# What's the most (or least) scared a story/work has ever scared you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 17, 2012, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757 "2012-08-17T08:31:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Bass\_Chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@Bass\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bass_Chick)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/61 "2012-08-22T14:42:10Z")
The tall man in _Phantasm_ was one of the scariest characters **EVER**. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/62 "2012-08-22T16:51:51Z")
My first exposure to horror was at about 10 years old. [The Upper Berth](http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/crawford-the-upper-berth.html), from the 1890’s, had me sleeping with the lights on and the dog in my room for months afterward. Even now, it is still a very suspenseful read. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/63 "2012-08-22T17:16:25Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > My first exposure to horror was at about 10 years old. [The Upper Berth](http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/crawford-the-upper-berth.html), from the 1890’s, had me sleeping with the lights on and the dog in my room for months afterward. Even now, it is still a very suspenseful read. Nice. Reminds me of Second Night Out, by Frank Belknap Long. ---
**Author:** ![Mrs.Cake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@Mrs.Cake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Cake)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/64 "2012-08-22T17:24:59Z")
Story - “The Yellow Wallpaper” came into my unsuspecting childish hands at about age 9, freaking me out completely and guaranteeing I will never have sleep in a wallpapered room if I can possibly help it. Book - “Ghost Story” was deeply disturbing in my early 20’s. Still to me the scariest book I’ve ever read. Movie - “The Haunting” gave me my worst movie scare ever as an early teen watching it on TV. Those who have see it (the original version) know the scene I am talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/65 "2012-08-22T18:24:56Z")
> [@Mrs.Cake](#): > > Movie - “The Haunting” gave me my worst movie scare ever as an early teen watching it on TV. Those who have see it (the original version) know the scene I am talking about. Well, either the “whose hand was I holding??” scene or the “doors aren’t supposed to bend that way” scene. Either one works for me. As a kid, I was terrified of one scene in some movie I’ve otherwise forgotten about, where some monster made of mud was terrorizing some people, and the monster tried to get in to get them only to have one of the people close the door on the monster’s hand, which severed it. The hand was still moving, and I ended up running into my room and hiding under the covers. I was maybe only 5 or 6 years old, I think. Then I got scared watching what I think was a Three Stooges episode(!) where some small animal gets inside a skull and scampers around, scaring the bejeesus out of me. As an adult, very little in movies or TV scares me; I love the horror genre, and maybe I’ve overexposed myself to it a bit. But **The Descent** still made me uneasy, with its combination of monsters, claustrophobia and acrophobia. Getting trapped in a collapsing tunnel underground is more terrifying to me than a monster that I am pretty sure doesn’t have a real-world equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/66 "2012-08-22T20:20:42Z")
Not classified as ‘horror,’ but the play _Buried Child_ had me plenty horrified. I remember being deeply disturbed by it for weeks after seeing it performed in college. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/67 "2012-08-24T03:09:28Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > What scared me as a kindergartener was a song we learned at Halloween, “There Once was a Woman All Skin and Bones”. Anybody else remember that? Yep, though I only learned it as an adult. The kindengartners I worked with LOVED that song. They didn’t find it scary, though. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/68 "2012-08-24T13:36:58Z")
I will third Peter Straub’s “Ghost Story.” Took it to the beach with me, and was reading it in the bight sunshine as the surf rolled in and children were happily playing all around. I was still scared shitless! ---
**Author:** ![Proudest\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/proudest_monkey/32/13257_2.png) [@Proudest\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Proudest_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/69 "2012-08-24T22:47:27Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > _Helter Skelter_ by Vincent Bugliosi. The murders and the fact that it was _real._ That could’ve been me, either murdered or murderer. I guess I was about 13 when I read that. > > As for fiction, the book that kept me up at nights was _'salem’s Lot_. > > StG Re: **Helter Skelter** –I kept thinking about the Manson girls “creepy crawling” inside random peoples’ houses in preparation for actually murdering the LaBiancas. Those sleeping people never knew how microscopically close they were to being murdered. Re: **'Salem’s Lot** –I read a lot of King, but this book made me sleep with the lights on. One more: when I was a kid, we had a BIG family **bible**. I don’t know where it came from (or where it ended up, for that matter), but it had gilt-edged pages, a ribbon bookmark, and full-color illustrations. One picture showed David carrying Goliath’s scary, bearded, bloody head after the famous slaying. That head showed up in my nightmares from age 4 until adulthood. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/70 "2012-08-24T22:53:52Z")
_Event Horizon_ for some reason always sticks in my mind as filling me with dread. I have not watched it since that first time way back when, so I cannot recall why or what it was. Edgar Allen Poe, _The Telltale Heart_ and _The Pit and the Puendulum_ worked pretty well on me as a tween. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/71 "2012-08-24T23:38:32Z")
The story that scared me most, and still gives me the shudders whenever I revisit it, is [A Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter](http://home.epix.net/~wallison/schalken.html) by J. Sheridan LeFanu. A close runner-up is a story called The Face by EF Benson (unfortunately that one is not online) about a young woman who has a recurring dream of a face. Very unsettling indeed, especially in its ending. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/72 "2012-08-25T03:16:43Z")
_666_, by Jay Anson. I finished it about 0130, turned out the light and went to bed, got up a minute later, turned the light back on and went back to bed. Oh, and this was just a couple of weeks before my 33d birthday… ---
**Author:** ![montag01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@montag01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/montag01)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/73 "2012-08-25T04:45:53Z")
It’s been mentioned twice already, but _'salem’s Lot_ does it for me as well, in terms of books. I’ve probably read it five or six times, and even published literary criticism about it in the Journal of Popular Culture due to my fascination with the book. The sequence that leads to Matt Burke having his heart attack is just a fine scene, and really creeps me out with the amount of atmosphere it creates. Movie-wise, just about anything with demonic possession is hard for me. I grew up surrounded by Southern Baptists who believed in it and drilled into me that it was real. Staying with my grandmother in West Virginia once, when I was about twelve, my brother and I were told to steer clear of a boy “up the holler” because he was possessed by the devil. More than once, we ended up walking up the long dirt road that led past the house he lived, and this kid would be sitting on the porch, totally silent and not moving except to follow us with his eyes. It was extraordinarily creepy, and we truly believed he was possessed. Worse, we believed the demon might leave him and try to possess us. Probably the boy was merely autistic. At any rate, demonic possession is such a foundational fear of my childhood that watching anything like The Exorcist or Paranormal Activity even today, at the age of 39, is an uncomfortable experience. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/74 "2012-08-25T05:23:06Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > _Helter Skelter_ by Vincent Bugliosi. The murders and the fact that it was _real._ That could’ve been me, either murdered or murderer. I guess I was about 13 when I read that. > > As for fiction, the book that kept me up at nights was _'salem’s Lot_. > > StG +1. I was about 12 when I first read that one (happened across it around the house). I’d been reading stuff like Stephen King for years before that and wasn’t that bothered by fiction, but this story being REAL was scary. Didn’t help that my mother and I were living in a rather isolated house at the time. I later found out that my mother (at least claims to have) met some of the Manson family pre-murder spree. She says she wasn’t that impressed by Charlie, but some of the girls were seriously scary to her. I’ve since developed a fondness for true-crime works (if anything suspicious happens to anyone connected to me, I’ll probably be a prime suspect after police see some of the stuff I read :D). Always have appreciated horror fiction. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/75 "2012-08-25T09:39:47Z")
There are two things that really scared me as a child, and (though I was older by then) one thing that didn’t but which seems to scare an awful lot of other people. Firstly, [Children of the Stones](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Stones). They did such a good job of making it look like people were being turned into stones, it really seriously frightened me. Secondly, there was a science fiction show that had a sequence where Egyptian Gods with their expressionless animal heads, were stalking the heroes. I thought it was a _Doctor Who_ episode, but I can’t find any evidence that it was, so I am not certain what it was from (the only [Egyptian themed episode](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramids_of_Mars) of _Doctor Who_ doesn’t turn up any familiar images). Maybe it was _The Avengers_ or something similar. And the film that seems to frighten others but never did me is _The Exorcist_. I was 9 or 10 when I saw it first, and it didn’t affect me at all. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/76 "2012-08-25T10:31:43Z")
> [@PandaBear77](#): > > [This movie](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105665/) scares the hell out of me. I can’t even finish it. > > It’s just so _bizarre_ … The Twin Peaks TV show scared the bejezus out of me when I was a kid. I was about 11 when it was first on TV, so actually not \*that \*young, really, but several episodes left me completely traumatized. I remember watching it as the last thing I did before I went to bed, and then being scared out of my brains in the bathroom while brushing my teeth, afraid that I would suddenly see a face, or _something_, behind me in the mirror. Later, I would keep a light on in my bedroom, which I never usually did. Of course, I put myself through this completely voluntarily, and the next week I would do it all over again. My parents, for some reason, didn’t seem to mind me watching it. Then again, they never really made much effort to keep me away from things that would mess me up. I’m not really sure whether that was sloppy or insightful parenting. It’s an odd thing, too, because I’m normally never scared by anything on TV or in movies. Usually, \*reality \* is the thing that sends me into a cold panic. That show seemed to push a very specific set of buttons in me. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/77 "2012-08-25T15:56:25Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > I’m not a fan of Stephen King, and have read only five or six of his early books. > BUT… > one afternoon I was stretched out on the couch reading **The Shining.** My very first exposure to his writing. (I’d seen “Carrie.”) I was about halfway through it. Also should mention that I was in my late 20’s, all grown up and stuff. At one point, I started feeling pretty “anxious”, and put the book down for a moment; I was surprised to realize only then that my heart was pounding and my neck hairs were standing on end. Until that moment I’d never understood that one’s hairs literally do that- I’d always thought it was a cartoonish figure of speech. > No printed material before or since has ever had that effect on me. Ayup. Last time I read it I was home, alone, and a storm was blowing outside. Not my best reading choice. A friend of mine read it once. He got to the part where Danny is in the concrete pipe in the playground and snow collapses over the opening, and then Danny hears something crawling through dry leaves in the pipe towards him, only there are no leaves in the pipe. He finished the book in a chair in the middle of the yard so nothing could sneak up on him. The earliest one I can recall was this damn Dr Seuss story about a pair of pants chasing this kid, and it turned out the pants just wanted a friend or something. The disembodied pants were bad enough, but the title was red text on a blue background, and when you jiggled the book the letters jiggled at a different rate due to some optical illusion (but when you’re 6 you don’t know these things), which only made the story creepier. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/78 "2012-08-25T16:32:23Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > When I was ten or so, I saw a commercial for a horror movie called _Harvest Home._ One character takes off his sunglasses to reveal - cotton-stuffed eyesockets. Gave me a few _very_ bad dreams. > > I later read the book the movie was based on - it’s pretty good. An idyllic rural community (immediate red flag!) practises a pagan fertility ritual that involves electing a “King” and “Queen” for a year; during the harvest festival, the “King” has sex with the “Queen” in the fields, and then is immediately slaughtered. The narrator, an urban transplant whose wife becomes “Queen”, sees things he shouldn’t, at the cost of his eyes and his tongue. Thus the scene that scared the hell out of me. Hijack- the book is Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon. The TV miniseries was titled The Dark Secret of Harvest Home. About a decade ago, I was discussing The Wicker Man with a friend in Australia. She noted “My Mum said she saw a U.S. movie that was like an American version of TWM.” I didn’t ask as much as I stated “TDSoHH.” Yep! ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/79 "2012-08-25T17:12:10Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > The earliest one I can recall was this damn Dr Seuss story about a pair of pants chasing this kid, and it turned out the pants just wanted a friend or something. Ah yes, the “pale green pants with nobody inside 'em”! Pretty creepy for a Dr. Seuss story—and I mean that as a compliment. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757/80 "2012-08-25T18:34:08Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > The story that scared me most, and still gives me the shudders whenever I revisit it, is [A Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter](http://home.epix.net/%7Ewallison/schalken.html) by J. Sheridan LeFanu. > > A close runner-up is a story called The Face by EF Benson (unfortunately that one is not online) about a young woman who has a recurring dream of a face. Very unsettling indeed, especially in its ending. A feedbook available story in a similar vein is [The Burial of the Rats](http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/stoker_burial_of_the_rats.pdf). [this one is a PDF as I get feedbooks on my phone so i dont know if you can get it online otherwise] Also, [Abraham Merritt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Merritt) wrote quite a collection of books, many available also on feedbook. Several were made into movies back in the heyday of the horror movies in the 30s. I can heartily recommend his stuff if you like the more gothic-y turn of the century pulp-y stuff. Sort of blends SF, fantasy and horror in many cases. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-or-least-scared-a-story-work-has-ever-scared-you/631757.md?page=5)