# Scariest/eeriest moments on TV **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 7, 2003, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559 "2003-08-07T10:43:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AllShookDown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d9b06d/32.png) [@AllShookDown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllShookDown)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2003, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/41 "2003-08-10T16:12:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Otto \* > \*\* > **AllShookDown** , I found the scene in the jail (are you talking about the death scene or another scene?) to be poignant, not scary or creepy. \*\* The end of the scene is poignant but I found the parts leading up to it pretty creepy. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2003, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/42 "2003-08-10T16:52:52Z")
When all the kids who belonged to **The Wave** found out who their leader really was. ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2003, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/43 "2003-08-10T19:30:55Z")
**jjimm** , I have a vague reccollection of another incredibly scary show from around the same time… a boy and a girl, and they slide down tunnels into a mountain… the tunnels are like irridescent intestines… they often hold glowing stones in their hands, palm sized ones… was that Children of the Stones as well, or was it something else? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2003, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/44 "2003-08-10T19:50:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SteveSteve \* > \*\*The Night Gallery episode where a guy inherits his uncle’s mansion…with the family graveyard next to it. When his uncle died, they buried him in the family graveyard…right next to the house. (can we see where this is going?) > > \ > > \*\* **SteveSteve** , this in itself is eerie to me. I saw this thread when it first went up, but not your post until just now. There’s another thread dealing with [Childhood games of imagination](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=202992) which I would urge you to look at for my post there. My post went up at 08-07-2003 12:05 PM. This one of yours went up at 08-07-2003 11:43 PM. If I interpret this right, my post went up almost 12 hours before yours (or is it the other way around?). Had you seen my post before you posted? I didn’t see this one of yours until just now. Odd that this old Night Gallery episode was affecting us the same day in two separate threads. Synchronicity or coincidence? Or just plain weird? ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2003, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/45 "2003-08-10T20:03:04Z")
I’ll forth Salem’s Lot - I came in to say much more, but its all been done so I’ll leave it at that. SK’s IT was scary as crap too, but I was an adult when I saw it-- I imagine if I was middle school that would have been an “all timer” too. Speaking of which, and wanting to add some value: there was an episode of the old B&W Outer Limits with a guy who was mutated by radiation – he had huge eyes and a “touch of death” and he chases the good guys around for 22 minutes – I stumbled upon that as a circa 11 year old and never slept again from that day to this. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dragonblink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Dragonblink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonblink)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2003, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/46 "2003-08-10T20:04:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rico \* > \*\*And now, I’ll show my age. > > There was a movie in the 70’s, a very low budget film, called [Duel](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel_(film)), directed by Steven Spielberg. > > It only cost $375,000 to make. > > I first saw it in 1972 when I was 14 years old, and I see it advertised in reruns, and to this day, I cannot watch that movie - scared the hell out of me back then, and I’m afraid it would do the same today. \*\* I am so with you on this. I saw this in my high school cinematography class and it creeped me right the hell out, more than _Psycho_ did. ---
**Author:** ![Sylkyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/da6949/32.png) [@Sylkyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylkyn)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2003, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/47 "2003-08-10T20:08:17Z")
Oh God…for me, it was the Night Gallery episode “The Doll”. The damn doll has _ **teeth** _!! Evil with curly hair and a shark smile! I had nightmares about that damn episode until I was into my thirties. The “Trilogy of Terror” episode with Karen Black made my ass suck up the entire cushion of my chair, as well. Christ, who wants dolls with _ **TEETH** _?! I just canNOT handle that. [sub]I have always secretly wanted an evil toothed doll, but was too afraid of them to have it in my house…I know they’ll come after me at night. I just know it![/sub] ---
**Author:** ![AllShookDown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d9b06d/32.png) [@AllShookDown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllShookDown)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2003, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/48 "2003-08-10T21:42:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sylkyn \* > \*\*Oh God…for me, it was the Night Gallery episode “The Doll”. The damn doll has _ **teeth** _!! Evil with curly hair and a shark smile! I had nightmares about that damn episode until I was into my thirties. \*\* I was thinking about that one, too. The first time I saw it I still had dolls. After the show that night I was going up to bed and my brother had taken one of my dolls and set it on the blanket chest at the top of the stairs. I don’t think I slept that night. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/49 "2003-08-11T00:09:39Z")
[Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark](http://us.imdb.com/Details?0069992), is a made-for-TV movie that had these weird tiny pumpkin-headed demons out to destroy the new owners of this house. God, those little boogers freaked me out. There’s a couple of scenes in particular… one where they try to electrocute someone in the bath and another where they pop out of a carved turkey for dinner. ::: shudder ::: And **Night Gallery** ’s [The Caterpillar](http://www.nightgallery.net/index.html?pagemenu.html&1) (this will take you to the home page, from there, select “episode guide” and continue until you hit “Night Gallery #28 (3-1-72)” – I couldn’t get it to link any other way :()which introduced me to the horrors of earwigs! I don’t know how long I slept every night making _absolutely certain_ that nothing could crawl in my ear and hatch babies to eat my brain. Ew!!! ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/50 "2003-08-11T00:41:55Z")
When I was young, the opening credits of **Tales from the Dark Side** would always scare the crap out of me. ---
**Author:** ![Arden\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@Arden\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arden_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/51 "2003-08-11T01:30:46Z")
Ack. This thread is going to keep me up tonight! I too was totally creeped out by that episode of Night Gallery mentioned by SteveSteve, and the evil shaman doll in Trilogy of Terror. _shudder_. There was another NG episode where this guy picked up chicks at the bar and gave them this pin with a jeweled needle nose bug of some kind attached by a chain to a little bar. Truns out if they went home with him and did what he wanted, they were fine. But if noit, he slipped the chain off the bar and the pin crawled up to the women’s neck, getting bigger and bigger and killed them! I onbly saw it once, but I remember these two old drunk guys on bikes seeing the now huge bug finishing off the woman (which we didn’t see, thank gods) and one saying “Lord love us” and the other just saying “Of course he does” and them getting the hell out of there. I have no idea why that bit stuck with me. Any X-Files, TZ, or NG with evil dolls. I just can’t watch it. I can still hear the voice of one of those evil things “My name is Talking Tina and I love you.” which later becomes “My name is Talking Tina and I’m going to kill you.” AGH! I also have creepiness factors with evil children. _shudder_ ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/52 "2003-08-11T04:46:44Z")
I think the name of the Made for TV movie was \* Harvest Home\* with Bette Davis. A new family moves into a small town, there are some scarely things going on, something about a corn god, tongues cut out and other unsavory things…:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Grousser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Grousser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grousser)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/53 "2003-08-11T23:56:09Z")
Did you ever watch **Sapphire and Steel**? In its genesis, it was supposed to be a kids show, but it turned to be one of the scariest series I’ve ever seen. Asignments 2, 4 and 6 were specially creepy. ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/54 "2003-08-12T02:54:52Z")
I still remember clearly the previews for ‘American Gothic’ before the series started. Sure, the series had some pretty creeptastic moments, but before I even knew anything about it, I was haunted by that little girl’s voice whispering, “someone’s at the door.” ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/55 "2003-08-12T02:56:21Z")
Also the moment in Twilight Zone: The Movie, when the little girl turns around and reveals that she has no mouth, just a smooth place. Man, when I was 10 years old I had nightmares about that girl. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/56 "2003-08-12T03:53:19Z")
Oh man, **FisherQueen**. Thaaanks a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Kobaltblu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/77aa72/32.png) [@Kobaltblu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobaltblu)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/57 "2003-08-12T05:12:31Z")
**Special Bulletin** A made for TV movie, filmed as if it were a news broadcast shown in real time, where a small terrorist group is discovered holding a nuclear device aboard a boat moored on the Atlantic coast. After a military team successfully captures the boat, a team attempts to stop the device. An expert on the news show as a consultant realizes that they’ve just triggered the mechanism, and the team either scatters, or continues to try to deactivate it…then…white screen…static… This was during the Reagan presidency, when my friends and I were having “nukemares” from Prez Reagan’s hawkish military stance, and the idea of a nuclear weapon exploding on domestic soil became all too real. **Cool Air** from _Night Gallery_ This story is about a woman who begins a romance with a mysterious man in a neighboring apartment. He appears dashing, worldly, and, despite his keeping his apartment near-freezing, she finds herself becoming attracted. One day, when the city is undergoing a heat wave, the refrigeration in his apartment breaks down, and he begs her to have ice delivered. He won’t let her see him until, she hears him collapse from behind the door, and, breaking it down, sees his now-decayed corpse! The final scene shows his headstone where two dates of death are shown. ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/58 "2003-08-12T10:36:33Z")
Shit **Grousser** , I loved Sapphire and Steele, and nwo I just remembered getting the bejeezus scared out of me in some episode… was there something about a face in a window (or at the top of a stair) with no nose? If so then that is why I was terrified of seeing the hall window at night on the way to the loo. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/59 "2003-08-12T15:50:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arden Ranger \* > \*\* > Any X-Files, TZ, or NG with evil dolls. I just can’t watch it. I can still hear the voice of one of those evil things “My name is Talking Tina and I love you.” which later becomes “My name is Talking Tina and I’m going to kill you.” > \*\* [gratuitous Simpsons reference] “Here’s your problem…somebody set the switch to ‘Evil’” [/gratuitous Simpsons reference] **Eve** , thanks for remembering the SNL sketch. That was one of the funniest/creepiest things I’ve ever seen. The Trilogy of Terror Zuni doll is, of course, the all-time winner, but the X-Files Peacock brothers is a close runner-up. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559/60 "2003-08-12T16:27:30Z")
“The singing Ringing Tree” - an East German gothic nightmare the BBC bought cheap and put an english voice-over on. They put it on as a kids program, the bastards. Can’t remember much detail (frozen waterfall, evil dwarf…) but the sinister atmosphere still haunts me.The Fast Show parodied it as “Der Singinger Ringinger Tree” and BBC Radio 4 had a program on its effects on a whole generation. - Mind you the Iron Chicken from the Clangers used to frighten me as a kiddie [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-eeriest-moments-on-tv/193559.md?page=4)