"What movies terrified you when you were wee?" Topic

6-7 years old, maximum!

My grandmother took my brother and I to see Darby O'Gill and the Little People. Disney did a fine job making the banshees scary!

Bambi. The crows flying over meadow cawing, Bambi's mother startled, looking into the far woods. "Run, Bambi, run!"
The forest fire later on was no picnic, either.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That octopus made me hide behind the seat in front of me.

The Screaming Skull on Creature features on a local TV station.

The Wizard of Oz.

Yes, FusilierDan, The Wizard of Oz. The flying Monkeys scared the crap out of me!

Yet another vote for the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz!

Jason and the Argonauts. I had nightmares about Talos for years.

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Another vote for Darby O'Gill. I think also the flying monkeys, but when I saw the title, Darby O'Gill was the first thing to come to mind.

Flying monkeys.

Legend of Boggy Creek.

The TV ads for The Creature From the Black Lagoon and the Killer Shrews convinced me that I did not want to see them! I was too young for movies like that anyway.

Here's the baan Sidhe and the Death Coach from Darby O'Gill.
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It also has Sean Connery singing!

+1 Jason and the Argonauts

The skeletons coming up out of the ground where the teeth had been through. We saw it at the Drive-In.

The Birds

The child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang . Even sixty years later, still makes me uncomfortable. Great performance from Robert Helpmann.

The Omen and The Exorcist. I had a much older sister who loved horror movies and didn't think it was a problem for me to be exposed to it resulting in me seeing many movies I was way too young for.

The old black and white "Them" was on TV. Especially the scene when the giant ant hill was found in the desert with human skulls around the base. I think I left the room and didn't watch the rest of the movie.

Plus 1 for The Wizard of Oz; Alls Quiet on the Western Front; Alexander Nevsky; Phantasm

No problem with Pinocchio?

Admittedly, I have indistinct early memories, but later viewings seemed to do some triggering, particularly the whale. Not that the body horror didn't, long before I learned that term.

I have a younger sister who still taunts me for standing in the doorway during Creature Features in case the scenes got too intense.

Doug (who recognizes TMI when he smells it)

Invaders from Mars. Holes opening up under people and sucking them down into alien tunnels. Didn't go near sand for years!

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. My dad showed it to me when I was 6. That was a mistake. Didn't eat for 2 days.

Any Hammer film

The Lost Continent (1968), especially the carnivorous, sentient seaweed.

I think I technically didn't see the Exorcist until I was 8, but I definitely saw The Omen and Jaws when I was 7. It being the 1970s (plus living on a highly secure military base in England), my brother and I were the epitome of free range children. The base movie theater was shockingly indifferent about MPAA ratings and tickets for kids were 50 cents, or 25 cents for the Saturday matinee.

Being that age in the early '50s it was the classic Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy and Werewolf of London. My wife remembers being particularly scared by the Mummy.

My Aunt took me to see Jaws at the theater when I was 7. My young mind feared pools and the bathtub thinking that somehow, a Megalodon was going to warp in and eat me. Also, Alien when I was 7, scared the crap out of me for obvious reasons.

The curse of the faceless man (1958).

I was a little to young to see and my aunt need to get me out the theater.

Threads. I watched again a few weeks ago to see if my initial impressions were justified and found it even more disturbing.

The Wizard of Oz. It had been re-issued as part of a children's matinee program in 69 or 70. My sisters took my younger brother and I to see it. That close up of the wicked witch on the big screen. Kids were screaming bloody murder throughout the theater.

A few years later, I must have been 8 or 9, I watched Black Sabbath on television. The story about the dead witch that comes back to reclaim the ring stolen from her by the nurse. Wow, I had nightmares about that witch for years.

Them!

The minute I started reminiscing about scary movies my mind's ears recalled that trilling squeal.

The Lost World

"…Eaten Alive!…"

Not a movie or TV, but radio! We had a weekend cabin, and when we stayed over in the '50s we'd listen to programs on the radio. Scaryist of all was Inner Sanctum, which opened with the sound of a rusty dungeon door slowly opening and a voice saying, "Welcome--to the inner sanctum." I can still imitate the sound of that dungeon door slowly opening.

Psycho (1960)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Darby O'Gill and the Little People
Pinocchio

Those are the ones I remember being frightened by.

The shining

"The Wizard of Oz". Ugly flying monkeys. Green witch. Tornado. Terrifying. To this day, I can't understand how or why this movie is so "beloved" by people.

I suppose the flying monkeys and the tornado and the wicked witch were scary, but they never traumatized me to the extent that I didn't watch The Wizard of Oz at every opportunity as a kid (which in them days, was just once a year). And I still rate this as perhaps my favorite movie of all time. Even tho' I have recurrent bad dreams about tornadoes.

I think things like Dracula (the original) scared me more deeply; the Invisible Man may have a part in that as well, and the Don't Be Afraid of the Dark TV movie from about 1973; and some Twilight Zone episodes. Plus certain comic books, like Ghost Stories #21. Other scary movie/TV things I remember I don't know to this day where they came from, but I retain fleeting glimpses in my mind's eye of a scene or so.

Let's remember that I set the maximum age at 6-7! 9 to stretch it, but that's it.

There probably were movies that scared me when I was that young, but presumably not too badly, because the only ones I can remember scaring me I saw when somewhat older.

I'm also a Wizard of Oz survivor. After the first time I watched it, I insisted that I have a glass of water by my bedside as I slept in case I needed to deal with a witch.

The child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang . Even sixty years later, still makes me uncomfortable. Great performance from Robert Helpmann.

This.

My family got the first pay movie channel in Los Angeles when I was about 7. So I saw all the classics growing up.

Exorcist
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Jaws
Halloween
Aliens
Dawn of the Dead
The Omen

I still find The Exorcist extremely unsettling/creepy, but I only saw it first in college, not a kid.