Can't believe nobody's mentioned The Thing yet. The idea that any random person or creature could suddenly transform into a mass of tentacles and fangs that lives only to consume your flesh...

Also, the original Paranormal Activity. Because the apartment I was living in at the time had a weird airflow issue that could cause my bedroom door to open and close on its own if didn't securely latch it.

 

The nuclear explosion part of Terminator 2 freaked me out a ton when I was little.

The Outer Limits: Deadman's Switch episode was probably the scariest shit to me. 6 people living in separate bunkers around the world at the start of an alien invasion, whose job is to get up every morning and stop the entire world's nukes from deploying. The aliens start killing them off 1 by 1. When the last guy is left, and the president contacts him and tells to keep stopping the nukes until they come rescue him. The final shot is the president slumping over like a puppet and it pans out to a completely wrecked and destroyed Washington/world. That shit wrecked me for weeks.

I was also kind of scared of vampires when I was little. Ironically from Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

Are you afraid of the Dark messed me up a couple times as well. I think it was primarily the pendulum episode.

A couple Goosebump books also did alot of damage.

 

Plenty of movies were scary but the only one that got me to Nope! out was ET.

That creepy wrinkly fucker was terrifying as a child. I use to see him out of the corner of my eye at night or in windows.

And Ramses from courage deserves an honorable mention even if it's not a movie.

 

Land of the Giants

Tiny people running through drain pipes while being chased by giant spiders and tormented by monstrous scientists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F86paV5z8Gg



I loved that show, but it also scared the dickens out of me.

 

Event Horizon. Not really a good movie, but the idea of being on a spaceship and strange shit happening that you can't get away from stuck with me.

 

The eyeless woman popping up in the alternating on/off green-lit crawlspace made me get up out of the movie theater at, I dunno, 12 or 13 or something and promptly call home for a ride, then spend the entire night awake in bed with the lights on.

 

For some odd reason, I got an image of Ron watching Eight-Legged Freaks.

 

While I was scared of a lot of stuff as a kid I'm having trouble remembering some of them now. Most of them were stupid in retrospect, of course.

Yep, that was one. I think another one was Burton's Sleepy Hollow, for a while.

 

"RETURN THE SLAAAAAAAB..."

Cartoon Network used to air some freaky stuff back in the day, especially during that "What-A-Cartoon" phase.

AKIRA was also a pretty horrifying thing to watch as a seven-year-old.

 

When I was really young (like five or six) Gmork from Neverending Story and the giant spider from Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure really freaked me out.

 

Honey I shrunk the kids. Yep. That's right.

Fucking massive bugs.

As a side note, I watched The Blair Witch project on my own when I was about seven. That fucked me up for weeks.

 

Exorcist

Context:

My cousin and I used to think we were hot shit by watching his older brothers' R-rated horror movies (Hellraiser, Halloween etc).

My mum, sick of our peacocking, sat our seven year old assess down and made us watch The Exorcist. Understandably terrified by the end, she delivered the coup de gras by telling us it was a true story.

I couldn't sleep without a crucifix over my bed for a month.

Tough love. Still the best bit of parenting I've ever received to this date.

 

Alien. I was eight. Fuckity-fuck.

 

Ya Alien, couldn't sleep for days...

 

Oh yeah. Those damn scarabs, like the one that ate into and crawled right up the greedy prison guard's body to his brain. Hated that scene too.

Pool episode with the bloody monster that came out to kill anyone but the old janitor is the one that's really stuck with me over the years. That was one ugly mofo.

And if I can offer another, Disney's Night on Bald Mountain.

 

I don't remember any movies scaring me when I was really young. Pre-teen, the thing that scared me most was Man-Bat in the Batman Animated series.

Spoiler

During transformation



Immediately after

I was a bit freaked out by The Ring when I saw that as a teenager, but that was more for two external things than the film itself: one, at that point I had a TV in my bedroom, so when I was trying to get to sleep later I couldn't help but stare at it. Two, at the point that Naomi Watts was watching the tape, and the phone rang on screen to tell her she was cursed...my dad rang me up, completely by co-incidence.

 

We had a sleepover at primary school - an end-of-school tradition for the 6th graders. 'Sleeping' in the small gymnasium and all that, but there were films too. The Mummy was one of the films. I noped out and spent time playing a building game for 3rd graders on the computer with a few others.

Did watch it later, so no harm done, I suppose.

 

I watched what I remember calling Silver (wikipedia tells me I was wrong and it's actually Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin) when I was 8 or so and the bear freaked me the fuck out. Around the same time I watched Watership Down and the murder rabbits also freaked me the fuck out.
Gotta say I wasn't a fan of that friends taste in movies.

I had a hard time watching the scene in Robocop where the big robot murders a room full of office people. Then when some guy is bathed in acid and hit with a car warrants an honorable mention.

My most terrifying memory of watching a movie though was when my dad took me to see Beauty and the Beast when I was 6, Beast gave me nightmares for a long time afterwards.

 

Martyrs. May be more accurate to say that it disturbed/sickened me. I've never considered myself squeamish but jeeeesus

 

The dolls from Trilogy of Terror, The Tommyknockers and The Langoliers.