived on the edge of the woods, and when I'd play in the backyard I'd creepy myself into thinking I saw Bigfoot staring at me from the trees.

I was pretty creeped out by all those films, too. My parents refused to take me to see 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐨𝐠𝐠𝐲 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐤; I didn't catch it until sometime in the middle 80s, when it came to television. But the subject of Bigfoot used to scare the fuck out of me. Alan Landsburg's series 𝐈𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐎𝐟... (1976-82) profiled the subject several times, and the episodes were always terrifying. In the middle 70s, I wound up with a paperback book on the subject, including a story where some woman was supposedly dragged off by a sasquatch, raped and impregnated by it. Scarred me for life.

R23, here's one of the creepiest films, 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 (1975):

The black-eyed zombies, from "Carnival of Souls." I remember watching this on a Sunday afternoon at my grandmother's house. I must have been 4 years old, and I remember having fever dreams about the bald male zombie coming up out of the water.

The ghost of Miss Jessel on that little island in the pond, in "The Innocents." Another Sunday afternoon at Grandma's.

The sculpted bust of Rachel's (Stephanie Powers) dead husband that suddenly comes to life and tells her, "You killed me, Rachel." ABC Movie of the Week: "Sweet, Sweet Rachel."

Those little demon things that pull a sedated Kim Darby into a fireplace, in "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark."

Skippy-a rabid fucking terrier who waited I believed to attack me each day I walked from school to my grandmothers house. I used to cross to the other side of the road but the bastard would come after me. It was a cul de sac so only one way in.

School.

I went to the movies with my parents when I was in grade school, and one of the previews was for St. Valentine's Day Massacre. I don't know why it was showing, as we were there to see a G-rated musical.

It showed gangsters gunning people down with Tommy guns.

Monster movies didn't scare me because I knew they weren't real, but this was real and scared me a lot.

my dad

Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher.

I had an auntie who was quite spooky.

I'm with R13. I actually slept with the lights on for a couple of months. I was 7yo. The only good thing was that Zach Galligan was the first guy to make me feel things down there...

Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook.

Who knew in 1960 that I had inadvertently focused on a veritable gay treasure trove? But I did.

Plus that old dyke Mary Martin swinging on a wire.

R26, I have a very faint memory like that, perhaps my earliest memory (4 months?), of my mom lying on her back on the bed with her blouse off, and placing me on her bare bosom and trying to breastfeed me. I screamed myself purple; the touch of her skin on mine repulsed me. I wasn't having it.

Holy Shit, R26

Black licorice. Rape. Car jacking. Poverty.

"The Amityville Horror"

"The Day After" (ABC made-for-TV movie about nuclear attack in Kansas, where I lived)

The opening credits of "Nightline" (because they were usually about the imminent threat of nuclear war)

"Kingdom of the Spiders"

The Atlanta Child Murders

Adam Walsh abduction

Storms. When that little tornado showed up in the bottom of the tv screen, it was almost a sure thing that I’d be vomiting that evening.

Also, the movie Funhouse.

The movie adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Witches” scared me shitless as a kid

The count on sesame street

OP's "poltergeist" story didn't contain any info.

My childhood home had both ghosts and poltergeist activity. The former would just appear and disappear, but the poltergeist(s) would breathe on our necks in bed, coldly and audibly. One tried to push a friend down the steps - he struggled against it yelling for help. My sisters' and brother's and my rooms were on the third floor and that was scary. The activity was focused on us "up there." We'd lie in bed and listen to it walking up the steps, hitting every creaky step and when it reached the top things would go silent. Cousins and friends finally wouldn't sleep over, and a couple of friends' parents wouldn't let their kids play in our house. We had a priest over twice to bless the house, but that didn't do anything.

My grandmother had an apartment on the first floor, and her daughter - my aunt - and he husband lived with her for a while. My aunt was the cook for a German restaurant and tavern. Their specialty was beef brain sandwiches. I'd walk into Grandma's kitchen and there would be 50 pounds of brains all over the place, in buckets of water "soaking," in the sink, in bowls. I about fainted the first time (I was a dramatic gayling) but my little sister had nightmares for months.

We would spend part of every summer in the Ozarks with my uncles and his family. It was a three mile walk to the post office, and we'd go pick up the mail and have a Coke. But there were feuds going on, which no one told us kids about, and once on the way we were shot at repeatedly. The bullets were ricocheting off the gravel and they hit the dog with us. We ran like hell. It was very scary. It took until fall before "they" got my uncle. He was hit in the stomach but survived. No one ever was arrested.

I was trapped in a cave once and the flashlight went out and I couldn't move. I was rescued but not soon enough. I had terrible issues with claustrophobia after that. A cousin would lock me in a small closet because he know about my fears. I would scream my throat raw.

R43, oh yeah. Although I wasn’t a kid anymore, he was SCARY.

R32, my sister texted me about that movie the other day. We agreed it was scary as fuck.

When I was five years old, I watched the "That's Incredible!" episode about a haunted toy store. Scary! WTF!

My mother.

I was scared of Bigfoot as on "The Six Million Dollar Man".

The commercial for The Legend Of Boggy Creek scared the hell out of me as a kid.

Also, the commercial for Magic:

My mother’s manic depression.

Great stretches of water. For instance, in kindergarden, they took us as a fun outing to the outdoor olympic swiming pools complex. The memory I have of it is multiple swiming pools around me and me in total shock, not having fun and refusing to go into the water. Too vast. Too much water. Too much noise. Too much unknown lurking. Not any control of the situation.

Extremely unpleasant.

A bit later, the poster of the movie Jaws (that was popular again because of the movie Jaws 2 at the time). I knew deep water was dangerous ! See !

The music from the movie Jaws I could hear in my room, not wanting to watch the movie. Now, that was just scary and a bit traumatic, not terrifying.

Anytime a character on tv broke the 4th wall in order to startle or be mildy scary for kids. It would completely freak me out, cause I thought they could see me.

my older brother and sister locking me in the attic

the mean Pekingese that would chase me on my walk home from school, he would guard the sidewalk

throwing up with anxiety because i didn't do my theory homework for piano lessons

*hugs r56* I’m glad they didn’t throw you to the wolves.

Any image of Freddy Krueger would give me nightmares for weeks.

The Witches starring Anjelica Houston terrified me as well, especially the scene with the girl who was trapped in the painting and the witch who came to the treehouse. To this day, I'm still not convinced I've seen a more bone chilling performance in my life. That woman was scary good in her one big scene.

Why thank you, R58. * hugs you back*

R30- you were mugged and stabbed as a child?

My Mom had company so she thought I would enjoy a Sinbad movie when I was six years old. (Some of the men were hot, by the way.) So I am in a room by myself watching "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and this happened....

I peed my pants and ran into the room where my mom was hosting company. The older ladies were sympathetic and one of them gave me a 50 cent piece.

At least they gave the monster nipples.

The Kraken (sea monster) in "Clash of the Titans" (1981).

The book version of 'Salem's Lot.

Old Yeller. It was my first movie in a theatre. My mother swore she had no idea.

My mom took classes at the local community college back in the 70sand brought me with her sometimes when she couldn’t get a sitter. I was a good quiet kid who’d sit and read a book. (Everyone smoked; there were ashtrays everywhere!)

There was another student who was a paraplegic and had some kind of breathing apparatus. He was in a motorized wheelchair and I was terrified of him. My mother used to force me to say hello, so I did. But it was frightening and gave me nightmares.

As a child in the 70s I was terrified of being kidnapped. There was a much publicized child molestation and murder spree in the Detroit area that raised fears among kids and their parents. This spilled over into fears of prowlers who were likely circling my house at night and the potential for home invasion.

When I was around 5 or 6 I was afraid of vampires and slept with the sheets twisted around my neck to slow down their feeding.

My older sister also fueled fears, primarily as a result of her religiosity. She told me about The Exorcist as if it was fact, which caused me to recite the Lord’s Prayer multiple times every night while I lay in bed to stave off demonic possession. She also gave 11 year old me this fundamentalist book, The Late Great Planet Earth, which laid out arguments that we were in the end times and Armageddon was approaching.

I also was terrified of nuclear war as Regan ramped up the arms race.

Jodie the pig from Amityville Horror

The intro from Tales From the Darkside

YES, R70! Me, too.

I always got scared I would be dropped off and left there alone.

My white trash, racist family.

Most of them had so many teeth missing, their tongues looked like they were in jail.

The faceless wooden mannequins at Montgomery Ward. Back in the late '60s, there was a row of these mannequins with flat, featureless, dark-wood faces (wearing the latest fashions, of course) lining the back entrance to Wards. I remember my grandmother dragging me down this gauntlet of horror to the escalators, as I screamed bloody murder.

Watching "Shogun" (1981ish) as a 6 year old. I thought Japanese guys were so scary!

[quote]Most of them had so many teeth missing, their tongues looked like they were in jail.

Too funny

My father.

And the preacher from "Poltergeist". The little song he sings still scares me so badly, I sleep with the light on.

^Julian Beck was an eldergay.

Barbara Bush.

It's not a horror movie, but for some reason this movie scared the shit out of me when I was about 5

The Child Catcher was deeply unnerving.

I watched an episode of twilight zone with my mom. Mannequins come to life periodically and go to the 23th floor, which really didn’t exist . They were allowed to “live normally” for brief periods of time.

I was maybe five or six. Fucking terrified . It’s only a story. Really! Said mom.

Maybe this is why I obsess about life being so short .

Demonic possession - could happen anywhere, any time, by touching anything.

Boom!

You’re filling out a 10-K form in footed jammies

The opening scene of Cliffhanger is responsible for my fear of heights, I'm sure. I was far too young to see this

R76, Mike Pence reminds me of that guy.

R83, I've never seen that movie, but what in the holy fuck is with the giant smile on the old guy's face while she's slipping? Is he psycho?

Bartholomew and the Oobleck. I've been afraid of suffocating ever since.

i'm scared of being cold.

The emptiness. My father. The emptiness of my father.

R45 I’m also with you about Kingdom of the Spiders. It fueled my nightmares for years. And when Arachnophobia came out, I just couldn’t bear it. There was another film called Rattlers that came on TV along with Kingdom...that scared me shitless too. Still hate spiders and snakes to this day.

In real life, I was terrified of the Night Stalker. He was murdering people in my area left and right. My father’s clients were murdered by him. And a lady with whom I have mutual friends turned out to be a survivor of him. Her husband was killed and she was tortured and raped by him. A girl from my school was almost kidnapped by him and he was eventually caught on my friends’ street. The threat was so tangibly real, you could taste it. It was surreal, the measures everyone took because of one damned man. Never felt fear like that since.

Flying in small planes with my father was bad enough but then he bought a glider and things got a million times more terrifying. He decided that my fear was completely irrational and if I wanted a car I'd have to learn to fly a plane first. I really, really wanted a car, so I did.

To make matters worse my first solo flight was from the airport below, which looks like it should have climbing nets and ball pit.

My mother’s variation on “Now I lay me down to sleep” was as follows:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

It’s probably just as well

[quote]However, there was this weird family that lived in the alleyway behind our row home - - I remember about five massive red-haired girls, and a couple red-haired boys - all tall, all massive, all wearing weird old-fashioned clothes. They would just stare silently at you.

The big one was expelled from summer camp for torturing animals Skinned a dog alive.

Growing up in London I was terrified of flooding. I grew up not too far from the relatively new Thames Barrier and we'd always take visiting family to see it. This involved an absolutely terrifying PSA film about what a flooded London would look like, and ended with the screams of drowning children and the image of a lone doll floating in water.

Was it a longer version of this, r93?

I have a hazy memory of a man who may have tried to abduct me as a toddler while I was at a playground with my sister and friends. They ran away as he approached and left me sitting on a swing or something and he came up to me and started to pick me up, and then my sister came back and he let go and walked away. I was too young for the memory to be clear but my sister remembers it.

We had a bizarre experience while on a beach vacation. My sister and I woke up in the middle of the night to screaming and we got out of bed and found my dad in the kitchen, backing a young hysterical woman, dripping in water, into a corner with a broom while my mom was on the phone to police, shaking. They screamed at us to go back to bed and the woman kept screaming “YOU’RE ALL IN GRAVE DANGER!” over and over. We had no idea what was happening. The cottage we stayed in was by a saltwater canal. Our parents said that after we went to bed, they heard screaming and splashing outside and they found her in the canal and helped her out. She came into the house and they realized she was mentally ill or high on something. It was terrifying at the time.

The movie Piranha made me afraid of all water—oceans, swimming pools, bathtubs—for years.

I had a recurring dream throughout childhood that the moon turned blood red and then a sea of lava burned up my house. My mom and sister drove away in the car and left my dad and me in the house with the dog. I had this dream from probably age seven or eight into adulthood.

One night in my late teens, I dreamed that the devil was looking right at me and he told me that he possessed my soul and there was no way to escape, and I realized I was asleep but couldn’t wake up. I finally woke up because I had to go to the bathroom. I was terrified but calmed down and fell half asleep and he was there grinning and telling me there was no way to get away. It scared the fuck out of me and I turned on the bathroom light. I remember my heart racing. I stayed up a few hours, drifted off again, and there he was, grinning and telling me no matter what I do, I can never get away. It hasn’t happened since but it really unnerved me that the dream carried on like that even though it had been interrupted, and it seems especially bizarre since I was not raised with religion, I’m not religious and I really don’t believe in “the devil,” Donald Trump notwithstanding.

When I was in kindergarten, just before I left for school, a huge oak tree fell and crashed through the back of the house. It destroyed the deck and smashed through the kitchen. It was terrifying because it was so sudden but it didn’t really leave lingering trauma.

All the tragedies that happened to Mary on LHOTP.

Snakes. And we lived in the woods in rural North Carolina. Copperheads, water moccasins (cottonmouths).... I won't be able to get to sleep now.

R4 I was in grade school during the Vietnam War, and I was terrified that when I grew up, I'd be drafted into the war and marched to my death.

I also had a fear of vampires, so I would wear a rosary before I went to bed in the hopes that if Dracula came to bite my neck, he'd see the cross on the rosary and flee.

My mother didn’t wear any kind of cosmetics, but her mother wore dark red lipstick and painted her nails reddish. She also wore a black or dark brown wig and was very pale, and at some point I imagined she might be a vampire and I would dream or fantasize that she was going to creep into my room and bite and claw me to death.

I blame my sister, who is two years older and who once told me that she “saw Grandma take her teeth out!” without ever explaining to me what dentures were.

Vampires - I thought footage of Nosferatu silent film was actual documentary footage of a real vampire.

That creepy hand in CHILLER THEATER on WPIX Channel 11.

My Jehovah’s Witness dad talking about all the witnesses who died in concentration camps in WWII and telling seven-year-old me that I need to always be prepared to be a martyr or go to prison for my faith.

The Viacom logo.

You hold your water!

You hold your water till the very last note!

When I was about 9 I read an article about a traffic accident w. a fatality. Someone was trapped in the flaming wreckage and burned to death. Some writer and editor decided that it was necessary to note that witnesses were devastated because they could hear rhe person screaming, couldn't do anything to help.

To this day, a whole lot of days later, my biggest fear is burning to death.

You guys know the name of the movie where a boy is afraid that something or someone is hiding in his closet and there was actually something in there and it suddenly moves? I can't remember if it actually was a person or puppet or the name of the movie but this image terrified me for years.

Merry-Go-Rounds. I saw that fucking "Strangers on a Train" one day after school on the local afternoon movie.

It spoiled Merry-Go-Rounds for me forever. I know they are all circular death traps poised to go violently out of control.

The Mod Squad where somebody is spreading the plague without knowing.

Mr.Quilp from The old curiosity Shop. My dad used to stuff a cushion up the back of his sweater, dim the lights and chase us about, imitating Quilp’s voice.

Nancy Reagan on the Just Say No episode of Diff'rent Strokes.

When I was VERY young--like pre-first grade--I had this horrible dream where the Devil jumped out of the fireplace and chopped my dad up into small pieces, but dad was still alive and talking while being in pieces! There was no blood; it was very weird. I can remember crying in the morning telling my parents about it. My asshole older brothers made fun of me, but my sweet Dad comforted me. 40 plus years later, I still remember the fear.

[Quote] I had barely settled down to sleep, when I heard a flap-flap-flap sound in the darkness.

Reminds me of my dorm room when I was a student.

The Night Gallery tv show

The "Amazing Stories" segment "A Little Peace and Quiet", where the woman finds a necklace that allows her to stop time on command. She uses the power mainly as convenience when she's running behind. In one scene she has her family frozen at the kitchen table while she leisurely finishes making breakfast. The final scene is of her running through a parking lot while a nuclear siren is blaring & she screams "SHUT UP!".... the camera pulls out & you see panicked shoppers frozen in place, and finally a nuclear missile suspended in the sky. Scared the living shit out of me.

Almost any ghost segment from Unsolved Mysteries. Even though it was the 80s they did the ghost effects & visuals so well. I would literally be laying awake in my bed after a really scary one.

Haven't seen many mentions of the "haunted house" in the neighborhood ;) I thought that was as universal as some of the other themes in this thread. We had one a few blocks from our house. Typical old, unloved Victorian. Paint job was mostly faded/ peeled & the remaining wood was either bleached or looked charred. My friends & I had our dares: go up on the porch, ring the doorbell, look in the window, go through the back gate etc etc...

R114, I agree about the ghost stuff on Unsolved Mysteries. The alien stories scared me, too

I apparently cried AND shit my pants when I saw this as a wee lad

R103 Some people claim to be terrified of the "dancing sticks."

Oh. From MY childhood.

Never mind.

Not of This Earth

I think I’ve told this on DL before but two things ...

I saw Halloween (the original) as a 6-7 year old on HBO in the early 80’s. My older brother and his friend thought it would be funny to re-enact certain scenes for my “entertainment”. He somehow hung himself upside down from a door frame similar to when Lori opens a door and the slutty boyfriend swings upside down, with my brother having a knife under his armpit and some ketchup. 3:45 at the YouTube video. Nightmares for years. My Mom was not amused.

I was (am still kind of am) terrified to go in the ocean after watching Jaws at at similar young age.

"The Day After" scared the crap out of me. I had "nukemares" for weeks.

Sorry. At 2:40

I had no terrifying memories from my childhood.

Are you dead r123?

Perry Mason theme. It haunted me.

I too was terrified of dying in Vietnam – so badly, my mom used to waken me from nightmares and hold me to calm me down. She said I had them at least once a week for almost two years. (My dad's little brother was KIA when I was six.)

Pet Cemetery. I never read a Stephen King book again.

Religions things, God, the devil, hell. My parents were not religious but I assisted to Catholic and Methodists schools, without having any guidance. The teachers scare you, make you feel like you were bad, and the consequences of simple acts of rebellion were an eternity in hell. Should be considered child abuse how they terrorised you.

One christmas eve when I was 6 and my brother 7 ,my dad came home drunk and grabbed his pistol,went outside and shot it off 3 times. He then came back in and told us he had killed Santa Claus . My brother and I were traumatized .

Quicksand and mole people.

I was raised on horror movies, and considered myself pretty 'chill' (or whatever we called it back then). But I shared a room with my older brother, who would wait until I was nearly asleep to start tormenting me, reminding me of different drive-in movies we had seen. He'd whisper, "they're coming to get you" from 'Night of the Living Dead' or make "blup, blup, BLUP" sound effects from 'The Blob'.

Quicksand was a huge threat when I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s.

When I was in elementary school (late 60s), they had an assembly that showed a PSA that was anti-motorcycle called, 'Two Wheels to Eternity' with the ending camera shot lingering on the crashed, 'hippy motorcyclist's' hand with a fly walking around on it...their way of showing that he was dead. Scared the living daylights out of me and I've not been able to find it, after all these years. Cannot imagine what they were thinking, showing it to a bunch of K-5th grade students; it's not like any of us were bikers, at that age..wtf.

During the summers in the late 70s my parents would let me stay up all night watching TV. Back then TV would sign off during the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes you would get the National Anthem playing and other times the color bars. And every once in a while they would air spots about escaped convicts on the run! They would scare me shitless, especially in a house where everyone else was asleep.

Oh, and they also showed a short about forest fires, with a shot of a baby bird, actually burned to death (all crisped and still smoking) in its nest. Traumatized for life!

"Kolchak: The Night Stalker"

KILLER 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 ARE COMING!!

I’m cracking up at the number of people commenting about sadistic older siblings. It’s not *funny*, but it’s funny. I don’t think I was very mean to my younger sister.

Thank you, Miss Schuster.

I'm surprised I was the only person to mention snakes. I guess most people didn't grow up in a small town in the woods.

OMFG why did I open this thread. You all are reminding me of things from my childhood that I thought I had nicely buried.

I was around 6 and at a friend's house. Their mom had a paperback called "Audrey Rose". The cover had a picture of a girl screaming with crazy eyes, and her hand were pressing against glass or something. (Nope, not gonna google it to verify the cover).

My friend's older sister told me it was a TRUE story about a girl who was burned alive in a car and came back to life as someone else's child. Then she burned to death AGAIN.

I burst into tears and ran home, certain that I was destined to get in a car accident and wake up in another body.

The flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz scared the crap out of me every year too.

The actress who played Audrey Rose is terrifying me right now.

Not me, but after a couple of previews of The Wizard of Oz, over half of Margaret Hamilton's part was cut. It's true that the film was too long and they were looking for things to cut but they had to go so heavy on her scenes because she absolutely terrified young children, who screamed and cried and tried to escape their seats. She's still so effective that most people don't realize how short her part actually is.

Charles Manson and all of the "Family" members, especially with the swastikas etched into their foreheads. They all looked like psychopaths to me (although I wouldn't have used the word "pschopath" at the time).

Cold-blooded, heartless killers, all of them.

R141 Nooooooooooooooooooooooo now I'll be up all damn night.

It gets worse, R140/R145. Just look at her now:

[quote]About Susan Swift: Irking Liberals and Having Fun. One Conservative Mother preaching the political Gospel and the coming American Resurrection.

I don't have a Facebook account and I can't see her whole profile (I also can't link it), and for that I am thankful.

So I guess she's terrifying EVERYONE now

I was 10 or 11 when I watched "The Howling". Big mistake. Those were the scariest werewolves I had ever seen. Vampires fascinated me, but werewolves were brutal fuckers.

I've watched plenty of horror films in movie theaters. The thing that bothers me is seeing parents with really young kids at some of these screenings. Traumatizing your children so soon, WTF! Too cheap to get a babysitter?

Gertrude Baniszewski stands out as terrifying. I was almost 9 years old when Gertrude and her family murdered 16 year old Sylvia Likens. The facts that became public were terrifying for every child in Indianapolis. Abuse and neglict writ very, very, large.

Of course, the damned case was in the news again and again and again, both print and broadcast. It took several years for all of the defendants to make their way from court to prison. I will never forget the name 'Gertrude Baniszewski' nor will I forget that awful face.

The Nightmare at 20,000 feet episode. When the creature pushed it's face up the window, I flew behind my chair and watched the rest of it behind the chair.

The Day After. I was about 8 when I saw it and lived in terror of a nuclear attack for years afterward.

I have a FB account R141 and yup, she is more terrifying now. Guns, god, and Trump all over her page.

My brother liked Ultraman, but the opening scared me so much, I would hide behind the couch. I was about 3 years old. I watched The Exorcist as a teenager one night when no one else was home. Never again!