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Why am I writing like I’m possessed by those nightmarish twin girls from The Shining? Because I am! Boo! No, actually, I just feel that way after reading my colleague Christine Spines’ terrific essay about how the devil-child horror movies of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s really screwed her up as a kid. You know: Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist (pictured), The Omen, Carrie. Creepy stuff, eh? Well, for decades, Christine admits, she remained scarred from watching, at a ridiculously young age, Linda Blair fiddle with her crucifix and Sissy Spacek getting showered in blood. Sure, you may not have been 5 years old when you first saw a scary movie, but I’m willing to bet that you suffered similar trauma as a kid. Lord knows I did: I still get the willies when I think about little 7-year-old me, watching that kid getting attacked by that tree in Poltergeist ("one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand…") and not being able to sleep for a decade thereafter.
So, yeah, what horror films have most damaged you? The Devil commands you to speak up!
addCredit(” The Exorcist: Everett Collection”)
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You made have been 7, but I was 12 when I saw Polergeist in the theatre and during the tree-attacking scene there was an ACTUAL thunderstorm raging outside. A heighten experience I did not want. I also stayed far away from the TV for a week after that movie.
Does anyone remember the “Shadow Man” episode of the Twilight Zone that ran in the 80s? I could not sleep for weeks… Also anything where people had shaved heads. “Young Sherlock Holmes”, the one episode of “Greatest American Hero” where aliens landed (I think)- they had shaved heads and wore mirrored sunglasses. Also an episode of Charlie’s Angels where women in an evil cult almost shaved Cheryl Ladd’s head. Am I the only person who remembers these things? Also the Sergeant Peppers movie with the Bee Gees scared the crap out of me. Anyone?
I was in elementary school when the miniseries of Stephen King’s “It” was shown on TV… I wasn’t allowed to watch it, but my friend Niccole did, and to this day she is TERRIFIED of clowns. These days I like to leave pictures of Pennywhistle all over her MySpace page, just because I’m such a good friend! }:->
Until a few years ago I figured my fear of clowns came from when I was about ten and kids weren’t allowed to go to a certain local mall, where a clown would kidnap children. I now think I might have made that story up after seeing a clip of IT – somehow fiction became fact for me. I’m still convinced every clown is a potential serial killer though…
Not a horror movie, per se (well, really on any level), but I was terrified of the child catcher in Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. Oh – and any time a toy or clown was evil in any movie. I can’t watch Chucky.
I was totally freaked out by the TV movie HELTER SKELTER. I was convinced that when Charles Manson was up for his (first) parole, he’d get out and come straight to my house. I guess the heart of my fear was that random murder/true crime had never occurred to me before. HELTER SKELTER made it very real to me.
Also I grew up in Detroit.
When I was 6 years old, my mom asked a movie employee what movie would be good for me and my 12 year old brother. The employee suggested The Toxic Avenger. I was so terrified in the first 10 minutes, I spent the rest of the movie hiding under a sheet of newspaper. Thank you, movie store employee, for helping to create my unnecessary fear of deformity!
I still have not recovered from seeing ‘Pet Sematary’ – that scene where the husband and wife are talking about the wife’s sister who had spinal meningitis…yikes…I’m getting chills just thinking about it…
Well the witch in the Wizard of Oz used to make me cry. When I got a little older Poltergiest and the Exorcist kept me awake for nights. I still fear there are clowns under my bed.
It’s not a horror film, but when I was little I snuck a glimpse of The Godfather while my parents were watching it (I was supposed to be in bed), and I happened to come in on the part with the severed horse’s head. I had nightmares for weeks, and it took a really long time before I was willing to watch the entire movie as an adult. Now, of course, it’s one of my favorites. But I never forgot that moment.
Gremlins also freaked me out as a kid. That part near the end when one of them jumps out of a fountain after you think it’s dead. Oh man did I jump. It’s amazing how not scary that movie is now!
It begins and ends with “The Exorcist.” My brother and I had to watch “Stop or My Mom Will Shoot” immediately after, just so we could sleep that night (with me sleeping on his floor out of fear of being along).
I never even saw all of Poltergeist, but the snippets I did when I was 7 scared me to death. The reruns of the old Twilight Zone TV series in the 80s kept me up at night, too.
“It’s Alive.” Cheap effects but really creepy.
Without a doubt, ‘The Shining’. The whole movie was creepy, but when Jack Nicholson’s head pops into the room where his wife is hiding and he bellows: ‘HERE’S JOHNNYYYYYYYY! oh man. It helps that Jack really is a little crazy. Great stuff.
Poltergeist!!! oh my god that scared the hell out of me! “They only moved the bodies!!” that damn clown under the bed made me hate clowns forever and the tree eating the brother…oh and dont forget when the guy ripped his own face off and the creepy little woman that helped the family! if i was around any tv that went “snowy” i freaked out and turned it off cuse i knew i would be sucked in just like Carolanne!
I remember my mom & I watching He Knows Your Alone. That night I slept in her room with the light on because we were both scared. The next day she gave away our fishtank because of the scene with the room mates decapitated head sitting in the fishtank. I will always remember the way the girls hair floated in the water.
I remember I couldn’t even swim in our above-ground pool after being tricked into watching “Jaws” by my older cousins. I had even convinced myself the world flooded at night and the shark would come crashing in through my bedroom window.
When the witch writes Dorothy’s name in the sky – truly terrifying – in fact, another ‘evil writes your name’ scare is the original The Haunting of Hill House, when the ‘house’ writes Eleanor or come home, Eleanor by the staircase- yikes, what’s with the whole writing your name thing and why is that so scary?!!! The dismemberment deal in Time After Time, Mary Steenbergen….Alfred’s Hitchcock’s shocking serial rapist and killer thing, Frenzy – saw THAT on a date – not a good feeling, seeing that movie on a date, not a good feeling at all, we both were slunk down in our seats, no hand holding, yeeeikes.
CANDYMAN
seriously to this day my sister loves to tease me in front of the mirror by saying the name over and over…I hate her sometimes.
This is no way near being a horror film, however the so-called dark spirits in “Ghost” that take Willie & Carl away, have always scared the crap out of me, particularly the scene where you glimpse their skeletal faces. To this day, I have to cover my eyes at that part of the movie. Any time I don’t hide my eyes, those things end up in my dreams that night! And I’m 28!!
Not a movie but RL Stein’s goosebumps show had an episode with an evil talking dummy.
I hate ventriloquists to this day.
I had a hard time sleeping the first night after I watched CLUE on HBO. Looking back on it now, I really don’t know what I was so scared of. Tim Curry? Martin Mull? I have no idea.
when i was a kid, i carried around a toy named “my buddy” everywhere i went. we were best friends. until my sister snuck me in to see “child’s play.” chucky and my buddy looked exactly alike! when i went home, i couldn’t sleep because i thought my buddy was going to kill me in my sleep. so i did the logical thing any 6 year old boy would do: i threw my buddy out the window. and the next day, while i was out at the park, my mom found him in her outside flowerbed. and thinking i had just dropped him, she PUT HIM BACK IN MY ROOM (and opened some windows to let the room air out, of course). to this day i still remember that moment when i walked in to my bedroom to find my buddy sitting on my bed, waiting for me. and it still makes me scared.
Although not a horror movie, Time Bandits definitely scarred me for life. I saw it in the theater when I was about 6, and all I remember is being completely horrified by the ending with the microwave (or was it a toaster?).
I agree with the posts about “Poltergiest” – but my mom’s name is “Carol Anne” so now the movie is just damn funny.
My vote goes to Steven King’s Salem’s Lot – the original, not the TV version. I saw it when I was like, 9, and slept with a glow in the dark rosary for at least a year. And I am NOT catholic.
My Dad took me to see the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers when I was 6 years old- I was so freaked out by this movie, couldn’t sleep for weeks- tried to watch it again when I was 15- couldn’t get through it. I’m 35 now and I still havn’t been able to watch it. Two other movies: 1) The Elephant Man and 2) The Fly (original)- just hearing “Help Me” freaks me out- even typing it was hard!!
I was not aloud to watch horror movies when I was a kid because of my over active imagination. However, at one sleepover my cousins and I watched Candyman. Needless to say afterward I could not sleep. I ended up having to call my Dad at 3am to get me. He was not happy about the 45 minute drive. To make matters worse “I Am a Walrus” came on the radio on the way home. The combination of fright and trippy song did not go over well. I didn’t sleep for days!
The movie “It” didn’t scare me as much as the book did – and it’s PENNYWISE the clown – but the one I truly had nightmares from was “The Exorcist.” It was one of the first movies I ever saw in a theater and something about the demons vs. the priests – good v. evil, God v. Satan – scared me more than any slasher film ever could. Though I read the book afterwards too, nothing could ever make me sit through another screening of the movie to this day. And those recently released pictures describing scenes that were cut – the spider walk down the stairs? OMG! That’s enough to send me running.
Gotta put my two cents in for Poltergeist–had nightmares things were flying around my room. Still get scared thinking about the original Amityville Horror (the original). Haven’t watched since I first saw it, with that blood dripping down the walls. Yeesh.
When I first saw the Exorcist, I couldn’t even sit all the way through it. I had to stop midway and finish in the morning when it wasn’t so dark. The second one is Candyman. The first two acts, the last part of the movie falls apart but it’s a great story with an incredible villan from jump!