I had many, many sleepless episodes as a kid because of that scene.
Still scary after all these years. (Apologies to Paul Simon.)
I loved horror movies as a tiny kid, but there were a couple things that got me.
I think it must have been the original “House on Haunted Hill” with Vincent Price - the scene where the skeleton comes out of the vat of acid - that made me start freaking out about the walking dead. I’m pretty sure it generated the nightmare I had at about age 5 in which I am with my little brother in a clearing in a dark forest, telling him Sunday school stories. I ask him “Mikey, do you know who died and rose from the dead?” and a skeleton comes into the clearing and says “I did”. Big freaky nightmare I have never forgotten.
The other was probably a result of Godzilla movies and their brethren. Not the monsters themselves, but the distant thud-thud that heralded their approach. Many years later when I saw “Jurassic Park”, the only part that scared me was the water glass ripples.
I was a teenager when “Salem’s Lot” first aired – yeah, that is definitely a creepy scene!
Speaking of “Salem’s Lot” – wan’t there a morgue scene where a dead woman is reviving as a vampire, and the first thing she says is her child’s name, just as her humanity is obliterated and replaced with the snarling, scary vampire persona?
That scene gave me the shudders!
Heh. I think I managed to avoid him till I was old enough. But do you remember the Tales from the Crypt Keeper cartoon TV show they had in the early 90s? I think seeing a cartoon Crypt Keeper made him a lot less threatening. Today when I watch old Tales From the Crypt episodes, I see him as a lovable, but ridiculously punny, old uncle.
Does he still scare you today?
The old Superman TV series starring George Reeves.
The episode where humans drilled the deepest oil well in the world and these little baldy-headed fellas in black leotards climbed out! They were radioactive and they even had a weapon that could hurt Superman!
Freaked me out!
The Big Bad Wolf. Not actual wolves, those weren’t particularly scary, but The Big Bad Wolf. Oh god he was terrifying.
Another movie trailer that scared the hell out of me as a kid:
This will be a wierd one.
A kid’s book, probably hardcover, about bears, maybe teddy bears, or gingerbread bears, for all I remember. All I do remember is about the last page or so, the illustration of one of the little bears walking bent over down a street by moonlight or lamplight or something like that, somewhat bent over. The image just terrified me, and I was never one to be scared by picture books. This would have been something I’d seen in the mid to late 60s at my grandma’s.
But the intriguing thing is, that bear as I later realized looked exactly like one of the Grateful Dead bears, so much so that seeing the GD image brought back the book image clearly, the pose is so much the same. Does the book ring a bell with anyone? I’m still creeped out.
Yeah, I remember seeing a commercial for that and wondering why they’d make a kids’ show out of something so terrifying. He wasn’t as bad in cartoon form. He isn’t that scary now, just kind of annoying.
OK, I’ll date myself: Live action transforming superheroes (TV’s The Incredible Hulk & Wonder Woman).
Apparently animate ventriloquist dummies (a trope of the day). (But Muppets were OK.)
Any communicable mind control or personality takeover (vampirism, the Virus of the Purpose, etc.).
Later, KISS. Oh, KISS still squick me.
I just wanted to mention this: I saw the original Last House on the Left when I was in my 30’s, and it scared the shit out of me.
Second the It’s Alive! promos. I used to hide my face in my hands when those came on.
Also, I used to be able to hear the TV in the living room when I was in bed. My mother LOVED Tales from the Darkside, and that damn intro still gives me shivers.
I saw this as an adult – and left the lights on in my bedroom that night.
But it wasn’t the bathtub, or any other scene with the doll. It was at the end, after Karen Black finally killed the thing, and then
smiles.
Ditto naturally (as a child raised on BBC TV).
I did find the Cybermen equally, if not sometimes more, threatening. I think it was the story Attack of the Cybermen that did that for me. It had Cybermen climbing, walking up steps and punching through walls. The idea that they could come get you and grab hold of you while a Dalek would have to remain on the streets or the bottom of the stairs was chilling.
I was not a youngster when I saw Salem’s Lot on TV. That shit still scares me.
Anthony Hopkins starred in a cheesy “crazed ventriloquist/living dummy” movie in the 1970s called Magic. The movie commercial- which they actually allowed to air on Saturday mornings during cartoons!- freaked out every kid I knew. To this day I can still recite it.
Mermaids for some reason creep me out.
Another one for me… earwigs from “Night Gallery.” Those frightened me about getting them for a long time.
Just yesterday I got to thinking about a line from a book that scared me as a kid and still creeps me out. All I could remember was that the main character was named Barnaby, and a ghost kept appearing to him and saying, “Barnaby’s dead! Barnaby’s dead, and I’m going to be so lonely!”
This, naturally, freaked Barnaby RTF out, and me as well, 'cause that’s just creepy.
I finally got curious and ran the quote by Google books. Turns out it’s from “The Haunting” by Margaret Mahy, who also wrote “The Changeover”, which I loved as a kid and still have on my bookshelf! Jeez, it’s a small world.
I first started watching MST3K when I was about seven, and I adored it even though I didn’t know what it was (any time my parents got rid of cable during my childhood was a fight because I wanted my puppet movie show, damnit!), but I had to turn away during the host segments. Crow scared the everliving crap out of me. In silhouette form, I was wary of him, but he was tiny, so I could handle it.