2nd grade, sleeping over at Danny Martinelli’s house, downstairs in the dark family room, the rest of the house asleep, Danny and I watch the original, black and white version of Night of the Living Dead. Jesus that was 30 years ago, and I’m still freaked by the memory.
eenerms, the full title of the TV movie was The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, from the Thomas Tryon novel titled simply Harvest Home.
“The secret no woman can tell, nor man can behold…” G
It’s kinda like an American version of The Wicker Man.
Kobaltblu- Cool Air btw was an HP Lovecraft story & was redone in the crapfest film Necronomicon, and not as well as the NG episode.
SteveSteve- the NG episode about the uncle rising from the grave was actually in the pilot TV movie & the nasty nephew was Roddy McDowell.
(so help me, I almost typed Roddy Piper- now THAT would have been scary!)
Good call. That’s a really appealing theme for me personally – the “we still follow the old ways, here” plot. Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery may be another example.
Also a second for Special Bulletin. Very underrated – should be on the list of best made-for-TV movies ever.
Similar vein - the creepiest moment in The Day After for me wasn’t the bombs hitting, but the missiles launching. The football stadium with the missiles in the background…definitely a “boy, are we screwed now” moment.
Yes, I remember this one.
You didn’t mention the rest of it.
She lets out a noise, her parents yell “What is it?”
pause
“um…nothing…”
she was great
I remember this too!
It was good and scary!
Well, I won’t suggest films PLAYED on TV, like Night of the Living Dead or The Amityville Horror or The Exorcist…
Parts from two different Stephen King TV Movies:
The part of Salem’s Lot when the blond guy from Starsky & Hutch is sitting in the rocking chair as the child approaches…
The beginning of It when Timmy (was that the kid’s name?) loses his baseball in the sewer and is about to give up when - surprise! - a friendly clown (looking too much like a serial killer) from beneath the gutter grate starts beckoning him closer…
Other films/moments:
Duel; Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark; Dark Night of the Scarecrow; a few of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents stories; Dark Shadows…
Oh, I KNOW:
Kolchak: The Night Stalker - especially the one about the sewer monster with the long stringy hair…
Kobaltblu, I totally remember “Special Bulletin!” That was great!!
Another made-for-TV-movie that freaked me out was aired once in the mid-90’s. I forgot the name of the program, but it was it was on the anniversary of **Orson Wells “War of the Worlds” **radio prank. In the TV show, it was supposed to be like a real-life news interruption about a report that a meteor hit the Earth. They kept doing “real life” news updates and they treated it like a real event. A second meteor hit the Earth and scientists were beginning to think that this was very fishy. Anyway, it was all made to be very real and it was very well done. The ending had a very cool and scary twist to it. Even though I knew it was a staged event, it really freaked me out (I was just a kid).
Anyone know what I’m talking about?
This is my scariest moment too. I was thinking about writing it up when I opened the thread. Just reading your description gave me chills all over again … .
The entire BtVS episode of Hush was eerie, but I actually jumped when Giles’ girlfriend peered out the downstairs window in the middle of the night and saw one of the gentlemen float by just a few feet away, grinning at her. Excellent scare moment.
One of the creepiest moments on BtVS is the episode at the end of season 6 when Willow flays Warren in the woods. “Bored now.” (SHRIP)
The commercials for Nickelodeon’s The Third Eye scared the hell out of me when I was little. I wouldn’t even think of watching the show.
Since “Home” (X-Files) and “Salem’s Lot” (especially the levitating little boy… brrrrrr) have already been mentioned, I’ll add two “non-fiction” (well, more or less- both were liberally rewritten for television) movies that made sleep with the lights on for many many nights. The first was
HELTER SKELTER- what you DIDN’T see of the murder scenes was terrifying, plus the script thoroughly beefed up the occult and “supernatural” elements (incidentally, Bugliosi’s watch did NOT stop when Manson looked at him; it stopped sometime that day- big difference).
and the second was
GUYANA TRAGEDY: THE STORY OF JIM JONES- the scenes in the jungle and at the airport as well as a FANTASTIC performance by Powers Boothe just made it terrifying to me.
“Hush” was definitely creepy, but the B:tvS episode that kept me spooked was “Restless,” the dream episode. Something about the cheese man was so sinister and disturbing, although I guess he was supposed to be comic relief.
Also, there was an X-Files episode where Scully encountered a seraphim or something that was only very vaguely shown (if I recall correctly), but I was so scared that if I looked to my right I would see it that I didn’t move for several minutes.
The Twilight Zone episode with the hitch-hiker in it gives me the willies as well, although it does go on forever.
Damn. I found this on IMdB, and it sez it ran in 1984.
I was hoping it would have been the series I remember from 1969-70 or so, when I was little, that opened with terrifying music and the camera balanced in the first car of an absolutely MONSTROUS roller coaster. What th’ hell was that program called…?
Hmmmmmm…better stay away from the works of M.R. James, then…particularly “The Mezzotint” and “The Haunted Doll’s House.”
I have to agree with the Twin Peaks scene where Bob climbs over the sofa while looking at the camera. Scared the living hell outta me!
I also remember a TV movie from the 70’s about some sort of witch or demonic woman who in the end winds up having all the neighborhood cats drink her blood. Can’t remember any more details, but that one scene is burned into my brain!
I also will say that Special Bulletin was a damn good show.
I found Home to be very very disturbing, but not scary, if you follow me.
A few scenes from my childhood that can still creep me out:
Some kind of possessed toy horse menacing a couple. I think at one point the horse showed up in the bathroom while the woman was taking a bath.
A ghostly apparition reaching out and saying “Give me the baby” over and over again to a frightened woman holding an infant.
Somebody going into a barn and suddenly lots of hands thrust up from the ground.
A girl who has a dollhouse and makes people out of clay. At the end the dollhouse and the clay figures burn, and so does the girl’s house and the people in it.
These may have been from “Night Gallery” type shows. I remember Sebastian Cabot hosting during one of the above stories.
I also remember a movie about a woman who was buried alive. Some kids found her, but I don’t think anybody would believe them. But she was finally rescued right before her air ran out. I just remember her hand pushing up through the mud, and it completely freaked me out.
I’d love to know what the titles of those scenes are. I’d really like to see them again, if possible.
I gotta agree, that was so fucking creepy. In fact it was supposedly so disturbing that they can’t or won’t show it on network television in the US anymore.
That sounds like “Under the Mountain” -
the imdb page
A Kiwi story about twins fighting an alien invasion. Creeped me out no end, especially the bits when the slug-like tentacled aliens go shooting along their tunnels. Very Lovecraftian, in fact.
Hell, if you thought “Home” was creepy, you shoulda seen the original “burial” sequence that was supposed to roll before the opening titles. It’s on the DVD. Wicked.
Anyway, just mentioning the name of “Tales From The Darkside” brought back the memory of the scariest episode, in my opinion. It was called “Inside The Closet”, and it was about a young female student who rented a room. In the room was a tiny door, about two feet high, a closet that was always locked. Oh, but sometimes it opened on its own…
Oh I’d forgotten that bit of it! That episode was amazingly fucked up, when you think about it. Burying dead babies, bonking your mother, killing a nice sheriff… very nasty.
I’d forgotten another X-files one, with the cancer-eating guy again. Mulder and Scully rout through a bin of hospital waste (bleugh) and find the guy’s head, which had been stolen. Scully attempts to perform an autopsy on the head, and – inevitably – it blinks. Eeep!!!
MrDibble, I actually meant to put that it wasn’t Under the Mountain, that was one hell of a show though. However, having searched around some more, I am beginning to think that it is.
Sweet 
thanks!