I saw an actress on a talk show mention this same scene and how it traumitized her when she saw it at a young age. You may have guessed it, yes the actress was Laura Dern. Imagine how you would have reacted if it was *your father’s head * bouncing down the stairs.
One of the first movies I saw in the theater with my parents was The Wrath of Khan. I was seriously f’d up by the scene where they put the worm in Chekov’s ear.
The man-eating Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors really creeped me out as a child. First the movie, then, worse, when I saw the play with my parents, and had to go backstage with them to ‘meet’ the plant.
When I was a kid, I watched a very gory monster movie on *Chiller Theater * that gave me nightmares for months. This was: Caltiki, the Immortal Monster. Basically, your standard flesh-eating blob movie, but it had some very horrific scenes for its time. One scene where a scientist had a piece of the blob attached to his arm. As the doctor’s pulled the blob away, his bloody arm bones were exposed, all the while he was screaming in pain. Another bad guy is caught by the blob and engulfed. Briefly, a bloody, screaming skull emerges from the blob before being sucked back in. Very disturbing stuff to watch as a child on a spooky night!
I never really had a problem with those little orange men. That paddleboat freakout though…:eek:
Nooo, the Oompas were sinister; they were evil. They were like the embodiment of Wonka’s vengeful id let loose upon all naughty children. Lurking in the shadows, every time a child drowned in a chocolate river, or plunged down a garbage shaft to be immolated, or swelled up like a giant blue boil, out jump the Oompa Loompas with a pitiless song-and-dance number decrying the transgressing child and sanctimoniously proclaiming their own superiority. It didn’t help that they were bright orange and curiously dispassionate in the face of apparent infanticide. Oh, those diabolical Oompa Loompas! Every time I snuck a cookie, every time I refused to eat my broccoli yet still cried for desert, every time gorged myself on gobstoppers and candy bars, over my conscience hung those heartless, cold, condemnatory orange faces leering at me like judge, jury, and executioner. Pleasant dreams of Halloween, happily gorging myself on the night’s spoils, turned into terrifying nightmares as I was cast into the Pit for my gluttonly, with Oompa Loompas singing and dancing on my grave.
To this day I can’t stand looking at those froofy little porcelain dolls because of the original Amityville Horror. I tried to rewatch it a couple of nights ago, the first time since I was a kid, and I just couldn’t do it. Just thinking about that doll with the glowing eyes makes me want to put on a diaper.
Uh, did no one else ever see an animated movie called The Devil & Daniel Mouse? I recall seeing it on TV as a kid (this would have been the seventies) and the Devil blew my mind.
I rediscovered it at the local library not long ago, and brought it home, intending to lay that childhood fear to rest. I’ll be damned if it didn’t still scare me! (My kids laughed.) It’s a very trippy little film…the Devil is disgustingly obese and terrifying at the best of times…and then he morphs into even more terrifying shapes. It’s pretty kinky for a kid’s movie.
Honorary mention: Twilight Zone the Movie, where the little kid has the sister with no mouth, and the sister who gets wished into that nightmarish cartoon.
Honorary mention: Taps. I was eleven. The scene where the kids are tinkering with a heater or something and whoosh! Flames shoot out and engulf one of them. He burns to death, screaming, forever. Or maybe for just a second, but I tell you what. I’m not watching it again to find out.
Someone mentioned the woman that got turned into a robot in Superman III. This, too, freaked the hell out of me. But mainly because the way she got turned into a robot was she got sucked into this closet, and then little bits of metal were flung at her which stuck to various parts of her body, until her entire body (except her hair and eyes) were covered in metal plates) :eek:
Anybody watch the cartoon of Watership down? Holy crap was that cartoon disturbing violent! :eek: I saw it for the first time in my twenties and I still got nightmares from the scene where the rabbits are gassed in their warden and suffocate/crushed to death. :eek:
I always think that they could do a kick-ass remake of Watership Down using that Toy Story-type animation which I can’t think of right now. :smack:
Not that I want them to, but they could.
Most definitely Large Marge. Here I am just 8 or 9 years old, laughing and having a good time watching a funny movie. All of a sudden…CRAP! I didn’t sleep well for months.
Thanks to badbadrubberpiggy for directing me to this thread after I mentioned Large Marge in this thread! I’m glad to learn I’m not the only one!
You know, there were other things in that movie that really freaked me out. Like the close up they do with the clown after Pee Wee learns his bike is missing, with the scary music playing in the background. And that dude Francis was just creepy!
Oh, quote from imdb.com:
Pee-wee : Some night, huh?
Large Marge : On this very night, ten years ago, along this very stretch of road in a dense fog just like this. I saw the worst accident I ever seen. There was this sound, like a garbage truck dropped off the Empire State Building… And when they pulled the driver’s body from the twisted, burning wreck. It looked like this…
[Turns to Pee-wee and makes grotesque face]
Pee-wee : Aaaaaahh!
Large Marge : Yes, Sir, the worst accident I ever seen.
:: shivers ::
Oh God! That was mine. The most traumatic thing I remember from my childhood was having this tape put on for me to watch at maybe 4 years old. I have no idea how this happened, but I have to assume that whoever did so hadn’t read the book and assumed a cartoon about bunnies had to be for little kids.
A few minutes into the movie there’s a scene in which a hillside is shown covered with blood as one rabbit fortells a slaughter to come. And it only gets worse from there.
Maaaan. I was embarrassed to mention Large Marge and it turns out she traumatised everyone!
I feel so much better now.
I once watched a movie about this girl who was possessed by the devil and my brother told me that the devil does that all the time. I was so scared that I was going to be possessed.
And one other thing I remember. There was a commercial for old radio programs and one line really freaked me out.
Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? The shadow knows…
I dreamed that a shadow was trying to kill me.
I was too old to be frightened of Large Marge. Instead it was Pee Wee himself who skeeved the dickens out of me. When I was in college, a really pathetic passtime (which I am ashamed to say I participated in once) was the “Pee Wee’s Playhouse Drinking Game”. Every time the magic word, the word that made Pee Wee and anything in sight go completely batshit, was uttered, you had to shotgun a beer. Sick.
Anyway, maybe inebriation gave me a kind of precognitive clarity, but I used to start yelling at the TV: “This guy’s a total pervert! He’s a fucking child molester! Look at that freak! He makes me sick!” People said I was being too harsh. Yeah, he’s a freak, but a perv? Nah.
Well, after Mr. Reubens was busted for spanking the monkey in public, then charged few years later for posession of child porn (thrown out on a technicality), I think I’ve been vindicated.
All this talk of Large Marge and “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” and no mention of that hideous clown Pee-Wee locks his bike up to? And then when Pee-Wee realizes his bike is missing, the clown turns and laughs?
Speaking of Tim Burton movies, I’ll mention that scene in “Beetlejuice” where Geena Davis takes her face off and screams.
“Let’s pray the closets are bigger than this one.” 
I was 13 when Poltergeist came out. I still don’t know how I talked my Mom into letting me see it. The whole thing freaked me pretty good. But, the clown scene is a lasting trauma. I’ve seen the movie enough times to know when the clown will be on screen and I make sure I look away or leave the room.
I was about 7 when I saw Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Had nightmares of the banshee for the next week.
Like others, *Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark * and the last part of *Trilogy of Terror * terrified me. I still can’t watch either.
The last scene in Carrie got me pretty good when Sue Snell is laying flowers on the grave and Carrie’s hand comes up and grabs her. shudder
I had one that was the opposite - a movie that never bothered me as a child terrified me as an adult. The Exorcist, of all things. I was 12 or 13 when I saw it the first time on my little b&w TV. Saw it many many times. Read the book until it fell apart. Never really bothered me too much. The medical scenes in the beginning bothered me far more than the possession. Went to see it in the theater when they re-released it several years ago. Scared the living crap outta me.
(Gosh, I’m a 'fraidy cat, ain’t I?)
Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: I was absolutely scarred for life (almost) by the tunnel scene with the scary stuff on the walls, and by the scene where Augustus Gloop gets sucked up the tube after falling into the chocolate.
I’m curious to see what Tim Burton will do with the material.