The Nightmare Makers

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Those little potato-like demons that lived in the chimney made me very nervous. Of course, we lived in a Victorian house with a fireplace in our bedroom.

Gremlins. Eek.

The House On The Haunted Hill. The original is probably the stupidest movie ever created, especially from today's standards. The skeletons rising up out of the acid pit scared the ---- out of me. Or Twilight Zone's The Dummy. I wrote a short story based on a childhood dream from that.

One of the things that scared me most is actually one of the funniest now. It was an episode from Doctor Who that involved a giant rat that sent me hiding behind the sofa! I distinctly remember seeing glowing red eyes sharp fangs and a blood curdling roar.
Years later when I was all grown up the episode became available to buy on video (this was before dvds had even been heard of) so I couldn't resist buying it.
When I got to that scene I had to laugh. It was a giant cuddly toy rat that someone offscreen was obviously thrusting forward (and not too convincing at that!). No glowing red eyes, no sharp fangs and the "roar" was more like a snuffling!
I swear when you're a child your eyes fill in bits that you think should be there! No wonder my parents laughed at me when I ran and hid! LMAO

My grandmother's backyard. Not a movie I know but it still scared the hell out of me.

That film Werewolf at one point, whilst living in Portugal. Now I'm not quite sure, if I ever did see it, considering we didn't own a television. Well one day after school, I ran home as I thought a Werewolf was chasing me, well it looked like one anyway. A tall man looking very wolfy. After that, it never bothered me again. Got it out of my system after supposedly invisioning one. It might have been my mind playing tricks.

When I first saw the remake of Dawn of the Dead I laughed all the way through. It was a very hillarious film.

Creature from the Black Lagoon.
and one recurring nightmare.

You said as a kid, right? as a slightly older kid - some movie where implants were put in people's heads and they didn't have to use the phone booth any more.

>twitch< too close to real - then. they probably have it now.
No. No ear surgery, thanks. Brain surgery? no. I'll stay stupid. thanks all the same.

Flying monkeys. They still freak me out a little.

OK, I'm weird. Really weird. Somebody, at some point before I turned 10, asked me (what a question to ask a kid), "How do you know you really exist? Maybe you're just a character in somebody else's story."

I swear I lay awake nights worrying about it.

I finally came to the conclusion that since I was aware I was worrying about it, I must really exist. So when I heard Descartes' famous line "I think, therefore I am" I practically cheered. I had a really cool poster version of it up on my wall when I was a teenager.

Other than that, it was the story of the Blob which came the closest to scaring me. I didn't really scare easily. On the other hand, I am easily horrified, which isn't quite the same thing.

that's just cruel, Judg. you just gave me a flashback.

>twitch<

When I was ten, the original Twilight Zone did a story about a little girl who fell out of bed and was sucked into an invisible hole in her wall (leading to another dimension, natch). Her dad had to go in after her, and all the while the wall was sealing itself. With them still inside.

That one gave me the night sh*ts for about a year. Thanks, Rod.

I would like to thank both you AND Kevin for making me think about the same movie in the space of five minutes. IT and that stupid clown gave me nightmares forever.

Also:
Nightmare on Elm Street (never saw it, just from the commercials)
Some black & white camp-go-away & everyone dies film
Exorcist (from a peeked over the couch scenario like you described)
Friday the 13th

I think you get the idea. I have a very vivid imagination and therefore many nightmares.

CaroGirl said:

What scared the bejeepers out of you when you were a kid?

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Hillary said:

The Scary Stories books written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell.

Holy hell, I can still see some of the illustrations in my head... Gah!

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Oh, I loved those books. I have the collected edition. Great stories, truly creepy drawings.

The only movie that ever gave me nightmares was Superman 3. I was pretty young when it came out. It's the part at the end when the older bad lady gets turned into a computer android thingie. Freaked. Me. Out. I hated her. I ran and hid in the kitchen until she was off-screen. She gave me horrible, scary dreams for months afterward.

I was also truly freaked out by the ending of a very bad, 80's slasher film called Slaughter High. I watched it, alone, when I was eleven or so. The only part that frightened me was at the very end of the film, when the badly burned psycho pulls off his bandages, advances on the camera, and cackles like a freak from hell. That laugh just....yeah, so I went and hid behind a chair until the tape stopped and rewound itself.

The movie ET freaked me out...seriously. I still don't really like it.

I won't watch Wizard of Oz either...I hate those monkeys.

Shmoos in the attic
Lake Michigan
Rats
My mother
Little dogs

Lake Michigan? Por que? That's the source of all things pure in holy in my world.

My mother (source of all my insecurity) dragged me out on a breakwater with waves crashing and thrashing and spouting up through the holes (the holes aren't there any more, but it was a feature of the way it was constructed) on an overcast day. I actually love the lake, but I believe that incident inspired many dreams of an inexorable incoming tide chasing me up a slippery slope.

I use to have bad dreams about people being stretched in torture chambers...or getting stuck in a video game. I hated it. Or the most reocurring one where I was paralyzed and zombies were heading towards me and I could do nothing because I was duh...paralyzed!

NYBrit said:

One of the things that scared me most is actually one of the funniest now. It was an episode from Doctor Who that involved a giant rat that sent me hiding behind the sofa! I distinctly remember seeing glowing red eyes sharp fangs and a blood curdling roar.
Years later when I was all grown up the episode became available to buy on video (this was before dvds had even been heard of) so I couldn't resist buying it.
When I got to that scene I had to laugh. It was a giant cuddly toy rat that someone offscreen was obviously thrusting forward (and not too convincing at that!). No glowing red eyes, no sharp fangs and the "roar" was more like a snuffling!
I swear when you're a child your eyes fill in bits that you think should be there! No wonder my parents laughed at me when I ran and hid! LMAO

Click to expand...

The rat in Weng Chiang didn't bother me, but there was a bit in 'Pyramids of Mars' that used to really freak me out as a kid. It's so stupid to watch it now (as a big Dr Who fan, I had the VHS tapes first and am now getting the DVDs), but it was supposed to be the will of the Egyptian god Sutekh invading the TARDIS, and his face floated across the console room with this weird music playing in the background. For some reason that really freaked me out.

The other really stupid thing I watched when I was little was 'Theatre of Blood' with Vincent Price. My mum had taped it by accident and I wasn't supposed to see it, but I had nightmares for days after that. I haven't ever got round to buying it on dvd to reassure myself of its stupidness.

Other than that I had a general fear of bones or skeletons of any kind. I had this thing that there was one under my bed, though I don't know where the hell that came from. I think I was always a strange child.

Apropos of nothing, when I was in college I was on the school paper, and got to interview Vincent Price when he came to speak. Theater of Blood had just come out, and he told me it was the most fun to make of all his films. Neat guy, very cultured, funny as all get-out. Plus I remember he was tall, and his hands were the size of Smithfield hams.

Okay, we now return you to your regularly schduled thread, already in progress.

For some strange reason The Wizard of Oz did. Specifically, The Wicked Witch of the West scared the crap out of me.