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Things that Scared You as a Kid

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Since Halloween is almost upon us, how's about this for a thread?

Anyway...I grew up in an "old school" Irish-Catholic household, and my paternal grandmother revelled in scaring the heck out of us as kids. We listened to the same ghost stories for most of our youths, and they were still scaring us. My father also took a perverse delight in sending us to bed terrified. I always say how most kids would get a "good night" from their fathers. Mine would say something like "Well, the vampires are really gonna get you tonight!".

There was one movie in particular, that in retrospect a kid should NOT have been watching. It's the 1970's version of Dracula with Frank Langella. He didn't frighten me so much, but his victims did. In this version, for some reason they reversed the roles of the women. Van Helsing's daughter Mina (possible spoiler!!) was the one killed by Drac, and Lucy was the one they were frantically trying to save.

Any-hoo, there's a scene where Van Helsing (played by Lawrence Olivier!!) and Harker (I think) realize what's going on and decide they need to go into Mina's grave. They go into it, and fall through into a burial vault. Harker gets separated from Van Helsing, and Van Helsing is laying face first in the ground staring at a puddle of water. The water is still rippling from his fall, when all of a sudden you see something white in the reflection and hear "Papa? Papa?". Then they pan around and you see her for the first time. My GOD, it was terrifying to see that, and actually I can feel my heart rate picking up as I write this. All I know is, the first time I saw this, that night I had to go to the bathroom at like 1 am and the bathroom in our house was downstairs from my bedroom. Of course it was the obligatory stormy night. All I can say is that I was moving between lightning flashes that night!!

So, what scared you then?
Nemo me impune lacessit

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My mother is a closet horror movie fan, but the thing that freaked me out most when I was a kid was the TV ad for the 1978 movie Magic, based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. The entire ad was a slow zoom on the ventriliquist dummy's head while he recited this creepy sing-songy rhyme. There was also a violin playing a single high-pitched note for the duration of the ad. I think it would still creep me out today.

Princess Leia: I happen to like nice men.
Han Solo: I'm a nice man.

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I sneakily watched as a young child The Omen and it totally scared the hell out of me, for a start the Jerry Goldsmith music the deaths in the film especally when David Warner got decapitated and the Billie Whitelaw nanny really scared me,as did the overall (Satanic) theme of the movie,I remember some nights for a couple weeks in bed being afraid of being in the dark and having the door closed and just being generally freaked out.. I did not watch it again until my late teens...
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I never had much of a problem with scary movies as a kid. Then again, my mom did take me to see "The Amityville Horror" in 1979, and I have a vague memory of what might have been a re-release of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" a year or so earlier. I'm 33 now, you do the math.

But the thing that truly creeped me out and made me believe that there was a malicious force of evil and destruction in my bedroom was one of these:



I swore its eyes followed me around the room (especially at night), and it always managed to work its way to the front of the shelf even after I put other toys and stuffed critters in front of it. I hated that damn monkey. It's part of the reason I didn't watch any of the Planet of the Apes movies until I was around 12 or so. I don't know what ever happened to it, but if it showed up today I would hack it to pieces, burn the remnants, stick the ashes in a bag, tie the bag to a concrete block and drop it in the lake.
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Your mother!

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As a very small kid, at 4 or 5, my great-grandmother scared me, I kinda remember she coming to speak to me, and she was very old and spoke spanish, and I remember crying and running away, behind a sofa and everyone laughing. Than, I remember I was scared of Judge Doom from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", I remember watching it at the theater and (oh, by the way, SPOILERS) when judge doom gets skwatched and flatened I was horrified but kept looking, and when his eyes come out and he looks up with his red eyes and skeeky voice, I lost it, I just covered my eyes for the rest of the film. To this day, I blame Cristopher Lloyd and Robert Zemeckis for my insanity... I can't remember anything else that really scared me as a kid.
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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At the age of maybe 4 or 5, I saw ET. Where should I begin:
- The beginning, with ET running through the brush, screeching, as he's being chased.
- ET face down in a ditch.
- The quarantine scenes when ET "dies".

Ric,
I felt about the same when I first saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

That's about all I remember being scared by. I don't seem to get "scared" anymore, but I do get startled.
Ex. In Jurassic park, at the very end when Grant, Ellie and the kids have raptors on either side of them in the Visitor's Center and suddently the T.Rex jumps into the scene and grabs one of the raptors, that made me jump in my seat.
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Those bird things from "The Dark Crystal."
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Originally posted by: Darth Enzo
I never had much of a problem with scary movies as a kid. Then again, my mom did take me to see "The Amityville Horror" in 1979, and I have a vague memory of what might have been a re-release of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" a year or so earlier. I'm 33 now, you do the math.

But the thing that truly creeped me out and made me believe that there was a malicious force of evil and destruction in my bedroom was one of these:



Reminds me of the poster for Monkey Shines, which wasn't allthat scary, but had a great ad campaign.

Princess Leia: I happen to like nice men.
Han Solo: I'm a nice man.

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IMO, scariest movie of all time: The Exorcist. That movie brings about a sense of primal terror, in me and people I know. It's not just a matter of being startled, its about being genuinely afraid.

Even the book is terrifying. I once picked it up in the library (I know it sounds stupid, but I won't have either the book or the movie in my house), in broad daylight and it gave me the creeps.
Nemo me impune lacessit

http://ttrim.blogspot.com
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Originally posted by: Darth Enzo
but if it showed up today I would hack it to pieces, burn the remnants, stick the ashes in a bag, tie the bag to a concrete block and drop it in the lake.


And it would rise like a phoenix from the ashes to haunt you till the day of your death. We should contact your parents and see if they still have it packed away somewhere. Muahahahahahahahahahaha. ha.

As for me, I was scared to death by the clown ventriloquist dummy in Poltergeist. Two of the world's greatest evils (ventriloquist dummies and clowns) melded into one vicious force to be reckoned with. I was also scared by the scene where the kid's braces attacked him and tried to plug his head into the electrical socket. I was so happy I never needed braces. But my brother did... and he saw that movie, too. Muahahahahahahhahhahahahaha

JediSage, The Exorcist is still the scariest movie I've ever seen. Especially "the version you've never seen" with Ragen doing that spiderwalk down the stairs. I still get chills up my spine.
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Yep, that's a good willy-inducing scene. When we saw it, there was another group of friends (all probably in their 20s) a few rows behind us. After she came down the stairs, one fellow got up and said "screw you guys, I'm going home," and proceeded to walk out of the theater.

As for the monkey, my folks had a policy that any plush toy that got vomited on was immediately thrown out. I wouldn't be surprised if I kept it close one time when I got sick so I could puke on it and be rid of it.
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I will admit, that for a time in my teens, I actually thought the Exorcist was funny. Especially the pea-soup scene. However, those days are long gone. I've heard a quote, and I don't remember from where, but it was something like "When you study evil, you are studied BY evil". That's why I'd have to be pretty loaded to watch that movie again.

There's a legend that I read about back in the early 90's called "The Bell Witch", which was pretty darn creepy. It involves a terrible haunting in the mid-west back around the time of the Civil War. Check this out:

Bell Witch

*EDIT* My timeline for this is wrong...Bell Witch was early 1800's, well before the war. Apologies.
Nemo me impune lacessit

http://ttrim.blogspot.com