You just reminded me of another one of mine. The Waltons had an episode where another woman in…Charlottesville, I think…or Charlotte…can never remember where they actually were in Virginia…had lost a baby through miscarriage, and was stalking Mary Ellen (I think) and her baby. The scene where the other woman is prowling in the bushes looking into the windows of the Waltons’ house scared the crap out of me!
That’d probably be “Village of the Giants” By Bert I. Gordon.
The movie (and book) he Witches, by Roald Dahl creeped me out. Up until really recently, I could not watch the scene where they have their meeting and the Grand High Witch…unveils. I had to change the channel. I made myself watch it, but it still really skeeves me.
The Watcher in the Woods kind of freaked me out, and so did Poltergiest and Carrie … they were all staples of our sleepover parties when I was 11-12’ish.
I wasn’t really a kid at the time, but in the 1978 “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” when the man and dog are morphed into one entity and come running across the street…NOOOOOO!
I used to watch “Dark Shadows” when I was about 5. I was behind the couch the whole time, scared but fascinated, stealing a peek when I had the courage up.
When I was younger I saw a movie advertised on TV, as in it was that stations late movie for the day. Stay tuned for… Y’know. I don’t think I ever saw the name of it cos I ran out of the room, but it was a very seventies-looking movie with a bunch of girls doing the Ouija Board, and one girl becomes possessed and started talking in a demon voice… I bolted out of the house.
Any guesses as to what that movie might have been?
E.T. (the little creepy critter himself) scared the living shit out of me. I was cheering for the government dudes, man.
Along the same lines, the scary ass dragon-lion-flying-thing from The Never-Ending Story? GAAAAH!
Scarred for LIFE, man. FOR LIFE. All you have to do is take a look at the kind of screenplays I write or work on, nowadays, to realize just how badly these things have wounded me. I’m all about explosions and assassins and horrible ways to die now… ::: twitch :::
Jacob Two-Two. Had those horrible muck-creatures.
It’s amazing how much I have in common with ya’ll in this stuff.
There was another really freaky cartoon…Oh yes! Watership Down! Very disturbing.
Oompa-Loompas. Fucking freakish little midgets. That whole movie was an extended nightmare.
I was also deathly terrified of Rip Taylor when I was a toddler, to the point that every time his stupid show came on I would run screaming from the room and hide.
My parents took me to see Ghostbusters when I was about 10. I liked most of it, but the librarian ghost who suddenly turned scary freaked me right out. I didn’t sleep at all that night, and I wouldn’t stay in my room alone.
Another vote for CYOA. I don’t remember the specific one that really creeped me out–I think it involved a futuristic plot in which people were running around shooting each other with lasers–but I think what really made those books uniquely scary was that they were written in the second person. It wasn’t some guy named Johnny dying a horrible death; it was you.
Looking back, I don’t think that the books aimed at the 10 year-old audience of today are quite as morbid as those books were. Maybe I’m wrong, though, because I don’t read children’s books.
Oh, and I just recalled the specific episode of Incredible Hulk that freaked me out: the one with the old guy who was also a Hulk. He wanted to change, and he smiled when he did it, and became a horrible troll…
Return to Oz scared the crap out of me, too! Those wheeler things. Augh!
And The Incredible Hulk scared the crap out of me, too! I was 3 or 4. My parents were watching TV and I was playing in the floor. Suddenly I look up and he starts growling. There’s music, he’s turning green, and stuff is flaking off him–OMG! I ran into the kitchen and buried my face in the corner. They had to comfort me and tell me that it was ok, he was just getting mad to go fight the bad guys. It’s funny now, but…yeesh.
The idea of vampires somehow found its way into my head when I was little. My parents knew I was a squeamish child and tried to shelter me from horror, but I still discovered it. I don’t know how we absorb these things. Anyway, I would wake up absolutely terrified that there was a vampire in the room with me, just waiting for me to make a move or breathe. I *knew *it wasn’t there, but of course that doesn’t matter. I’d have to jump out of bed and rush across the room to the light switch, screaming all the way, so I’d be safe. This was between 6 and 8 or so. My parents would run in, yelling, “What?! What? What’s wrong?!! Are you ok?” and then get pretty annoyed when I was just afraid of the dark. This waking up to a screaming kid every night got a little old for them, obviously, and they increased my “no scary stuff” restrictions. That just made it all the more fascinating.
No matter how many times Mom would turn off the light and show me (“Look, that’s the laundry with the light on. Now, it’s still the laundry with the light off.”) nothing worked. Eventually, my dad brought me a stick, a crucifix, and a jar of garlic powder. They were a comfort.
My little brother used to be terrified of the doorbell. “Flapping around like headless chicken” terrified. Nothing like one of your high school friends coming to pick you up and your 3 year old brother panicking.
ETA: Oh yeah, also, Ghostbusters! (dang, that’s three…the 80s/early 90s was a stressful time to be a kid) Specifically, I was most afraid of the scene where she puts the baby in the bathtub and then that pink ooze (it made me think of blood and death) starts to drip out of the faucet. My mind: don’tletittouchthebabydon’tletittouchthebabydon’tletittouchthebaby…AIIIIIEEE!
Moms and Dads, if you ever find yourself wondering if Poltergeist is a movie your preschooler can handle, the answer is probably no. My parents really regretted bringing me to see it when it led to months of nightmares afterwards. Perhaps if your kid doesn’t have a clown doll they adore(d!!) it might be less traumatic for them.
I was also creeped out by the robot on the Doctor Who from the late 70s/early 80s (apparently the episodes with Tom Baker). Who decided that Mister Rogers and Doctor Who should be on in the same time block?!
One of my big ones is like that. We had a book called the Reader’s Digest Book of Facts - lots of little short articles about just about everything under the sun. I loved it, and read it over and over, especially the mythology section.
Unfortunately, there was a photograph of a relief of Medusa’s face, which scared me witless. I knew what pages led to it, so, half the time, I skipped the page it was on and the facing page, just to avoid it.
And, speaking of old (though in this case, not ancient) art…
19th century drawings of dinosaurs, and dinosaur-like animals, STILL freak me out. Especially ones that show sauropods or plesiosaurs underwater. Certain pterosaurs also always seemed to me to be the devil’s own.
On the one hand…You BASTARD, I did not need to be reminded of that scene. It killed me when I saw it as a kid.
On the other hand, whenever I remember it, I always go nuts trying to remember what movie it’s from, so thanks for that, at least.
That’s it! Thanks. 
Snow White. The Disney version. My parents took me downtown and bought me a ticket for the Disney double feature that was showing at the movies, and then left to run errands. *Snow White * was the first show, and in the scene where she’s running through the forest and all the scary eyes are looking at her, I ran screaming up the aisle out into the bright sunlight, where I waited for my parents for what seemed like many, many hours.
When I finally did watch the movie, the Seven Dwarves morphed into these crazy maniacal dwarves who were going to dig a hole and bury me alive. The shadows on my bedroom wall looked like hunchy little men digging with their pickaxes, and there was a tree with a branch that tapped my window like the Evil Stepmother.
Dang, that movie caused me a lot of trauma!
E.T. no clue why, but I rarely got past the part where you see his hand move the bush or tree, if I did when he came out of the closet I cried until whoever was tehre at the time turned it off.
Bloody Mary, to this day I can’t take a shower in pitch black (for too long, I can for a bit then get creeped out), and I have to make sure all mirrors are well illuminated. It was somewhat mitigated in 5th-6th grade though when my friend and I made a little “business” (for lack of a better term) at the YMCA daycare/afterschool care disproving any Bloody Mary (or related, easily testable myth) anyone could come up with.
Alligator under your bed, there was this book you see… and my beloved aunt is great with kids but the emotion she put into reading that book made sure it would stick with me for a long time, took damn near forever for me to not have to sprint away from my bed frame when I got up at night.
ET Ask: When he has his own “solonor says ban it” commentary on the page dealing with the book (referring to the banned book list in the OP of the thread that “inspired” this) is he joking? I’d assume so, but it’s a tiny bit hard to tell.
The movie “The Haunting” (1963). That scene where the door bulges in and out – AAAAAGH!
The Night Gallery episode “The Doll.” ::shudders::
Flying monkeys? Flying monkeys aren’t scary. Munchkins are scary. And so are Oompa-Loompas. They’re really just Munchkins in disguise. I could never get beyond that part of the film, so it was ages before I saw all of Wizard of Oz. And everyone had me so hyped for the flying monkeys, that when they showed up. SNORE!