"What movies scared the beejeesus out of you?" Topic

The Abominable Snowman when I was a little kid and Halloween when I got older. I still recall the scene in the former where the gigantic hand reached under the side of the tent and crushed a rack of guns. Didn't see to much more after that as I was hiding under the seat.

Alien – spent a couple sleepless nights when it first came out thinking about what if they got loose on earth.

An episode of Johnny Quest – the one with the invisible electric eating monster.

A couple chick flicks, but I do not remember which ones and don't want to open the locked door to try.

And BTW, I make a distinction between scary and gross. :)

The Exorcist. A bunch of us saw it as a late show during university. When it was over the lads all came back to the dorm and talked and talked and talked…on this and that. Finally, one guy asked
"Is anyone else a little nervous to go back to their room?"
We all had a good laugh, because the fact was, we were! I haven't seen it since, but I found it pretty unnerving then.

Good point, Scratchbuilder. I remember an English teacher once drummed into our heads that 'terror' and 'horror' were two different things.

Alien and a low budge movie called "The Screaming Skull"

The Shining. In fact, it still does!

Salem,s Lot.

The Thing

The Woman in Black and Event Horizon

The Exorcist for me too. Saw it in the theater when it first came out, with some other high school friends. After that no other movie has had quite the same effect. In fact I still can't watch it again today.

I don't mind being scared by a movie, what I don't like is feeling disturbed and that seems to be what a lot of the more modern so called horrors go for.
Don't get me wrong I'm not a shrinking violet, 14 years in the Army and 21 as a cop I've seen my fair share of real horror but some of the modern day writers are just plain warped.
Mind you as a child I used to hide behind my Grandmothers chair whenever I heard the Dr Who music on the TV lol.

The original Friday the 13th movie – especially the last scene when Jason heaves himself out of the water – in fact, I have not watched a classical horror movie since

Alien and Event Horizon were two sci-fi movies that creeped me out

I remember Village of the Damned (the 1960 version) scared me royally when I was a kid.

Alien and the 1979 version of Dawn of the Dead.

Poltergeist. I saw it when I was 12. I had a second story bedroom with a large oak tree outside. The night after we saw the movie we had a thunderstorm. You can bet I slept on the couch that night. :)

Event Horizon: I went to see this at the local budget theatre (as a double feature with Contact). I was the only one in the theatre until half way through the movie when another guy comes in. Out of an entirely empty theatre the guy chooses to sit in the seat right behind me. It was creepy.

Quatermass

I'm a sensitive soul, so quite a few.

A couple kept me awake at nights afterwards:

The Evil Dead
Blair Witch Project

but mainly just for thrills and screams:

The Thing (top of the list!)
The Haunting
The Shining
The Omen
The Exorcist
Halloween
The stage production of The Woman in Black.
Aliens at the Dalston Rio, the whole audience were screaming. You had to be there.

I suspect some of these haven't aged well.

interesting the mentions for Event Horizon, I just thought it was a sadistic and unpleasant film, but not especially frightening.

The original Hammer production of "The Fall of the House of Usher". At age 8, it scared me so bad, I went under the seat. Have not been scared at a movie since then.

When I was a little kid, I remember seeing "The Ghost And Mister Chicken" and couldn't sleep for a week. That organ with the blood on the keys and the tune it played freaked me out.

I think I'm still traumatized. :)

Thinking back on it as an adult always gives me a good belly laugh!

I never saw the actual movies but I was freaked out by the commercials for them that ran on TV (at that time black and white and only one network!). In particular The Killer Shrews and The Creature From the Black Lagoon.

None. It's the business I'm in so I don't really 'see' any scary… it's just a movie with actors and editing.

When I was a kid it was The Wizard of Oz.

I saw "Event Horizon" as a kid and was truly frightening. I was recently thinking that I should watch it again and see if it holds up.

Exorcist!

Not because of it's fright value as such, but when I was about ten, a black and white movie called "The Witch" was on late one night. So there I was on my own, lights off, totally absorbed in the screen…

The witch jumped out on a victim, and at exactly the same second, the pet cat leaped up on my knee! Did I jump..? I was close to being the first person to make orbit without the aid of a rocket!

That was a fluke, the film wasn't actually particularly scary, so without the aid of domesticated felines I would have to put Alien and a creepy one called Prince of Darkness staring Donald Pleasence on top of my list.

Carrie and Jaws.

I don't really like gore, but can only think of two films that really genuinely rattled me, neither of which is a horror as such: The Wicker Man, and especially Threads. I was lucky enough to see the latter at an outdoor screening a few weeks ago, and 30 years after first airing, it still hits hard….

Thanks a lot Virtualscratchbuilder, I was suppressing that Jonny Quest episode. Now you've gone dredged up that childhood horror.
That one and the episode with the giant robot spider with the single eye. Still gives me the willies.

Jaws.

I watched Halloween (the original) when I was about 12 or 14… in the middle of the night… Alone… in the big, dark living room. When I went to my bedroom afterwards I had to look back every 5 seconds to ensure Michael Myers was not stalking me.

Movies don't bother me…
This book however has kept me up nights…
"When Money Dies" by Andrew Fergusson

This may be the scariest book ever written.

Joe Collins

That was a good episode of JQ and still haunts me too.

Otherwise the Excorcist was the one movie I was unsettled by.

The Exorcist. The first time I saw it I was 23 or 24. Worst nightmares of my life! Usually movies don't bother me, but that time it messed up my mind pretty bad! Now when I watch it, doesn't do anything to me (although I chuckle at a few scenes).

When I was a kid, "Dr. Faustus" scared the jeepers out of me.

More recently, "Mulholland Drive" creeped me out and kept me awake.

Not too much bothers me now, but as a little kid, I saw "Wizard of Mars" on TV in the late '60s, and was really creeped out by it for some reason. I have to see if I can track down a copy, and see if it still bothers me as much.

It wasn't gory or anything like that – just a typical 60' sci-fi as I recall, but somehow it really creeped me out!

link

Ghostbusters!!! First saw it at about 5 and the ghost librarian is pretty terrifying at that age,

And King of New York. Walken is justa scary guy!

Children Of The Corn. I saw it when I was 11 and it scared me to death. I saw it again 25 years later, and cant imagine what scared me…

link

Some made for TV stuff was scarier than movies.
The Ring was scary to me until my wife said how much it creeped her out. I instantly wanted static noise and that creepy static channel to scare her in the middle of the night.

The 70s Prophecy (with the chemically mutated animals) still gives me the willies.

When I was a wee lad the original Blob scared me so badly I fled the theater. In my late teens Repulsion scared me. I haven't seen it again.

My parents said, from the time I was a little kid, that they wouldn't censor what movies I got to watch. So I saw The Shining when I was about 7 and The Changeling when I was 8, and they both scared the snot out of me. I still think both movies are really creepy now, but I don't know how much of that is childhood echoes and how much is the movie's genuine creep factor.

"Supersize Me"

Anything with signing!

Jaws and The Exorcist as previously mentioned….Rosemary's Baby as well.

Alien as an adult and Them a little kid.

"Event Horizon" unsettled me some, but I have to say the American version of "The Ring" is one of the few films that actually caused me some trouble sleeping. It probably didn't help I watched it on video at home, alone.

Psycho. I saw it when I was about 12 at the midnight movie. The place was so crowded I had to sit next to the curtain and was still able to see it. At the very end the curtain started to close and it hit my back and I screamed my head off.

Alien, Event Horizon and the Omen are others.

The Fall of the House of Usher as a kid. As a grownup, Jaws and Alien made me jump in the theater.

The Wizard of Oz…..flying monkeys.

The Terror.

Saw it on the late night Saturday TV movie channel when I was in junior high.

Was paying about half attention to the movie until the final scenes. Right at the end after the climactic action the main character bends to kiss the romantic interest after rescuing her from drowning. As he does so the flesh melts off of her skull and skeleton…

Cut to hawk (familiar) flying away, end of movie.

Don't think I had nightmares, but it took a while to get to sleep…

The 1982 version of 'The Thing' scared the crap out of me.

Mark

imdb.com/title/tt0084787

When I was a lot younger I thought "Quatermass and the pit" was very scary.