It used to come on HBO back in the late 70s. We had just gotten cable which I had never heard of before.
IIRC The Car was one of the movies that came on in the first month we had cable. I was about 8 or 9 and I would watch the movie every time it came on. The movie scared the crap out of me every time. I remember prefering The Car over Christine when that came out.
Some stand out scenes:
The kids trapped in the cemetary.
The lady on the phone. (if you’ve seen it you know what I’m talking about) The finale @ 2:20
The first one I remember is Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Totally freaked me out. I know that it wasn’t supposed to be a scary movie, but it sure as hell was when I was seven years old.
I know from other threads that I’m not the only Doper traumatized by the Banshee.
This was back in 1953, when all the great UFO/monster movies were made. I was 7 years old, and my older brother and his friend took me to see *It Came from Outer Space. *I had never seen a scary movie, and it scared the bejesus out of me. Plus, I really had to pee. I wasn’t allowed to go to the restroom myself, and my brother refused to take me. So during one of the really scary scenes I peed in my pants. I had to sit there in my pee for the rest of the movie.
Seeing it again, a few decades later, it was maybe 1% scary and 99% boring. And this time I didn’t pee.
I saw Creature from the Black Lagoon when I was in 7th grade, but it wasn’t that bad. A couple of years later I saw The Omen and was so scared I had to have my parents pick me up from my friend’s house early.
I saw Alien, Jaws, and Amityville Horror as a child. Hmm let’s see…
Alien - 1979 - I was 5
Jaws - 1975 - I was 1 or 2! Or did this have a second run in the theaters?
Amityville - 1979 - I was 5
My mom took me to Alien thinking it was going to be like E.T. Oops! She hid her eyes the entire movie but I was fine.
My Aunt took me to see the other two. After Jaws she took me to the beach
After Amityville she took me to the Amityville house! :eek:
I planned on taking her to see Blair Witch and then bringing her to woods in my town that are behind a cemetery and have condemned houses in the forest, but I never got the chance. I ended up taking her to a Drag Restaurant and Naked Boys Singing instead.
Mine was “Nightmare on Elm Street”, which I saw at the drive-in, just around the time they were disappearing from the landscape like the teens that Freddy was going after in their dreams.
I may have seen Poltergeist on TV at some point before that, though.
Mine was Darby O’Gill (one of Disney’s periodic revivals before video) as well. That damn banshee!
But even earlier, I remember being scared to damn death by the tv commercial for It’s Alive!…a tinkly lullaby as soundtrack, as a white bassinet rotates slowly, coming eventually around to the far side and a bloody claw hanging out as the music changes from tinkly to jangly/echoey.
I can STILL see and hear the damn thing in my head!
I don’t know how my dad talked my mom into letting me stay up for that one. Thanks. No nightmares, just fun. But I never saw another Carpenter flick that I liked.
On TV, probably one of the Universal movies – Frankenstein, The Mummy, or The Wolf Man.
In the theater, Them, when I was 9. I went with my brother. It was dark when the movie got out, and probably a mile to our house. My brother runs lots faster than me. Summer, cicadas in the trees that made a noise just like the ants. Haven’t been that scared since.
The Crawling Eye, a.k.a., The Trollenberg Terror. It showed up on TV (The Million Dollar Movie, in NY) a few years after its release (1958), so I saw it when I was probably 10 or younger. Put me off the Alps for years…
When I was 7 or 8 my friends and I would watch all the big slasher flicks from the 70’s and 80’s. Nightmare on Elm St., Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc…
I got desensitized real damn quick and it’s hard for me to even say which one I saw first. It might be part of the reason I don’t really find horror movies scary anymore.
One movie though that always scared the hell out of me though wasn’t even a horror movie, it was the The Neverending Story. I loved the movie when I was a kid, and I hated that damn wolf. The scene when Atreyu confronts him in the cave always scared the crap out of me. I don’t think I ever managed to watch the whole scene without closing my eyes.
