# Were there any horror or scary movies that actually scared you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 27, 2003, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604 "2003-11-27T18:37:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CaptEgo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@CaptEgo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptEgo)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/21 "2003-11-27T21:05:39Z")
Let me express my Awe nonetheless. To think that someone would (in almost no time flat) have provided an answer to an obscure film that I hadn’t thought about for years indicates a certain degree of m4d $c!-F! $k!11z. \ ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/22 "2003-11-27T21:28:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CaptEgo \* > \*\*Let me express my Awe nonetheless. To think that someone would (in almost no time flat) have provided an answer to an obscure film that I hadn’t thought about for years indicates a certain degree of m4d $c!-F! $k!11z. \*\* Or a sad bastard who doesn’t get out much 😃 ---
**Author:** ![captainQwark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@captainQwark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/captainQwark)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/23 "2003-11-27T21:43:47Z")
_Poltergeist_ and _Nightmare on Elm Street_ unsettled me the first time I saw them. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/24 "2003-11-27T22:09:29Z")
There is one of the Return of the Living dead remakes (not sure what exactly…I caught it flipping around on cable one time) that has a scene with all the evil Dr’s experiments of half dismembered people kept alive in various boxes and cages. There is one guy who is just a spine with a head on top. He’s suspended by a collar or something and rolls his head around snapping his teeth either looking for food or trying to get down. It’s so repulsive and creepy that whenever it was dark and I was alone I could just see that guy and would get so terrified. (Of what? He had no legs, he couldn’t chase me, and I think I could “whup” a spine, really.) It was just so grotesque and unsettling. My husband to this day teases me about “head on a spine.” ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/25 "2003-11-27T22:26:19Z")
When I was ten, my parents misguidedly took me to the drive-in with them to see the movie “The Naked Prey.” The movie is about a safari gone wrong in Africa, with the travelers being captured by a native tribe and subjected to all kinds of graphic and imaginative torture. I remember being terrified and sickened and heaving up all the popcorn and soda that I ate. Recently, I tried watching that movie again, supposing that nowadays it would just be corny and cliche-ridden – nuh-uh. It gave me the heebie-jeebies all over again. ::shudder:: ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/26 "2003-11-27T22:49:44Z")
**Poltergeist** and **Alien**. **Carrie** was the first R-rated movie I ever saw (I was 15), and that scene where the hand comes out of the grave certainly made me jump! ---
**Author:** ![Grousser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Grousser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grousser)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/27 "2003-11-27T23:05:15Z")
Maybe they’re not movies but some assignments from the TV series [Sapphire & Steel](http://www.anorakzone.com/SapphireandSteel/) I found them very very scary. Truly scary. True ghost tales and weird incursions in -allow me to say it- beyond the unknown, beyond the beyond. Iknow that, if remade, they’d still scare me. ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/28 "2003-11-27T23:46:21Z")
My daughter was very keen to see “Carrie” as a teenager. She was big into horror. One night, it came on the late night movie. She was in her bedroom, watching it on her TV. Her mother and I were in the living room, talking and watching the news. Her mother – a big Stephen King fan – heard the Prom Scene going into full-tilt-boogie, so we switched over the main TV in the living room, and watched the end of the movie. My wife and I had seen the movie many times, when we were teeners. Our daughter, on the other hand, had never seen the ending. And her bed was right next to the wall she shared with the living room. I was sitting, probably, no more than three feet away from her… with a wall between us. So I sat… and I watched the ending of the movie… watched as Susan Snell approached the dead, empty lot with Carrie’s grave in the middle of it… and knelt to lay the flowers down… timed it PERFECTLY, and SLAMMED the wall with my open hand, BANG, JUST as the gory hand erupts from the grave to grab Susan– –and my darling little girl shrieked like a banshee with kidney stones. She’s never forgiven me for that… (snicker)… ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/29 "2003-11-27T23:59:23Z")
What a bunch of wimps. **Wait Until Dark** ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/30 "2003-11-28T00:05:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Crusoe \* > **Tobe Hooper’s _[Lifeforce](http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0089489/)_ worried me; seeing London descend into bloody chaos.** If that worked for you, then you must get to see _28 Days Later…_, best horror I’ve seen in ages, and lots of London decimation. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/31 "2003-11-28T00:30:57Z")
When I was a kid I saw the Spencer Tracey version of **Dr. Jekyl And Mr. Hyde**. The “morphing” technique was pretty primitive in those days, but when I watched Jekyl turn into Hyde it scared the bajeebers out of me. I had nightmares for weeks. The original B&W version of **The Haunting** , with Julie Harris raised the hair on the back of my neck _because_ there were no visible ghosts or monsters. The sound effects and the visuals of the walls moving were creepy as hell, and Harris (it was Harris, wasn’t it? It’s been many years now) made me believe she awoke with a ghost holding her hand. Brrrrrr! When Alan Arkin leaped out of the shadows at Audrey Hepburn in **Wait Until Dark** I literally came out of my seat, along with about half the audience in the theater. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/32 "2003-11-28T00:46:32Z")
I just remembered an episode of **Alfred Hitchcock Presents** that scared the crap out of me and my brother. It’s the one where the rich bitch gets sent to prison and makes a deal with the gravedigger to sneak into the next casket and be buried, then he’d dig her out later and she’d give him a buttload of money. The funeral bells toll and she somehow sneaks into a coffin and after she’s buried she starts cackling about how she totally scammed that stupid gravedigger and he’s not going to get a dime. Then she starts wondering where the hell the guy is and how long she’s going to have to wait…then she finally lights a match to find the corpse she’s buried with is the gravedigger himself. My brother and I just looked at each other and let out a bloodcurdling scream, much to the shock of our parents, sitting on the couch behind us, lol. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/33 "2003-11-28T01:33:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bippy the Beardless \* > \*\*If that worked for you, then you must get to see _28 Days Later…_, best horror I’ve seen in ages, and lots of London decimation. \*\* An absolute must see indeed. Very haunting, although perhaps not creepy per se. But well done. All right, cliché time. I don’t scare that easily, but three scenes come to mind (rather than entire movies per se) - chronologically:[ul][_] **An American Werewolf in London** - yeah, mostly cheesy, but MAN, that scene in the hospital, the dream-within-a-dream-evil-Nazi-motherfucker? Sweet thundering FUCK, that caught me off guard! I was perhaps 14 at the time, so perhaps that’s a factor too.[_] **Sixth Sense** - the scenes where the little boy takes a leak in the middle of the night, and the ghost passes behind him. And the ghost girl throwing up in his “tent”. **Seven** - the scene with the guy tied to the bed - you’re assuming he’s a corpse. And then, he’s kinda not. Funny thing is, it only works once. But that first time… I yelped, in a movie theater. Full grown man. :)[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![raizok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4491bb/32.png) [@raizok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raizok)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/34 "2003-11-28T01:44:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Master Wang-Ka \* > \*\*My daughter was very keen to see “Carrie” as a teenager. She was big into horror. > > One night, it came on the late night movie. She was in her bedroom, watching it on her TV. Her mother and I were in the living room, talking and watching the news. > > Her mother – a big Stephen King fan – heard the Prom Scene going into full-tilt-boogie, so we switched over the main TV in the living room, and watched the end of the movie. > > My wife and I had seen the movie many times, when we were teeners. Our daughter, on the other hand, had never seen the ending. > > And her bed was right next to the wall she shared with the living room. I was sitting, probably, no more than three feet away from her… with a wall between us. > > So I sat… and I watched the ending of the movie… watched as Susan Snell approached the dead, empty lot with Carrie’s grave in the middle of it… and knelt to lay the flowers down… timed it PERFECTLY, and SLAMMED the wall with my open hand, BANG, JUST as the gory hand erupts from the grave to grab Susan– > > –and my darling little girl shrieked like a banshee with kidney stones. > > She’s never forgiven me for that… (snicker)… \*\* Hilarious, if I was a dad I’d probably pull stuff like that on my kids all the time, maybe I’d even be like Eugene Levy in American Pie 😉 Phantasm was a pretty creepy movie for me as a kid, shame they havent released a dvd boxset yet ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/35 "2003-11-28T02:02:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrotherCadfael \* > \*\*What a bunch of wimps. > > **Wait Until Dark** \*\* That is a great movie! And it’s not even horror. As for mine…It was 1958, I was 8 years old. My parents took me to the drive in to see [The Blob](http://imdb.com/title/tt0051418/)… It was weeks before I could sleep without making sure there was a towel blocking the space between the bottom of the door and the floor. It was wee ---
**Author:** ![Soup\_du\_jour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Soup\_du\_jour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_du_jour)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/36 "2003-11-28T02:16:01Z")
Yah, _The Ring_ scared the bejeezus out of me both times I saw it. Strangely enough, the original, _Ringu_, was a tad unsettling, but not nearly as scary. As a side note, _FearDotCom_, which was (very loosely) based on _Ringu_ was an utter joke. I watched the ending of _Rosemary’s Baby_, but wasn’t scared at all. I guess it kind of was a moody-esque thing, because it only appeared to be a suspense film to me. Oh well. Perhaps I’ll watch the entire thing eventually. Apparently, when I was a wee lad, _Labyrinth_ (of David Bowie fame) was very scary. Strange. ---
**Author:** ![Tedster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@Tedster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tedster)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/37 "2003-11-28T02:20:37Z")
“Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark” A cheesy made-for-TV movie about a young married couple who move into a new/old house. There are these little foot-high critters who live in the furnace system and come out at night, I haven’t ever seen the movie since, I was pretty young when I watched it with my mom. She said “Oh, they will be OK and everything will be alright.” The movie ended with the little critters dragging the mom down into the furnace, they were NOT OK, and everything did NOT turn out alright. It’s a good thing I didn’t know anything about psychology, or I would have been maimed for life. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/38 "2003-11-28T02:36:02Z")
Another vote here for Event Horizon… couldn’t sleep, was the only one at home, popped on HBO with all the lights in the house off… I should mention that it was blocked-out memories of Latin conjugations I had to learn at school which scared me as much as the movie… “Liberate te!” 😉 Also, the \ scene in Signs where they show a home video on a cable news channel and the first of the visitors appears from behind a garage made me jump so high my hair brushed on the house lights in the movie theater. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/39 "2003-11-28T02:36:16Z")
**Master Wang-Ka** , you are truly an evil, evil parent! LOL YEah, that scared the crap out of me when I first saw it too, although it didn’t creep me out nearly as much as Carrie’s eyes as the house burned to death-they were glowing like that statue! I have to say that _Pet Sematary_ did it for me. _The Ring_ scared me, but now I’ve seen it so many times it isn’t so bad. But I will never, ever, EVER again watch _Pet Sematary_. Especially the parts with Rachel Creed’s sister, Zelda. _shudder_ ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604/40 "2003-11-28T03:34:36Z")
Made the mistake of watching **Hellraiser** one night when my roomie was gone for the weekend. That was a long weekend. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-horror-or-scary-movies-that-actually-scared-you/215604.md?page=3)