Asklemmy

To be fair, Event Horizon scared me as an adult.

In the vein of “kids are stupid”, the Never-Ending Story scene with the sphinxes.

The aliens from Mars Attacks.

Gremlins. My family will likely never stop making fun of me for it: "Hurr durr but it's a DISNEY movie!!1!"

Fuck you, I was traumatized.

I can't believe I just scrolled through 77 responses and nobody said "Poltergeist" yet!

Creepy clown on the chair, monster unter the bed, tree tapping at the window, coffins in the pool, whispers in the dark ("Get... out..."), little girl staring at static on the TV, etc. So much of it has become tropes now, but that's because they were so effective the first time!

Time Bandits. Because of that move my childhood was plagued with nightmares about little people from out of time invading my room in the middle of the night.

My babysitter showed me Critters (in secret) when I was 5. Rather than be scarred, she turned me into a avid horror fan. I saw all the 80's classics when I was way too young for them thanks to HBO and Cinemax.

None phased me.

Laughably, what finally got me was so mild. In Poltergeist 2 or 3, there's a scene where the kid's reflection no longer mimics his own movements. It's not even the scare, but rather the set-up.

I started staring at mirrors when I was alone, just waiting for my reflection to break into a sinister smile. My fear was, when it did, what would I do? No adult would believe me. Mirrors are unavoidable. Something supernatural would be after me. I knew I wouldn't be able to pull off some "final girl" shit IRL.

The Wizard of Oz. Flying monkeys, evil witch, big green head.

Pet Cemetery.

But not, like, the zombie cat, zombie dog, or zombie kid. What scared me shitless was the short little flashback of the wife's sick sister in bed.

The ring. I had a tv in my bedroom... Dear god I did not sleep the next weeks

Another victim to Event Horizon here, man that film fucked me up for a while.

I am legend

The post apocalyptic movie with Will Smith.

The eerie way the monsters looked, plus the way they stood in a circle in the dark building. It really scared the shit out of me as a kid.

The Blair Witch Project. My cousin told me it was actual found footage, which was a terrifying thought for 10 year old me.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I went for the cartoon characters. The reveal for Judge Doom near the end was terrifying.

Oh, man, Event Horizon was such a movie. "Where we're going, we won't need eyes" haunted me for a long time. And I had no idea it was gonna be a horror movie when I watched it.

Anyway, besides that one, the original Nightmare on Elm Street did me good. It was one of the first horror movies I ever watched, as my dad wanted to share it once he deemed me old enough. There's something so terrifying about having to stay awake to not be murdered, but being powerless to do so. The most terrifying scene to me was the couple, where the woman got dragged across the ceiling and then the guy got arrested for her murder.

Watership Down. It's supposed to be a kids movie but damn is it dark.

Pan's Lanyrinth. The Pale Man haunted 12yo -me's nightmares for a long time.

I'm pretty old, but it was both Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist.

Holy shit. We'd never seen anything like that before

Jurassic Park. I was young and watched it at the cinema. I was limp with terror. On my mother's lap.

I don't remember any nightmares after, but still remember the t-rex and the car scene as particularly terrifying

I apparently had recurring T-Rex-chasing-me nightmares after my grandparents let me watch Jurassic Park when I was like 5 or 6 (they thought it was just a dinosaur movie or something)

Legend (1985). Tim Curry is a brilliant villain.

Honestly? ET scared little me more than it probably should have! That little bastard could pop up anywhere and looked even creepier when he was sick.

Hate that guy.

When I was little, the Gremlins movies terrified me! Not sure why since they're super campy, but 🤷‍♂️ kids are weird.

The ring.

Aliens. Me and my brother sneakily was watching it when our parents were gone, and when that chest-burster came out of that woman, I was out of there like a bat out of hell. Never told my parents, of course - had to protect our VHS privileges and all that.. It's still one of my favorite movies - the original cinematic cut, not the overly long director's cut (which seems to be the only one you can find these days.]

Nightmare on Elm Street... my sister was not a great babysitter.

I'm stretching the definition of "movie", but MJ's Thriller caused me to start screaming when I wandered over to MTV while watching Mr Rogers. My mother ran in and changed the channel. It was on the transformation scene. Whoo!

Pee-wee's Big Adventure. (Hear me out)

This was back in the 80s, when TV screens were glass and shooting a suction cup gun at it was the pinnacle of child entertainment. On one of my retrieval trips, when I was arms length from the screen, Large Marge made "the face." I screamed and ran. I couldn't watch the movie for years afterward. I still get minor anxiety to this day.

At age 8 Critters. I couldn't go to the toilet alone for weeks after seeing once come out of the toilet. It's a PG too!

For reference I'd already watched exorcist by that age as my cousin and I snuck the copy out of my uncle's video shop. Exorcist didn't bother me anywhere near as much!

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Ernest scared stupid. That troll going around at night, sneaking into kids rooms and turning them into wooden figurines was terrifying to my kid brain.

Threads, Growing up near Sheffield and watched it when I was about 12...

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/

Fire in the sky - The scene after he was abducted and wakes up on the UFO always freaked me out as a kid. I remember renting the VHS from Blockbuster back in the day. This was also when shows like Sightings and Unsolved Mystery were popular on TV.

Who the hell let's their child watch event horizon?

Poltergeist. Hated that fucking movie so much. The tall gangly pale man with the wide smile and ghastly voice, that... Thing in the spirit world. Etc

The Mummy (1990s movie, not that Netflix series)

The Exorcist got me pretty good

Salem's Lot (the 1979 mini series). The window scene with the floating kid messed me up real good.

I remember when I has a kid my dad was Watching "Pink Floyd The Wall" and the scene where the kids walked on an assembly line to become sausages scared me a lot. It became kind of a misterious movie to me because the melody was kids popular and I could remember how dark that sensation was.

Many years later I started listening to Pink Floyd and watched the entire movie. I still love it.

ET scared the crap out of me.

When I was a child, Pet Sematary scared the living hell out of me.

Species from 1995. Parents and their friends were watching it and told us to not come in because it was too scary.

I thought they were bullshitting young me...I was wrong. Lol. Had wonderful nightmares for a while.

The aliens in Mars attacks were pretty scary.

1. Dumbo, the pink elephants scene. Genuinely had fever dreams of that when i got sick over the years.

2. New Alcatraz. Granted, it's monster horror that I shouldn't have been watching, but my gramps got annoyed at me because it's "obviously fake"

You watched Event Horizon as a child? Damn, that's rough! I watched it as a young adult on TV thinking it was just normal sci fi and was scared shitless by the end...

As a child there was a part of a movie I watched that gave me nightmares for days. It was someone rubbing a bloody chickens paw on a womans leg. That's it, that's all I saw before my parents yelled for me to go to bed but it haunted me for days.

Weirdly, the original Andromeda Strain scared me more than any gore. It was probably linked to my childhood fear of sirens.

The 1990 remake of the Night of the Living Dead. I was like 10 when I saw it, and then I had to walk through a dark forest alone to get home (I was supposed to walk with older girls but they left me behind). I legitimately thought I was going to die.