# What movies have given you nightmares? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 14, 2002, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998 "2002-06-14T07:17:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Journeyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/779978/32.png) [@Journeyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Journeyman)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2002, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/41 "2002-06-16T21:33:29Z")
[minor Hijack] I’ve actually had bad dreams involving video games. I remember dreaming I was in an X-Com squad, and all we could see was the area around our landing craft. We could go farther, but there was a permanent darkness beyond it. People kept dying from shots fired from the blackness out there, and I had the sense that it was up to me to fix the problem. I was midway through passing around flashlights when I was shot. I woke up with an alarmingly high fever. I think that helps explain it. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2002, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/42 "2002-06-16T21:59:08Z")
I rarely remember my dreams beyond remembering the fact that I had a dream. Nightmares are even rarer, because I always realize that I’m having a nightmare pretty early on (usually before anything actually scary happens) and wake myself up. Still considering the sheer volume of monster movies, slasher flicks, and shudder-and-jump movies I watched as a kid, I must have had some movie-inspired nightmares. My friends and I would have _Friday the 13th_ marathons, where we’d watch all of the movies in a row (except the first two: it’s all about the hockey mask. Also, there were only about five or six movies in the series at the time, so it wasn’t nearly as time-consuming as it sounds.) I remember watching _Nightmare on Elm Street_ at my cousins house and peeing in the sink because we were both too afraid to walk down the long, dark, creaky hallway to the bathroom. I saw the first two _Alien_ movies in the theater, the first when I was all of **four** years old. And yet, I never had movie-related nightmares. The closest I ever came was years and years later, when I saw _The Blair Witch Project_, and that night had a creepy, non-sensical dream that featured some imagery from the movie, but none of the story. Particularly the stairwell at the house with all the children’s handprints on the walls. However, there have been a lot of movies that freaked me right out when I was conscious. Aside from the aforementioned slasher flick memories, I recall watching the original version of _Night of the Living Dead_ alone at home one Halloween night in Highschool. Unbeknownst to me, a couple of my friends came over and, not wanting to ring the front doorbell and wake up my parents, hopped the fence into the back yard to let themselves in. So I’m watching this film, totally engrossed, when all of sudden this ghastly white face presses itself against the window right next to me. I tell you, the doorbell might have woken up my parents, but _I_ woke up the neighbors. It never gave me bad dreams, but I have never been as frightened by a movie as I was by the first three quarters of _Event Horizon_. The ending was a major let down, but up to that point, I was seriously wondering if I’d be able to make it through the whole movie. Lastly, I saw this truly pathetic monster movie about a giant turtle. No, it wasn’t _Gammara_. It was an American movie, clearly trying to cash in on the success of _Jaws_, but using, well, a turtle. Not particularly frightening. Or clever. Or well done. But for some reason, the shots of the giant turtle silently crusing in the murky depths of the ocean gave me major heebie-jeebies. Worse, in fact, than _Jaws_ itself. Oh, and my mom just reminded me that I used to have chronic nightmares about the Wicked Witch of the East when I was really little. Which is weird, because I’d swear on a stack of Bibles that I’ve never seen that movie… ---
**Author:** ![Sapphire\_Bullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@Sapphire\_Bullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapphire_Bullet)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2002, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/43 "2002-06-16T22:12:42Z")
**Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan** I saw this at a drive-in. The scene with the ears and the worms…I still can’t watch it. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2002, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/44 "2002-06-16T22:13:56Z")
This may sound bizarre, but **Life as a House** gave me a nightmare. It’s about an architect who early on finds out he has an advanced cancer and only a few months to live, so he decides to build his dream house. The night I saw it, I had a dream that I was dying of cancer and had three months to live. Most of the dream I spent telling my loved ones one after the other. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2002, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/45 "2002-06-16T23:06:05Z")
**Blue Velvet**. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2002, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/46 "2002-06-16T23:26:25Z")
2 movies come to mind. I saw them at around age 7 or 8. Took me years to get over them **What Ever Happened to Baby Jane** Never saw a Bette Davis movie since. **The Crawling Hand** Didn’t help that my Dad thought is was funny to scare the hell out of me right at bedtime. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2002, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/47 "2002-06-16T23:35:37Z")
“The Exorcist” scared me BEFORE I saw the damned movie, in a dream. Er, nightmare. “The Witches” has inspired many bad dreams, some worse than others. Ugh… “Jurassic Park”- but these were mainly cool. I’ve had a lot of dinosaur themed dreams, actually, and a bunch the previous summer. Because of JP III, and since I read JP and The Lost World. A really freaky one involved the spitting dinosaur, in some kind of game, and I remember after awhile just letting it eat me…yeah it was bizarre. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2002, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/48 "2002-06-16T23:39:56Z")
I will have to agree with the Exorcist and Nightmare on Elm Street, but they all pale to the effect of… **Poltergeist** Specifically, the whole damn movie, but I still cannot watch the scene with the clown doll. I saw it when I was very young. I too did not like the scene from Alligator with the young kid about to jump in to the pool, but it made me sad, not scared. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2002, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/49 "2002-06-16T23:55:17Z")
When I was at Kent State my friend Laurie came over from the College of Wooster for the weekend and we went to see a double feature of **The Hills Have Eyes** and **It’s Alive** at the student union. We never saw the second movie. **The Hills Have Eyes** was so bad, and so gross that we slept with the lights on that night and propped a chair under the doorknob. ---
**Author:** ![Semp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Semp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Semp)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/50 "2002-06-17T00:05:26Z")
I don’t know if it was actually in the film, or just a commercial for it, or if I just imagined the whole thing and attributed it to it, but I had a dream that featured a bit form the movie **Nightmares** , which was an anthology film from 1983 or so. I’m sure I’ve seen the part with Emelio Estevez and some demonic video games, but that’s not the part that made its way into my adolescent head. What it was (again, if it was even connected with the film - I’m still not sure) was a scene of a subdivision being built, at night, and a house is building itself via bricks flying off of a pile next to the house and forming a wall. I can still picture it vividly today, and I can tell you that it freaked the hell out of me. And can anyone tell me if that was in the film? Cuz I don’t feel like hunting down a copy of the film, if ya know what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/51 "2002-06-17T01:42:13Z")
I don’t think any movies have actually given me nightmares, although I also didn’t really watch much in the way of “scary” movies when I was a kid. As for movies seen as a kid, I have to agree with **Lsura** on _Willy Wonka_. I probably didn’t really understand the plot at the age I saw it, but there were lingering disturbing images in my young little mind after that – like the kid getting sucked up and caught in the tube from the chocolate lake, and the girl turning blue. As for movies that just kind of creeped me out a bit (or grossed me out), I’d have to agree with those that said **Event Horizon**. I was a bit disappointed that what started out as a promising Sci Fi movie turned into a “Hellraiser” sequel. I enjoyed the creepy suspense earlier in the movie (like the portal opening on its own and threatening to pull people in – the idea of a dark hole into the unknown). But then I was just grossed out when they got to the “cleaning up the recorded message” part. ---
**Author:** ![PublicBlast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/779978/32.png) [@PublicBlast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PublicBlast)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/52 "2002-06-17T05:51:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Journeyman \* > \*\*[minor Hijack] > I’ve actually had bad dreams involving video games. \*\* Good, I don’t feel so alone now. Even if you did have a fever when you had the X-Com nightmare. 🙂 Games that have given me nightmares: 1. **X-Com 2: Terror From the Deep** Holy CRAP the alien bases were scary in that game. You park your squad in a corner to take cover for a firefight, then a floating brain-like creature hovers in the door and turns your crew into zombies. [shudder] Great nightmare fodder. 2. **Doom** and **Castle Wolfenstein 3-D** So many, many, many nightmares. Yet I kept playing. Glutton for punishment. 1. **Final Fantasy Tactics** Nothing like finding out that the Ultimate Evil is the game’s Christ-figure sacrificing innocents in order to facilitate his resurrection. And that the heroes all die in Hell for their efforts to save humanity. Back to the topic, the movie **Gremlins** gave me horrible nightmares–cute fuzzy beasts turning into reptilian monsters! Agggh! John Carpenter’s **The Thing** was another bad kiddie movie. (My dad gets lonely easily, so he brought me to every movie he saw whenever nobody else would go. Didn’t matter if I was 5 years old or not.) Also, second motions to **Close Encounters of the Third Kind** and **Arachnophobia**. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/53 "2002-06-17T07:05:40Z")
When I was a kid (the 50’s) I saw a lot of monster movies which didn’t scare me at all. Then I saw a picture called simply **The Werewolf** , and I had nightmares for weeks. Also the Spencer Tracy version of **Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde** made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. If I close my eyes I can still see that transition scene. Of course, the techniques of “morphing” in those days were terrible, but I was maybe 12, so what did I know? Monsters always looked fake to me, but to see a _man_ change before my eyes into a creature just did me in. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Dragon\_Phoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@Dragon\_Phoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragon_Phoenix)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/54 "2002-06-17T07:24:13Z")
**Carrie** , the scene near the end (don’t want to spoil it). **The shining** , Nicholson at his disturbing best. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/55 "2002-06-17T08:16:36Z")
My brother couldnt even be in the same room with most of the mentioned movies … He finally watched gremlins all the way though when he was 22 When he finally seen nightmare on elm streed he was embaressed that he was so scared of a movie that was so dumb … ---
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/56 "2002-06-17T12:01:28Z")
That great big skeevy guy in **Pet Sematary**! Ack! ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/57 "2002-06-17T15:18:03Z")
**Star Trek: First Contact**. I’ve had recurring Borg nightmares since seeing that movie. I find the idea of being borged worse than dying. At least a dozen people have told me they’ve had recurring nightmares of Darth Vadar. ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/58 "2002-06-17T17:41:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zoggie \* > \*\*“The Exorcist” scared me BEFORE I saw the damned movie, in a dream. Er, nightmare. > \*\* Wow, now I don’t feel so weird for this: **Blair Witch** gave me a nightmare before I saw the movie, too. After seeing the movie, it wasn’t nearly as scary. My version invovles a gaunt, ghostly pilgrim with huge claw-like hands in an abandoned barn. He apparently killed me with his claws. My last words: “WHO ARE YOU?!?!?” His: “Blair Witch \\” The eeriest part is that the last “shot” of my dream (my POV, knocked down on the ground in the darkened barn, on my right side) had an uncanny resemblence to the final shot of the movie. (Oh, and E.T. gave me nightmares throughout my youth, even though I loved the movie. Yay, good segue, Ron. Thanks, Ron.) ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/59 "2002-06-17T17:49:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zoggie \* > \*\*“The Exorcist” scared me BEFORE I saw the damned movie, in a dream. Er, nightmare. > \*\* Wow, now I don’t feel so weird for this: **Blair Witch** gave me a nightmare before I saw the movie, too. After seeing the movie, it wasn’t nearly as scary. My version invovles a gaunt, ghostly pilgrim with huge claw-like hands in an abandoned barn. He apparently killed me with his claws. My last words: “WHO ARE YOU?!?!?” His: “Blair Witch \\” The eeriest part is that the last “shot” of my dream (my POV, knocked down on the ground in the darkened barn, on my right side) had an uncanny resemblence to the final shot of the movie. (Oh, and E.T. gave me nightmares throughout my youth, even though I loved the movie. Yay, good segue, Ron. Thanks, Ron.) ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998/60 "2002-06-17T20:57:50Z")
Four movies that freaked me out bigtime: **The Shining.** Not Ol’ Jack so much, just the idea of being alone (?) in a big creepy house. I still can’t be in a big building alone. **In The Mouth Of Madness** : freaky freaky freaky, from beginning to end. I had corner-of-your-eye willies and nightmares for a long time. **The House on Haunted Hill** : the ending was weak, but up till then was pure coffee-fodder for me. And finally: **Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure** The trucker lady, when her face changes…gaaa. I screamed and ran. ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-given-you-nightmares/113998.md?page=4)