Horror or Scary Movies...

I'm curious what movies scared you as a kid...

I'm watching The People Under the Stairs... which as a kid scared the hell out of me and the only other movie that gave me nightmares was Arachnophobia. Both of which still give me chills when I watch them but I don't get scared by other movies... just curious what horror or scary movies that did the same to you...

 

The original Fright Night scared the holy bejeezus out of me as a kid. I couldn't walk into my mother's bedroom for years without having the image of the kids mom rolling over all creepy like.

Ummm...
Leprechaun
Troll
Chuckie
Jurassic Park
CHUD

I was easily freaked out as a kid.

 

For the most part, I wasn't allowed to watch scary movies as a kid. I did manage to catch the Blob, which is really, really hokey... but there's a scene where these two teens are up at Makeout Point or whatever, and the girl either passes out or falls asleep. The guy's all, "okay, I'm gonna unbutton your blouse and feel you up now." As he reaches down her shirt, her face like....deflates ('cause the Blob got her, I guess.) Anyway, that scared the absolute SHIT out of me for some reason.

I remember watching the Shining with my brother, and laughing our asses off. I'm pretty sure we freaked our mom out, because she gave us that "oh my god, my kids are gonna be serial killers" look. The next weekend, she rented Silence of the Lambs, and um...we didn't laugh at that one.

Oh, and It. That's probably the reason I hate clowns so much now. *shudder*

 

I forgot about IT.... that was an amazing scary movie.... I thought it was very well done... one of the best scary movies I've seen.

 

The Exorcist, of course, but as an adult I find Jason Miller to be very yummy, so it has evolved into an erotic film. Enter my Priest fetish, again.
One movie, that scared the bejesus outta me was called "The Pack". It was about a pack of killer dogs and was really graphic.

I still sleep with my blanket over my head and prefer cats.

 

I have collected some of the worst horror movies of all time just to amuse my kids. My personal favourite is Gorgo, but that never scared me. Believe it or not, the movie that scared me most was the original Godzilla movie (well, the American version Godzilla, King of the Monsters). I saw it on TV when I was about 6 (one of my earliest memories).

 

I can't remember scary movies as a kid--just TV shows like The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone.
An old black and white version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was pretty good. Saw that as a teenager after I saw the remake with Donald Sutherland.
All the Japanese-made Godzilla vs. Megatron flicks and the like looked silly so no scares for me.
I was dropped off at the theatre at about age 10--alone--to watch a re-issue of Vincent Price's "House of Wax'. It was entertaining but not scary.
The Thing, which I watched after the Kurt Russell remake of the The Thing, creeped me out.
I sneeked in the theatre at age 12 to see The Exorcist with my gf's. It was over-the-top and not at all scary.
I was young (teenage) but not a kid when 'Alien' came out and it was and remains the scariest movie I've yet seen.

 

In terms of just scaring you out of your pants with simple suspense, it's hard to outdo the simplicity of Alfred Hitchcock. His were true SUSPENSE movies, not horror or monster movies, and he knew how to build it up to a frightening crescendo. And having Grace Kelly around was always enough to keep your attention focused exactly where he wanted it. Rear Window remains a scare-suspense classic.

 

There was a movie I saw as a kid that I can't remember the name of, but scared the hell out of me, and I don't think it's been on tv in 30 years, let alone put on DVD.

It was about this couple running from a mud monster. The lady makes her way into a cabin and the mud monster is trying to push the door open and she's trying to shut it.
He gets his arm through the opening, but she manages to slam the door shut. It slices his arm off, and if I recall correctly, the arm is wriggling all over the floor.
The next scene I recall, is there's an outside shot of a covered garage next to the cabin, with a Jeep in it and a dog somewhere nearby. I remember hearing the dog barking then cut off abruptly with a yelp as if the mud monster killed it.

And the last scene I can remember of the film is when they figure out how to kill it.
The get it to chase them toward a cliff overlooking the ocean and somehow drive it over the cliff into the saltwater, which is what kills it.

You know, cause saltwater and mud don't mix.

Anyway, I think I was around 5 or so when I saw this, and it must have been on tv. My parents wouldn't have taken me to the movies to this kind of picture. It was the most I remember being scared watching a movie.

 

It's funny, I was thinking about this thread and realized that my parents never
let me watch scary movies. The ones I did catch were at friends' houses.
The sheer terror of my youth was from books.
I read a lot of horror novels in my younger adolescence... I started Stephen King's
works when I was about 12. To this day, I remember running across my room
from the bathroom and jumping into my bed because I was terrified Pennywise
would reach out and grab my ankles. I got really nervous every time I smelled
oranges after finishing The Shining and refused to read Pet Semetary or Cujo.
Still haven't, to this day. I did get through a lot, though.
Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park was when I was around 13 or 14... the hot water
heater creaking became the velociraptors in my dreams. Imagine my terror when
they actually released the movie.
What I learned is that my imagination is far more frightening than that of any movie director.

 

dont know if this is the best thread, but I strongly, strongly recommend watching "Cabin in the woods." And I recommend doing so while knowing as little as possible about the movie.

 

I was another sheltered kid who only got to see scary movies at friend's houses. I did see the tv movie Dark Night of the Scarecrow at home and I can still remember it scaring the hell out of me. In my early teens we would ride down to the movie rental store and rent VHS copies of B horror movies and watch them all night. Slumber Party Massacre, Toolbox Murders, all the Friday the 13ths. Ah, nostalgia.

Interestingly, a lot of those movies are now on Netflix streaming. Fun to watch and laugh at on a Saturday night.

 

Alfred Hitchcock was the greatest! My favorite was "The Birds". Totally freaked me out for months. Hitchcock was a mastermind totally.

 

I could never stand the gore and the jump scares so even though I grew up in the 80's, I never saw Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday 13th etc... Hell, I closed my eyes during the entire Rancor scene of ROTJ.

Watching Doctor Who in the early 80's (Tom Baker FTW!) I'd stand at the tv control so I could switch to the channel and away from it if I got too scared. It was both terrifying and fascinating.

I remember watching Das Boot with my parents in fourth grade and read lots of Stephen King so it's not like I was totally sheltered. I just hated the Horror movie experience.

Today I can handle a bit of gore in an action film but I'm still not intrested in any kind of gore-porn movie. The Cabin in the Woods sounds like a fun premise but no way am I going to sit in a theatre and be manipulated like that.

 

Suddenly:

 

I used to watch a lot of horror films but I just don't do it much anymore. The quality of these sorts of films has kind of fallen by the wayside. The last film I saw that actually scared/creeped me out was The Ring.

Since then, the genre has devolved into torture films or way too smug self-referential films that stopped being cool after Evil Dead 3 (though I am sure new audiences will find them fun).

The film I was most scared by as a little kid was Karen Black's trilogy of terror. That Zuni Fetish doll chasing her around the apartment was terrifying to a little kid. Now, it's just comical.

 

I've never really cared for the genre. Creepy music starts, young lady (couple) enters darken (room, woods, street... whatever) and someone jumps out and (stabs, chainsaws, axes, crossbows... whatever) and they're killed. This, of course, happens with a lot of blood and body flying. Just too predictable. Though I will admit when I was 4 or 5 my family watched some made for TV Wolfman movie and I ended sleeping in my parent room.

 

Never really been one for slasher flicks; I've grown to LOVE suspense. Identity, with John Cusack, kept me on edge for the entire film. Never gave me nightmares, though. I grew up on Twilight Zone. Love it to this day. The theme music sends a thrill up my spine. It's got to be the original, of course; none of this mid-'80s revamp BS. If I don't see Rod Serling, it's not the freaking Twilight Zone. Two episodes in particular--Cesar and Me, and I can't recall the other title just now--are the reason I can't stand old-style ventriloquist dummies. Little bastards give me the willies.