Oh, my God… you know, you’re right! Holy crow! Hold on while I go tell my husband.
Okay. When we were little, my best friend had a 45 of the Banana Splits theme song. (You know, one banana, two banana, three banana, four! etc.) The other side of the record- I don’t know what song it was- was scratched. Laura, the Evil Older Girl Who Hated Me For No Apparent Reason, told me that it we ever played the scratched side of the record, we’d die instantly.
I believed it, of course, because she was two years older than me. I developed a deep-seated fear that one of us would accidentally play that side of the record; I feared the record itself, too, and would sometimes stare at it with morbid fascination.
I also believed Laura the time she told me the berries weren’t poisonous; in fact, I should eat them because they were quite tasty (they were poisonous, and she knew it; she laughed when I ate them) and the time she told me that a cat’s eyes turn blue when it’s about to shed its skin.
I was in a pet store with my mom when I was 5 or 6 and I spied a Siamese cat. “Mom, look! He’s going to shed his skin!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” was basically her response. The clerk was watching me warily.
“His eyes are blue! He’s going to shed his skin!”
I was so insistent on this point that my mother had to escort me from the store. :sigh: If only she’d sought therapy for me then.
Ooohh! The foamy developing pods of Invasion of the Body Snatchers! I watched that as a kid and it scared the daylights out of me. The pod aliens only took over when you fell asleep. I was up awake a good long while afterwards… And once I was allowed to stay up and watch the late show, a movie called the Picture of Dorian Gray I think. About a man who stayed young-looking while a painting of him aged. That still creeps me out.
[sub]Hmmm, unless…Anyone know a good portraitist?[/sub]
That was the first scary movie I ever saw at a theater (I was about the same age). When I was dropped off at home, I pounded on the door, frantically awaiting my parents to open it up.
I also feared what might be under my bed. For me, usually snakes were there.
But, nothing was creepier than H.R. Pufenstuf. Don’t know why. Just didn’t feel right.
The sleeslaks (sp?) from The Land of the Lost are a close second to H.R. The Land of the Lost in general freaked me out.
You know, I think it’s the feel of a movie or TV show that scares a kid. I watched King Kong as a wee small lad and absolutely loved it. I think the makers of the movie did a good job making Kong out to be a misundersood giant. I dunno.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder left me crying in the theatre. My dad was not sure what to do with me, a newly traumatised 5 year old, so we went home and I was sullen for days after that. I still don’t like that movie, it’s so bizarre.
The house I grew up in, in santa barbara, 4 foot by
3 foor clown oil painting in the living room, it was a bald
clown, all done in shades of blue and white - quasi impressionalist - in the tradition of great motel art,
thing is the clown was not smiling, I was convinced it was
evil - and was gonna “get me” if I ever went in there alone.
BTW
years later - during a mushroom trip - I had to have it
removed as I was shure it was gonna start telling me what it was soooo sad about…Hmmmmm
Well, the one thing I remember more than anything is this book that my mom used to have. She was a big reader so there were always TONS of books all over the house. One day, I’m going through a huge stack of paperbacks and come across this one book. It had a hand on the cover, and the hand was wrapped in gauze, like a mummy. But there was an EYE right in the middle of the palm!! I threw that book away. Don’t know if my mom ever missed it.
Also, “Tribbles” - those big furry things from the old Star Trek episode. To me, they looked like overgrown dust bunnies, and I was always afraid that the dust bunnies under my bed would grow to be tribbles one day.
Well, the one thing I remember more than anything is this book that my mom used to have. She was a big reader so there were always TONS of books all over the house. One day, I’m going through a huge stack of paperbacks and come across this one book. It had a hand on the cover, and the hand was wrapped in gauze, like a mummy. But there was an EYE right in the middle of the palm!! I threw that book away. Don’t know if my mom ever missed it.
Also, “Tribbles” - those big furry things from the old Star Trek episode. To me, they looked like overgrown dust bunnies, and I was always afraid that the dust bunnies under my bed would grow to be tribbles one day. That’s probably why I’m such a neat freak today.
The book was most likely “Night Shift,” an anthology by Stephen King (I have that cover, too). The picture relates to a creepy little sci-fi/horror story in there called “I Am the Doorway.”
Tengu said:
Similarly, a picture of an old statue of Medusa in a Book of Facts. Had to either skip over that page or cover the picture. (::Shuddershuddershudder:
Can you tell me which book? I’d like to look it up. I’ve got a professional interest.
Things that creep me out NOW:
reading this read and realizing that I shared an identical childhood with many of you. :eek:
Wicked Blue, that Don’t be Afraid of the Dark movie kept me up nights for most of my childhood years. The freaky little guys came out of the fireplace, so for years I was also afraid of the fireplace.
And Inky, a curse on you for reminding me of the horror that is Lidsville! I’m too creeped out now to even open the link provided by mrvisible.
Other things that creeped me out as a child:
Watching That’s Incredible, the segments about the supernatural, in particular, the ones about people who simply burst into flame.
My parents had a very old set of natural history books that I loved to read (they were so old that there were only eight planets in the solar system). One book had a picture of a snake that had just eaten an antelope, creating a big antelope-shaped bulge in the snake. For whatever reason, I didn’t understand that was the antelope, and thought that jungle snakes were shaped like that. Their method of hunting involved snaring the victim (me) with their skinny tail part, and then beating the victim senseless with the big bulgy part. I would torture myself by getting up the courage to open the book to that picture, and then slamming the book shut in terror.
Those candies called “turtles” … they’re nut clusters covered in chocolate, but I thought they were real chocolate-covered turtles. How could my mom eat those??? I cried whenever I saw the box.
In a more abstract vein, I would often stay awake nights wondering how I could prove I was me. If I came home from school one day, and there was another little girl exactly like me at my house, how could I prove I was me? If no one believed me, where would I go? The funny part (now) was that this fear was a combination of a rather philosophical puzzlement over what made me be “me,” and a practical fear of what would happen if I was forced out of my home by this doppelganger. I was too little to take the bus by myself, and I only had $4.62 in my piggy bank. I pictured myself doomed to sit on the curb outside my house, watching some fake little girl play with my toys and sleep in my bed.
When I was about 3 or 4 (maybe 5, but that’s stretching it), we were all at my grandparents’ house. We were all watching this movie, I don’t know what it was. But when it was changing scenes, the screen would start moving in circles, and there would be some weird music. For some reason when I picture those circles, I think of the word “void”. Anyway, that’s not the creepiest part. In some part of the movie, the boy was standing against the window, and a monster stuck is arm through it, breaking the glass, and grabbed the kid by his neck! Then he dragged the kid out of the house. That was too much for me. For the next 7 years, I could not sleep at my grandparents’ house without picturing that horrible monster reaching in and grabbing me.
I wish I knew what movie that was.
Not much creeped me out as a kid. The things that did frighten me at the time also fascinated me. I couldn’t stop reading scaring stories, or watching scary movie. It seems I was a masochistic child. The only things that frightened me that still frightens me to this day are snakes, clowns, and chickens.
The reason I am frightened of clowns is because of a show called “A Curren Affair.” Remember that one? Well, I was up late one night,and I was probably 5. Well they did a story about a man dressed up as a clown who would go to people’s houses, and when they opened the door, he shot them in the face.
I had an old hardback (still do) of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. There was a picture of a long necked, big toothed dragon-looking thing (was it the Jabberwocky?) that creeped me out. Whenever I felt a little brave I would take a peek at the page and then hurry and slam the cover closed.
Clowns, crickets, and looking out a window at night time - :::shiver::: These things still scare me.
For a long time I had a fear of mirrors and tiny, eye-level holes in the wall thanks to a movie about a disturbed guy living in the walls. I forget the name and the full plot, but I seem to remember it starred Robby Benson.
Thanks to Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte Bette Davis used to give me nightmares.
Quicksand. Man, that freaked me out! I used to see that stuff on Tarzan and it’d make my stomach turn. I just couldn’t understand what was going on there. I was so worried that I’d be walking around someplace and I’d step into this… stuff! The ground/water would just pull me under and I swollow all this watery/sandy gross, disgusting, sloshy stuff - and I’d die! Eeeewwww!
Before I begin, I should state I am still prone to periods of near hysteria caused by my imagination taking me hostage. It’s why I started writing horror. Along with just about everything else named here -
-An episode of one of those shows like The Twilight Zone about a nightime monster/guy called “The Shadowman” it was about this guy who lived under this kid’s bed and went out at night and attacked kids who were out at night. The Shadowman tells this one kids “I am the Shadowman. I will never harm he whose bed I live under.” so the kid goes out at night. He runs into the Shadowman and figures he’s safe. But the monster grabs him and starts to strangle him. The kid croaks out, “But you said you would never harm me.” The Shadowman responds “I am the Shadowman. I will never harm he whose bed I live under.” And the kid says, “But that’s me.” The Shadowman answers, “But I live under somebody else’s bed.” It was the Shadowman’s whispery/scary voice that got to me.
-That little breath-stealing troll from Cat’s Eye
Ivy. I used to think that ivy was a single sentient organism that would transform into the swamp thing if I wandered to close to it. I always kept my distance.
Looking out the window at night. I was scared that someone would be looking right back at me from outside. Also, I feared looking out my window into the backyard at night. For some reason, I had a feeling there was someone out there carrying a coffin on his back.
An old book cover about skull mountain or something, with a couple of boys discovering a skeleton.