# Scenes that traumatized you as a child **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 24, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843 "2004-10-24T01:58:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/161 "2004-10-28T18:37:10Z")
> [@BurnMeUp](#): > > It’s The Evil that Men Do > > It was a charles Bronson flick where he was some sort of an agent trying to kill the “torture doctor”. > > Find out more [here](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087222/) Oh, thanks, now the repressed memories are flooding back. ARGH! ---
**Author:** ![susan\_foster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@susan\_foster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan_foster)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/162 "2004-10-28T19:13:25Z")
There’s an episode of M.A.S.H. where the doctor’s are having nightmares. Hawkeye’s involves some kind of teacher asking him how to re-attach arms - and the teacher detaches Hawkeye’s arm as part of it. Both arms, I believe - and then there’s a shot of Hawkeye in a boat, surrounded by floating body parts. Also - the amputation in Gone with the Wind. Granted, it’s not very graphic - but the screaming! Susan ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/163 "2004-10-28T19:19:10Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > [tangent]One scene from a book that is probably almost impossible to translate to film is the scene in **The Shining** where the old lady gets out of the bath and tries to catch Danny. I read that book when I was 12 and, of course, not too long after I read that scene I had to go to the bathroom. We had an opaque shower curtain in the bath. I gave serious thought to sneaking outside and peeing in the back yard. I had to work my nerve up to even go in there. When I finally did go in, I hesitated for a long time, listened hard to make sure there was nothing there, finally whipped back the curtain…then gasped in relief and almost collapsed when she didn’t lunge out and get me. Then I had to stand in front of the toilet for almost five minutes while I calmed down enough to let go. While Kubrick’s scene was really well done, it was nothing compared to what I’d done to myself in my own head while reading that book.[/tangent] The silver eyes. The _silver freakin’ eyes_. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/164 "2004-10-28T19:26:12Z")
I thought of something else. Twilgiht Zone was generally freaky, and I never watched it, but once a young friend and I were watching something else, and the show ended. On came the intro for TZ, and they showed this image of the planet Earth… with a fetus inside of it. For whatever reason, this freaked us out. My friend and I screamed all the way to her mother’s bedroom. Then her mother made us go back and turn the TV off. So we crept back, hand in hand, turned it off without looking and ran all the way back and crawled under the covers. ---
**Author:** ![Gulo\_gulo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Gulo\_gulo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gulo_gulo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/165 "2004-10-28T19:27:17Z")
Oh man, the Afican fetish doll of death from the _Trilogy of Terror_ turned me against all dolls. If I was ever given one (from age 4 on), I would destroy it immediately. Dolls still freak me out! I know that if my husband were asked this question, his answer would be the Child-catcher from _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_. He also won’t play scary video games like Resident Evil. ---
**Author:** ![MsPrufrock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@MsPrufrock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsPrufrock)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/166 "2004-10-28T21:30:54Z")
Gah! This thread is giving me chills! A lot of what has been mentioned scared me but not in a way that ever made me stop watching the movies. Count me as one who was freaked out by **Large Marge** - granted the whole movie was slightly disturbing. I love **Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory** but I will, to this day, leave the room when the tunnel scene comes and there are centipedes or whatever on the walls. _shudders_ That just creeps me out! **Amityville Horror** disturbed me when the parents get back from some party and free the babysitter from the closet. The dad goes over to shut the window and the little girl stops him saying her friend was out there and when he looks again there are a pair of red glowing eyes. Ick! I wasn’t too disturbed by the movie in its entirety. As a child I read every book in our local library on ghosts, monsters, possessions, exorcisms and the like so I was fairly well versed in the scary. Also - anything with proportions that are just “off” like the Wheelers from **Return to Oz** or (and this is just sill now) the fighter things from Star Wars II that have really long legs. I don’t remember really what they are but even seeing the revamped Star Wars that came out when I was in HS - when they showed up I could not have been pressed any further back into my seat. I think the movie that left the deepest impression was a tv movie about a serial killer who drains his victims of blood and dresses them up as ballerinas. I must have been 12 or so at the time. I was fascinated with the movie and didn’t have any problem with it until I went to my orthodontist a few days later to find that my orthodontist has shaved his mustache off and looked frighteningly like the killer. I was afraid to talk to him for the rest of the visit. It took me a few months to get over it and convince myself he was not in fact a serial killer. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/167 "2004-10-28T22:06:00Z")
I loved being scared, and would gladly spend hours of my life figuring out what I would do when the Sun expanded, so there wasn’t much that “traumatized” me. Except seeing Robert Shaw get eaten by the shark in Jaws. It wasn’t so much that “sharks eat people!” it’s was more like “if something bites you in the stomach, _blood will run out of your mouth!_” :eek: ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/168 "2004-10-29T01:29:50Z")
Another vote for _Doctor Who_. It’s said that the classic way for a child to watch Doctor Who was from behind the sofa. So true … My personal Whovian bugbear was the episode in _Spearhead from Space_ when shop dummies suddenly started coming to life, smashing their way out of shop windows and killing people. Damn that’s a spooky thought when you’re a kid! The sudden transformation of an innocent, everyday object into something awful is a truly horrifying thing. Ahh, the happy memories. Which leads me to wonder – To all the people who’ve been commenting on their private horrors in this thread: how many of you _treasure_ the memory of that fear? ---
**Author:** ![bluecanary](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bluecanary/32/3614_2.png) [@bluecanary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluecanary)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2004, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/169 "2004-10-29T02:43:12Z")
I was never much into movies when I was a kid (still not particularly a buff even now), so my two examples aren’t from that particular medium: 1. The _Casualty_ episode ‘No Cause For Concern’ (I can’t really remember why particularly now. It was something about a road accident and then the place being closed because of radioactivity levels, but something about it was really creepy. I haven’t seen it since it was aired over 10 years, but I still remember the title.) 2. The rock video ‘_Black Hole Sun_’ by Soundgarden. I don’t think I really have to explain why this one might have been pretty scary. ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2004, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/170 "2004-10-29T02:49:30Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > One word: [Sleestaks](http://www.geocities.com/tharyett/sleestak.html). > > Gotta hand it to Sid and Marty. Whatever drugs they were on, they sure know how to make the ridiculous terrifying. I mean, look at them: Glassy-bug-eyed hissing freaks in green tights who move about 0.07 mph at what is apparently the closest thing to a Sleestak sprint. An irritated clam ought to be only slightly less menacing. > > But these guys made me hide my head under a blanket. Man, if Holly rounded a corner and ran into a pack of Sleestaks, I just about wet myself. Sleestaks scared the living daylights out of me; and they gave me nightmares too, damn them. Hissssssssss. Aaaaaaah! My parents forbade me to watch _Land of the Lost_ because those Sleestaks gave me nightmares. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2004, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/171 "2004-10-29T03:43:29Z")
> [@dogbutler](#): > > My parents forbade me to watch _Land of the Lost_ because those Sleestaks gave me nightmares. They gave me screaming, run-from-the-bedroom-for-my-mommy nightmares. My father actually watched about five minutes of the show to see what I was on about, and was disgusted. How, _how_ could his eldest boy be driven into fits of hypnopompic terror by something so…so _absurd_?? Dear old Dad: Always the nurturing type. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Matroshka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Matroshka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Matroshka)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2004, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/172 "2004-10-29T07:18:37Z")
> [@tremorviolet](#): > > Hmmm, I did see the movie on TV in the seventies and remember it was kinda trippy but reading the synopsis, I don’t think that’s it. In the movie I remember, the characters are all at an isolated mansion and weird things happen. The film had that kinda washed out seventies sepia-ish tone. In the scene that freaked me out, the guy is talking to a girl who’s complaining about something in her room (like maybe something’s missing?) and the guy says that he did it and he’s been “bad”. And then when he says “perhaps, I should take out my eyes” she laughs and says “perhaps, you should” as if it’s all a big joke. When he does, she starts screaming. I’d love it if this strikes a bell with any Doper, I can vividly picture the scene to this day but I wonder if maybe the memory has been embellished with time… Well, the Ray Milland film really freaked me out. Not only the “tearing his eyes out”, but just before that, he’s been wearing dark glasses for a while and you don’t see his eyes. Then he takes the glasses off and his entire eyes are dark - like the whole eyeball has turned to pupil! ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2004, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/173 "2004-10-29T08:18:20Z")
> [@chorpler](#): > > You know, you’re exactly right. I was telling my kids how the sun would expand and turn into a red giant, and they both started crying and told me to tell them “happy things” and not “scary things.” That it won’t happen for billions of years doesn’t seem to comfort them – maybe it’s that “billions” is too big to comprehend, or that they don’t understand their own mortality so “billions of years from now” just means “when I’m a grown-up” to them. Good point. And another concept that eluded me was that the degeneration would take place over a long span of time. The program was talking about people “fleeing to the poles”, with a stop-motion animation of people abandoning the cities in North America and Europe, while new buildings sprouted at opposite sides of the globe. So I couldn’t help but think that people would be running for their lives with minutes to spare, like the citizens of Pompeii from the lava, rather than making a gradual migration. But you think people will actually be able to move the earth? Cool! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Salem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Salem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salem)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/174 "2004-10-29T15:32:52Z")
In the WIzard of Oz, any scene with the Witch made me hide behind my mom, but one of the worst was in Muchkin Land, when Glinda showed Dorothy that the house had fallen on the Wicked Witch of the West, and the legs were the only thing sticking out and then the stockinged legs just rolled up and left the ruby red slippers. Yikes. Anyone remember **The Omen**? The Exorcist, Amityville Horror, Poltergeist were all terrorizing but the one that stands out most in my mind is… **The Birds.** The scene where the guy is sitting in his pajamas with his eyes pecked out. I think I was around 10 or something and that stayed with me for a looooong time. Definite nightmare material. I can still picture it clearly. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/175 "2004-10-30T00:27:43Z")
I once walked out of the movie “Repulsion” when I saw it in my 20s. Catherine Deneuve plays a manicurist who’s graduallly becoming schizophrenic. The scene that creeped me out is when she puts her hand on a wall and it gives like it was made of putty. I must have been under some kind of stress at the time, because I saw it on TNT a few years ago and didn’t have a problem with it. > [@jsc1953](#): > > > [@Wile E](#): > > > > …it (Darby O’Gill) is a rather scary movie. It may have scared me more if I had been younger when I first saw it, I think I was in my early teens when I saw it on TV. > > I can vouch – I was 5 when I saw it, on The Wonderful World of Disney. I wouldn’t stay in the same living space as the banshee – I actually went outside and sat on the porch. > > The Morlocks in \*\*The Time Machine \*\* (1960 version); particularly the scene where you see one’s body decomposing as the traveler goes forward in time. Freaked me out quite badly. I must have seen Darby O’Gill on Disney when you did, **jsc1953**. The banshee was very frightening. I saw the movie on the Disney Channel a few years ago, and the most frightening part must have been when Darby opens the front door and the banshee is right there. My memory of my impression as a child was that the fluttering of her shawl looked like some kind of squid with a beak. I was also frightened by that Morlock scene, but I don’t remember actually being freaked out by it. ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/176 "2004-10-30T13:45:56Z")
> [@audreyayn](#): > > I’ve thought of another, really embarrassing one: **Gremlins**. My brother used to make fun of me for this, but without even watching the movie, seeing those things freaked me out. Strange, 'cause usually I like weird creatures. Slight hijack: When this movie was first released, my parents, who had no desire to see it, were in our van running errands and discussing the previews they’d seen on TV. They went on at length about the disgusting little pointy-eared, grinning-faced, evil-looking gremlins–how ooky it looked, and all. Well, unbeknownst to them, one of our kittens had climbed into the van when they were preparing to leave and had now crawled to the space between the front seats, next to Mom’s purse. She reached down to get something from her purse and laid her hand on a little furry, pointy-eared head. Startled, she looked down into the kitten’s grinning little face. Dad said later, when recounting the tale to all us kids, “I’ve _never_, in all the years we’ve been together, _ever_ heard your mother scream like that!” That story _still_ makes us all laugh whenever someone retells it! ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/177 "2004-10-30T14:14:21Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > Good point. And another concept that eluded me was that the degeneration would take place over a long span of time. The program was talking about people “fleeing to the poles”, with a stop-motion animation of people abandoning the cities in North America and Europe, while new buildings sprouted at opposite sides of the globe. So I couldn’t help but think that people would be running for their lives with minutes to spare, like the citizens of Pompeii from the lava, rather than making a gradual migration. LOL. No wonder you were traumatized! > [@](#): > > But you think people will actually be able to move the earth? Cool! 🆒 After a few billion years of technological advance, I would hope so. Otherwise we don’t deserve to survive the sun’s expansion. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/178 "2004-10-30T14:53:40Z")
I was really young, probably only four or five, when I saw “The Goonies”. That “Sloth” character freaked me out. Horribly disfigured people scared me as a child (then again, I was a total wuss as a child anyway). But the top three disfigured people that scared me were Sloth, Freddy Kruger, and the Toxic Avenger. Good thing I never watched “The Elephant Man” as a child. Or any movie with Quasimodo. ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/179 "2004-11-05T22:08:54Z")
Just about all the scenes that traumatized me as a child have been buried in repressed memories. Most of the stuff mentioned here is stuff I’ve seen, but I don’t remember being particularly traumatized by any of it. I always enjoyed scary movies going all the way back to my first thrill of terror at age 2 when, in the first movie I ever saw, the Blue Meanies attacked Pepperland. One thing reading this thread has brought back to me, though. There was a B & W horror movie whose name escapes me. It was about a vicious and clever killer who lay ingenious traps for his victims. The one that I remember was the binoculars. They seemed to be ordinary binoculars, but when the victim put them up to their face and turned the focus wheel, two steel spikes suddenly sprang out and poked out their eyes!!! :eek: :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843/180 "2004-11-05T22:14:10Z")
The scene in “Sardonicus” when the guy pulls his mask off to reveal his horribly disfigured face. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenes-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/270843.md?page=10)