Yeah, the stories (and moreso the illustrations) of Scary Stories (and it’s two sequels) freaked me out a bit, too.
But the number one thing that freaked me the FUCK out was the Jabberwocky scene from a 1980’s made for TV version of Alice in Wonderland.
See for yourself, and imagine seeing it when you’re 5 or 6. (the “good stuff” starts about 3:00 into the video.) Doesn’t seem so bad now (AI mean, a guy in a rubber “jabberwocky” suit? Big deal.) But the lightning, thunder, and the monster combined really scared me as a kid.
when I was 4 or 5 I saw the monster from the black lagoon…scared the ever living fuck out of me.
I know I have been scared of stuff since then but seriously that is the one that sticks with me, hell I think it was even in black and white.
As a kid who had both extreme fear and curiosity of pretty much every paranormal occurrence, I used to go to bed at night with the terrifying image of something peering into my window.
The mothman was one of the more terrifying ones, even if it looks completely silly in that picture.
Umm - the movie IT with Stephen King. Pennywhistle was one bad, bad dude. His head coming out of the drain was one of the worst.
Combine IT with Poltergeist and a traumatic parade clown from when I was 4 and you have me scared of clowns for life - and I’m frakkin’ 38.
Oh, and no one has mentioned this, but I freaked out on the Pirates of Carribean ride at Disneyworld. Not the actual ride, per se - but I couldn’t stand the walk in the cool concrete walls with all the wailing and sea shanties and stuff while we were walking in. It didn’t help that there wasn’t a huge crowd so we were kind of alone.
Once I finally went on the ride and had gone past the first part with the skeletons, I was okay.
Let it be known, though, I’ve always had a creep out factor for statues of any kind - so that didn’t help.
Premium-channel ads for the movie Phantasm, which played incessantly on cable around the time I was around 7 or 8 years old. They seemed to be on all the time, and I would have to leave the room and hold my ears, even hearing it freaked me out.
A silver ball that flies around and spikes you in the forehead? To this day I have never seen any part of the actual movie, but just the idea of it…YEEIKES!
…until now, thanks YouTube! I made myself watch the flying silver ball thing. It was kinda cheesy, actually. It’s sorta fun to purge the childhood demons!
Fantastic Planet Oh my… wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy out on the pipe. Surreal. Cosmic. Philosophical. Great music. Meditation. Beauty. Science fiction. Did I mention surreal?
It was animated, so I thought it was going to be, you know, a cartoon.
I was five.
Ohms
Draags
Oh my
It had a deep, long term (and ongoing) influence over my life.
It’s a marvelous work of art … If you have the time, you should really check out part 1 on YouTube (all eight parts are there), but it’s really worth turning to Netflix.
Did I mention it was surreal?
Me too! I still remember the nightmare I had where my DAD turned into the Hulk. Froze, face a rictus of horror, flashed green several times (yay cheap special effects!), and turned into a cartoon version of the Hulk, purple pants and all. In the nightmare, I hid behind the curtain in our sitting room and hoped Hulk-Dad wouldn’t GET ME.
Of course, in a couple weeks I’m going to see the new Hulk movie.
Darby O’Gill is messedup. That banshee still creeps me out.
But nothing traumatized me as much as the Zanti misfits. Respect their privacy.
The one I can’t figure out is why the eye in Disneyland’s old Inner Space ride scared the bejesus out of me one day. I went on the ride before and after and it was no big deal, but just that one time it sent me into a fit.
Hell Yes, I was the same age at that time, and that messed me up something good!
Also, the depiction of people gliding along (especially clothed in gowns to completely conceal their legs) with no evidence of any kind that their feet or legs were moving. That still messes me up.
The dog in the inside of the Buster Brown shoes. The one who barked or winked or whatever the hell he did in there? Freaked me out terribly as a child.
The shot of the feet withering up and curling under the house in The Wizard of Oz scares me to this day. I’m almost 46.
The reference to a version of The Cask of Amontillado - was it from TALES OF TERROR with Vincent Price & Peter Lorre (technically that segment was titled THE BLACK CAT but it was a mixture of both Poe stories)?
The Vincent Price film with the man who’s healthy limbs were amputated was SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN.
For me- count me as another one who was freaked out by Night Gallery’s “The Doll”. Or anything about evil dolls. If I were a kid when POLTERGEIST or the Chucky films came out, I’d have totally freaked.
My parents told me that when I was really little (2-3 y/o), I freaked out when Senor Winces was on Ed Sullivan show with a head in the box (“All right?” “S’alright!”)
Certain visuals would get to me- even when I had seen far worse in other contexts-
In the Price-Karloff-Lorre horror comedy THE RAVEN, when he opens his dead wife Lenore’s casket & there she is half-decayed.
Scenes from the Chick tract BEWITCHED about a acid-tripping demon-oppressed teen girl who’s Grandmom is trying to get her to come to Jesus- esp when she’s hallucinating that her face is melting.
A plastic model skull WHICH I HAD HELPED PUT TOGETHER after Dad put rubber eyeballs in it. I mean- I knew it was a toy model but it just looked scary as Hell!
Hell yeah. Seeing that thing rise up out of the bathtub freaked my little ass OUT. I saw this as a little kid when it came on as some sort of afternoon movie when I was home alone.
Just so you know which clown scared you, his name was Pennywise.
I’ve been freaked out by many movies and stories, but none of them traumatized me to the extent of the others here.
UFOs. In the mid 1970s when I was about 10 the news was filled with UFO reports. I was terrified about having a “close encounter” be being abducted or the Earth invaded. One time the national news had a story about the growing UFO phenomena. NBC newsman anchor John Chancellor came on with a big graphic behind him that was filled with saucers and a the big letters UFO overlapped on the picture. My blood ran cold, if John Chancellor was talking about flying saucers the Earth was doomed. I can still picture that graphic.
