I check bathtubs because of the Shining.
I lock all bathroom doors behind me if I’m taking a shower because I’m convinced Norman Bates is coming to hack me to bits.
I take my cell phone into the bathroom with me in case I need to call 911 for some reason. Serial killers, monsters, and ghosts come after you in the bathroom!
Happy birthday!
I check in the shower when I come into the bathroom because of several books and movies, Psycho and The Shining and It being some of them.
After seeing Silence of the Lambs, I made my boyfriend go inside without me and open every closet and cabinet (even the bathroom ones) and look behind every door. I did that for a few weeks.
I’m better now 
Thanks to my current obsession with zombie fiction, I have started to automatically assess the safety of my house for the post-apocalyptic world. It’s not something I do consciously, but when I’m in our kitchen, which has a glass wall and roof (basically it’s a greenhouse), I find myself thinking “I’d need to upend the dining room table in front of that door.”
I’ll be better soon.
I guess you guys never thought of pantyhose, eh? (A nod to last night’s episode of “Raising Hope” where we learn that Sabrina sleeps with pantyhose over her head to keep out the spiders.)
I think it was Halloween… the guy in the back seat of the car? Yeah. I had NEVER thought to look in the back seat before.
I still check out the back seat now, to this day.
Scooped right on the last reply to the thread.
Yeah, I check the back seat. More so these days because I’ve had a habit of being the last person to leave the office after the sun goes down. When your car is the only one in a dark parking lot, it’s worth spending a little time making sure nobody’s in there.
After “Poltergeist” I could never abide “snow” on the TV. It used to happen as a kid that sometimes my dad would fall asleep in front of the TV, then it would go to snow… shudder Happily, with digital signal its no longer a problem.
Sorry.
It’s only been in the last few years that I could sleep with the lights off, thanks to Stephen King. That fun little “quirk” started in 1990 for me. I was also extremely uncomfortable around anything drain-related for years, and I am not sure the rest of my family has recovered from their Pennywise-induced fear of clowns.
I’m borderline germ-ophobic, so Monk didn’t help that.
Hey happy birthday, you! Baby, can you dig your man?
There will never be any foreplay involving handcuffs, thanks to Gerald’s Game.
I would check the rooftops of the neighboring buildings for aliens before I could sleep for a few days after I saw Signs. Say what you will, that movie scared the crap out of me.
He is, rumor has it, a righteous man.
You stole mine- I won’t be handcuffed to a bed in a house out in the country with big hungry dogs that nobody ever visits.
Thanks to many scary movies, I won’t walk into a dark and empty house while looking through the mail or otherwise not paying attention to what could be* in there*.
Thanks to many, many, many horror flicks, whenever I pass by a mirror, I refuse to look in it. If I can’t help but look in one, I’ll give it a sidelong glance to make sure there’s nothing unexpected showing in it, so I won’t be as surprised when I look full on and see the details of the terrifying monster I still have little to no doubt I’ll see standing behind me.
And how often does that opportunity arise? 
I need the covers around my neck. Not because of vampires, but because of the movie Cult of the Cobra, early 50’s schlock.
I also don’t like stepping on bugs, because of any number of movies where the bugs form armies. If I accidentally step on one, I just know his family will want revenge.
I never liked clowns, but the one-two combination of *Poltergeist *and *It *sealed the deal. No clowns allowed in my house. Not pictures, not dolls…
<shudder> Clowns!
I don’t like to look into mirrors at night or in the dark (well, not full dark).
Thanks to a show called Twilight Zone that was a series I watched as a child, I became convinced that cars could come alive and drive themselves, sometimes with a person riding helplessly inside. I could see a face on the front of most cars -with lights for eyes, and the grill for a mouth, etc.
It was pretty strange, then I read Steven King’s Christine. Yes, they do have this power.
Clowns used to be cute and funny. Then I read, and saw It. Now I couldn’t imagine having a clown image or doll in my house. I do feel sorry for those people who trained for years to be clowns – very athletic, they are – and now this King guy has ruined clownness for generations of people.
I also do not look in mirrors unless it’s absolutely necessary. You never know what might use it as a doorway, or what I might see lurking behind me.
:dork smiley:
Jaws ruined swimming in the sea for me for years. And I didn’t even see the whole movie, just the idea and some fragments were enough.