# Movies or TV that Terrified you as a kid **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 28, 2015, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964 "2015-10-28T14:15:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/61 "2015-10-29T03:20:17Z")
The Original Amityville Horror (I was 7 in 1979) ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/62 "2015-10-29T03:29:40Z")
The Wizard of Oz, but not the flying monkeys. It’s where the neighbor woman is riding away on the bike and turns into the witch. I didn’t see Psycho until I was a sophomore in high school, but the shower scene scared me. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/63 "2015-10-29T04:48:15Z")
The scene in The Brave Little Toaster when they’re on the conveyor belt about to get crushed in the car crusher scared me when I was 5 I kept having nightmares where I was gonna get crushed ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/64 "2015-10-29T11:25:20Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > **kayaker** , you might consider exorcising that memory with the MST3K version: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VhgKERWo-FA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VhgKERWo-FA) It’s hilarious. One of their best. Thanks, I’ll watch it! “Coincidentally” my parents got my sister a Danny O’Day ventriloquist dummy for xmas a year or two later. Creepy things, puppets are. ---
**Author:** ![MoonMoon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonmoon/32/2959_2.png) [@MoonMoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoonMoon)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/65 "2015-10-29T12:54:56Z")
I loved Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a kid, and watched it every year, but the Child Catcher gave me nightmares. I was also traumatized by an episode of Emergency! where someone ate raw bread dough and his stomach exploded when the dough rose. Or that’s how my inner six year old remembers it. I was terrified of bread for quite a while. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/66 "2015-10-29T13:47:09Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > On a side note, the Wikipedia synopsis of the episode reminded me how fuzzy my memory is getting. For years, I had incorrectly assumed there was a twist to the episode in that the creature, rather than being a flesh-and-blood space monster, turned out to be a robotic alien probe designed to spot, lure, capture, and analyze life-forms. Unfortunately, the probe got free from its alien controllers and had been blindly and randomly “analyzing” whatever biological life-forms unlucky enough to encounter it. Of course, they didn’t use that plot-line episode so I must’ve seen or read it somewhere else. You made it to the end of the episode?! In retrospect, had you now posted about your fuzzy memory I don’t think I would have realized that I never did. As a very wee lad I was freaked out by the “Kill, Crush DESTROY!” Lost in Space episode, but at least I stayed for the end of it. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/67 "2015-10-29T15:29:22Z")
As I said yesterday, trying to come up with a list of all the movies that scared me as a child would take a long, long time. So, sticking with TV shows that I didn’t expect to scare me, there’s: Buck Rogers and a space vampire. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7klfuM9cFDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7klfuM9cFDI) The Twilight Zone: “The Dummy” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxlY9FlqR9Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxlY9FlqR9Q) There was also that episode of _Quincy, M.E._ where a woman is disfigured after a botched plastic surgery operation, her face revealed at the very end. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/68 "2015-10-29T15:38:27Z")
> [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#): > > As I said yesterday, trying to come up with a list of all the movies that scared me as a child would take a long, long time. So, sticking with TV shows that I didn’t expect to scare me, there’s: > > Buck Rogers and a space vampire. > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7klfuM9cFDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7klfuM9cFDI) > > The Twilight Zone: “The Dummy” > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxlY9FlqR9Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxlY9FlqR9Q) I got through the space vampire bravely but I did think it was scary at the time. “The Dummy” was exactly the kind of thing that freaked me the hell out. > [@](#): > > There was also that episode of _Quincy, M.E._ where a woman is disfigured after a botched plastic surgery operation, her face revealed at the very end. I don’t remember that one but it would have been fall off the chair funny if the reveal was Jack Klugman in a dress. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/69 "2015-10-29T15:43:15Z")
When I was very young, The Wizard of Oz also - but I was scared by the first appearance of the Cowardly Lion, when he roared. I didn’t stick around long enough to see him scared. But the worst was the original _Invaders From Mars_. Especially because at the time our back yard was basically sand. Not enough room for a flying saucer to bury itself, but I was too young to know that. And then there were the parents turning into monsters angle. Brrrr. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/70 "2015-10-29T17:10:39Z")
Back in the early 90s, when pay-per-view used to show previews of available movies on a loop, my sister, cousin, and I had that preview channel on while hanging out. I watched a loop of one of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre trailers for probably an hour. I remember freaking out when my parents went to put me to bed that night, and my dad trying to calm me down in the lamest way possible - he told me that Leatherface was really nice. “He’s just called that because he gives kids footballs made of leather.” Awesome, dad. I was also scared of Crow T Robot as a child (about the same age, 7 or 8). I loved MST3K, but I hid my face during the host segments. I think it had to do with his square pupils and overly angular design. There’s something not quite right about him. Even when he was a tiny silhouette in the corner of the screen, I was wary of him. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/71 "2015-10-29T17:56:41Z")
I remember being alone in my dad’s girlfriend’s apartment one Saturday night when I was six (they were out on a date).\* Anyway, when the crappy 1950s pirate movie I was watching on TV finished, they started showing a Laurel and Hardy flick, as WCCO-Minneapolis used to do late on Saturday nights. The film on this occasion was _ **Chumps at Oxford** _, and the scenes where Stan and Ollie are being stalked in the maze scared the bejeezus out of me! When my dad and his girlfriend finally got back around three in the morning, I was huddled on the couch with every light in the apartment turned on. I also went to see the original _ **Time Machine** _ with my older brother when it first came out; I must have just turned six. The scene with the atomic satellite freaked me out! I remember walking out of the theater into the cold winter night scared shitless that world was going to end in 1966! \*This wasn’t as bad as it sounds; by that age, I was used to being alone a lot. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/72 "2015-10-29T18:06:37Z")
For me, it was _Jaws_. The beach was a much scarier place for a few years after that. ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/73 "2015-10-29T18:30:10Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Supposedly, what fucks little kids up is TRANSFORMATIONS. Of nice people into bad people. Like Bill Bixby turning into the Hulk, or like Daddy having several drinks and then hitting Mommy. Not sure if this was your intent, but for some strange reason this made me laugh out loud! Thanks for the laugh! > [@silenus](#): > > _The Wizard of Oz._ > > Flying monkeys still give me the willies. This is on my standard list of 3… Those freakin’ monkeys. How many kids lost sleep over those freakin’ flying monkeys?! > [@MoonMoon](#): > > I loved Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a kid, and watched it every year, but the Child Catcher gave me nightmares. This is answer number 2 on my list. I believe this was the first movie I ever saw at a drive in (it’s the first one I remember, and I am sure it’s because of the child catcher). it was raining, the windows were fogged up, the speaker was worse than any fast food drive thru speaker, and my dad was bitching and complaining throughout the movie… But the image of the child catcher, with his long snout and big net stayed with me for a long time. I STILL don’t like that guy. Number 3 is Jaws, but not because of the obvious reason… This was another parental FAIL (I remember my father wanting to see this movie, and for some reason, my brother and I went with my parents. … Probably couldn’t find a sitter). Anyway, the scene where the fisherman’s head comes out of the bottom of the boat gave me nightmares for weeks. Thanks for that, mom and dad! ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/74 "2015-10-29T19:19:12Z")
**The Picture of Dorian Gray** really did a number on me. The build was perfect, and I was freaking by the time I saw the painting. Wilde had a great idea. At least for my childish imagination. He nailed it. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/75 "2015-10-30T00:09:50Z")
There was an episode of _Buck Rogers_ that involved a space vampire that only Wilma could see. That was the closest that show came to horror (or suspense, for that matter). Yes, the banshee in _Darby O’Gill and the Little People_ terrified me as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![breezman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@breezman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/breezman)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/76 "2015-10-30T02:13:38Z")
When I was maybe 10 I saw part of the old movie “The Mummy,” specifically a scene where they cut out a guy’s tongue and mummify him while still alive. Freaked me out then and still gives me the willies 30 years later. I was also creeped out by this sesame street scene, with ernie and bert in a pyramid. [Sesame Street: Bert and Ernie in a Pyramid - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yiqGtZXCmQ). I have a fear of Egyptian things. I’m not sure if these two things were cause or effect. ---
**Author:** ![Mars\_Horizon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mars_horizon/32/2804_2.png) [@Mars\_Horizon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mars_Horizon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/77 "2015-10-30T02:23:12Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > There was an episode of _Buck Rogers_ that involved a space vampire that only Wilma could see. That was the closest that show came to horror (or suspense, for that matter). Or the show way back in post #67. That was scary! 😛 Now what _really_ scared the pants off me was a B&W flick from 1958. [It! The Terror From Beyond Space](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0051786/) That movie had me in nightmares for weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/78 "2015-10-30T03:57:22Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > I was six or seven and came in late one afternoon to Vincent Price’s “The Tingler.” The scene where they’re trying to scare the mute woman to death. It Was On In The Afternoon! :eek: **The Tingler** scared the crap out of me! And after I saw **The Birds** , I was afraid to go outside for weeks. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/79 "2015-10-30T06:31:03Z")
The flying monkeys of Oz creeped me out quite a bit, but the scariest and most disturbing thing I ever saw on television was the [insane clown rapist episode](http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2011/08/25/raped-by-a-mime-the-creepiest-episode-of-little-house-on-the-prairie) of _Little House on the Prairie_ that aired when I was 11. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2015, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964/80 "2015-10-31T22:21:53Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I was scared of the Elephant Man’s face. > > What scared you as a kid? The Elephant Man’s face. My dad took 9 year old me to see it and I didn’t sleep for three days afterward. That movie scared me so badly I couldn’t watch it even as an adult until fairly recently. I think it was that Merrick was a real person, and I found his suffering and mistreatment so horrifying. Although I was glad to learn later on that many of the events depicted in the film didn’t really happen. There’s a small museum with some of Merrick’s belongings in London, and I’d really like to go one day. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-or-tv-that-terrified-you-as-a-kid/735964.md?page=5)