My mother used to make me watch scary movies with her to toughen me up.
Gave me nightmares for years.
PugMary sounds like a difficult woman to grow up with, sorry you had to go through that.
She was a single mother with somewhat archaic ideas of what a boy should learn from his father, and as I had no father in the picture, she took the task upon herself.
It was a mixed bag. But she was sincerely trying her best out of parental love, and I didn't turn out too fucked up, so mostly I look back on it with amusement.
I'm my experience the people that watch too many scary movies are the most scared of the world around them lol. they're the ones that will hear a noise and assume it's a killer or a ghost, rather than go see what the noise was.
Help! Thedirtyknapkin is attacking me!
Like, fuck, don't you want to see the ghost? It's all sparkly and floating and stuff! Think how much others would pay to see this that you get absolutely free! :-P
My first "too scary" movie was the 1999 cinematic masterpiece The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser. For those unfamiliar: not very scary at all, but I was probably eight when I saw it.
My siblings and I would fight over who got to sleep with the cat - in the movie the mummy is scared away by cats. Anybody who owns a cat knows this is a pointless argument, and the cat sleeps with who it wants.
The cat probably sleeps with whomever doesn't want the cat to sleep with them.
The scary movie that got me was No Man's Land. A serial killer kills himself to avoid being taken to prison and his ghost traps the whole town while he goes on a killing spree.
I watched it again years later and it wasn't nearly as scary as I remembered. I was like 12 and it was 2 in the morning, so it chilled my sleep deprived self to the bone.
Oddly enough, this movie wasn't what gavee the worst nightmare I ever had. That honor belongs to the kids show Chalk Zone. The episode with the pink, hair eating frogs scared me in my dreams so bad I still get goosebumps just remembering it.
You know what, I could see it. I wouldn't want to run into one of these frogs in a dark alley.
spoiler
Pet Semetary for me lol
I was terrified by Critters when I was a kid. It's not even remotely scary as an adult, but for sheltered little me it was traumatizing.
The mummy, then, The Ring. The Ring doesn't really hold up, but goddamn that movie was the pinnacle for its timem
The ring definitely fucked me up as a kid too haha. Couldn't be in the same room as a TV by myself for a bit
I begged to see Poltergeist when it came out in 1982, I was 11. One of my main arguments was that it was only rated PG, ET came out the same year and it was rated PG; the PG-13 rating didn't exist yet.
I did not sleep in my room for 3 months after that and when I finally was able to go back all my stuffed animals had to be out of the room.
I have never found another movie again that scared me so much and I have seen more horror movies than I could count.
Holy shit! I was the same exact age! Yeah, didn't sleep for weeks.
Wife and I just watched it Sunday. She wasn't impressed.
I had my wife watch it too and she did not get why it was so scary. It was very disappointing. 😂
For me it was the multi-legged gargantuan monster at the top of the stairs, and something in the way the psychic described "the beast" that really struck terror in my poor preteen heart.
Oh and the guy ripping his own face off in the mirror! 😱
My experience with this was event horizon, "where we're going, you won't need eyes to see". Man, I didn't sleep right for months. No horror movie has scared me as much as that one
That and Jacob's Ladder are the scariest movies I've ever seen. Sure, there are movies with more gore, or more jump scares, or creepier, but those two movies found a perfect combination of all those things, and executed it masterfully.
This happened to me. Same film. The eyes in the guys hand and when that red guy. Appeared. I was way too young for that film. It stuck with me for decades.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind terrified me as a kid. Not because of the alien shit, but because the thought of a vacuum turning on and running by itself was just the most horrific thing I could imagine.
I didn't realize my cat had a Lemmy account.
Not to scare you, but those vacuums exist.
Me and you both.
For me it was the original Poltergeist when I was 8 or so.
And later I found out the skeletons in the graveyard scene were actual dead bodies. Yum.
True story. Real ones were cheaper than props.
Same thing happened in Apocalypse Now. The actors didn't know until after.
Oh man. Yeah. That movie scarred me for life.
It was Stephen King's IT for me. I don't know how young I was, but too young.
As a (probably too young) kid, I had already seen some Jason and Michael Myers... but IT was the one that made me afraid to go to sleep after watching it. It's the one that I still remember the fear and remember exactly where I was when I watched it
I rewatched that a couple years ago on Halloween night. I can't understand why I was so scared as a kid. It's a silly movie, and quite cheesy too.
Yeah, I think I was maybe 5 or 6? Wicked bad choice.
I was about 5 when my dad had me watch Candyman 2 with him. I wouldn't go in front of a mirror for over a year afterward.
I was 3 when my babysitter decided to show me Child's Play. That's bad enough on its own. But did you know that the Good Guy doll that Chucky possesses in the movie was based on a real doll on the market at that time, the My Buddy doll? And did you know that I had a My Buddy doll that I slept with every night? And did you know that the only way to keep your doll from murdering you and your family is to bury it in the closet under as many books, toys, blankets and dirty clothes as possible and never step foot in that closet again? I DO! My Buddy got banished until I was probably 8 years old
I too had a My Buddy doll. He was cool, until he wasn't. And he was also banished to the attic closet in my room... and never received a pardon
I still remember the My Buddy and Kid Sister ad jingles 🫣
My dad did this too! It was more like he would just leave them on the TV, though, and not as much having me sit down with him to watch. It kinda let me tap out whenever, but boy did I get real scared at times.
I remember when Signs was on once, that one got me. Anything that vaguely sounded like clicking at night would have me sweating, haha. We had this fish tank and the filter noises from it would keep me up for hours just listening in case it was an alien.
All that said, I remember those things as a quirky and kinda fun memory now, and probably was what got me into scary movies as an adult.
If you haven't seen this movie, and you have any tolerance for scary movies, stop reading and go watch this movie
Let's make a high stress movie in one of the scariest environments possible.
"Okay but what if the main character has legit psychological trauma that we watch" I mean sure.
"And what if we add some of the freakiest and most unexpected jump scares before they get to the scary part?". Okay..
"And what if this naturally scary environment also had monsters?". What sort of writer are you?
"And what if we didn't introduce the actors to the monsters until we were actually filming the scene, so their reactions are as legitimate as possible?" That would certainly be horrifying
"And what if the monsters were humanoid, and the humans were monstrous?" You seem to have some experience being a monstrous human.
"And what if we made multiple endings, each of them equally ambiguous about the main characters future?" Are you a monster? You are a monster aren't you.
Yeah, I love this movie. Like first of all, Wendigos are dope. I feel like the top three pieces of Wendigo media are: The Descent, Supernatural S1E2, and Until Dawn.
Second of all, well you described it perfectly. The trauma backstory felt deep and impactful - especially with the real ending (not the US one that lines up the sequel).
I still think that scene where Rebecca free climbs across the chasm is the most terrifying part of the movie lmao. No monsters yet and I'm already screaming
DO NOT DO THIS.
Fuck, that someone needs to be told not to fuck up their child like this. We don’t have time to be this stupid
Like the parents of one of these girls who had her watch a ton of scary movies?
The Descent scared the sh*t out of me. That one jumpscare was so unexpected and so intense that my body couldn't even react to it, I just got massive chills all the way through without moving. It was surreal. Letting your kid watch this is just insane
I had the same experience when i watched it. The uncanny feeling lingered for a few days.
But, idk ... For me, it was a mistake to watch it again. Knowing what to expect, i paid more attention to everything else and i didn't like it, i don't remember why exactly.
There being 2 endings didn't help my mind when I watched it a second time and had a completely different experience.... I was like, wtf, I know this is the same movie, but why do I feel so very different.
Ugh fuck just about everything about this movie. It was a masterpiece.
Let's put extremely normal and relatable people into a pretty normal situation with pretty good intentions, then let's have them do a somewhat risky hobby in a somewhat stressful environment, then let's have normal reactions to some pretty fucked up, high stress situations, then let's fucking have some pretty fucked up relationship stuff come out and some pretty understandable reactions to it, then let's add some fucking fucked up fucking fuck fucks who may or may not be human and may or may not be looking to eat or just getting off on fucking people up. And then let's have just the tiniest but it reminder of normalcy fuck up everything that wasn't fucked before. And then you don't know which ending you're getting, and you don't know which one is technically better for the characters.
Sometimes it works out, though!
From a very early age, my parents let me watch increasingly scary stuff thinking I'd eventually hit a limit on what I could handle, but I feel like even as a youngster I was pretty aware that it was not real. Never got nightmares or anything like that. Horror movies and scary sci-fi movies were always my favorites and I still love them to this day.
The Descent is a fucked up scary movie, then the monster Falmer people show up and it's spooky too I guess
Yeah. The blood and creeps are a bit goofy, but the claustrophobia is palpable!
Descent and its sequel (though cursed by virtue of being a sequel) were great. In general, women-led horror movies are awesome when done right, like having women in characters who self actualize instead being used as a filler or sideshow.
Some others include Ginger Snaps (and its second movie), Alien (don’t like the sequels), Scream, and Piggy (2022). Evil Dead as a franchise does not have a female lead (I am not that familiar with this franchise), but Evil Dead Rise was executed really well, and worked on many levels.
Evil Dead is... not the first title that comes to mind when discussing feminism. Too much tree branch rape.
You'd like "behind the mask the rise of leslie vernon". That's one of the core themes.
Yeah what I want out of a good entertaining Friday night film is shallow in your face Hollywood pandering on female empowerment and gender equality. It just makes for such a good cinematic experience.
For me it was gremlins, I was like 8. The end scene with the one that pops out of the fountain, that shit scared the living fuck outta me.
Also being forced to go see Lost Boys with my sister at 10 years old while sick with the flu, because my parents had a date and didn't want to reschedule or some shit. That movie wasn't THAT scary, but when you already feel like absolute shit........
Corey Haim is utterly terrifying in Lost Boys. Truly demonic performance.
Gremlins was actually a huge part of the reason for the PG-13 rating, alongside Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The G rating was starting to gain a stigma for childishness so kids' movies would throw in a damn or hell to get a PG rating, and movies that almost but didn't quite cross the threshold for R landed in PG alongside them. This added up to parents thinking "hey it's PG, so it's family-friendly", and ended up with traumatized kids.
Wow I thought I was alone. Gremlins scarred me as a child.
I was already a teenager, but The Blair Witch Project made me quite scared of the forest after dark. Didn't help that we lived right next to a completely overgrown property (it essentially was a forest... a whole family of foxes lived in there) with an old unused house in the middle of it.
Anyway... the psychological horror of that movie was intense. Jump scares I can get over, but the perceived fear of the actors and that ending in the cellar burned itself into my brain.
If I enter a room and someone is facing the corner, I will die. Just writing that has me feeling terror.
That setup was done so cleverly. They only dropped this in a tale in the beginning (that a child had to stand in the corner while the other child was being gutted alive) and then don't mention it a single time for the next 60 minutes and then BOOM, your brain still connects these dots immediately and it hits far more than if they actually showed one of the people being gutted. Just that abstract fear of what looks like will likely happen ... damn.
I remember all my friends losing their shit over the Blair Witch project, so maybe I went in over hyped, but I didn't think it was scary at all.
One night as a teen, I was staying with some cousins and we were just goofing about and shooting the shit for a whole weekend. When we went to sleep we decided to watch a movie on cable. We eventually landed on a choice between Blair Witch and The Parent Trap. Three tough teens, landed on the decision to just watch the latter because we had already seen the Blair Witch before as kids and we were just scarred by the impression the movie had left in us.
Watched it later again as an older adult and it certainly isn't really all that much. It was revolutionary horror at the time, but it still leans heavily on the “bunch of idiot young adults who have no critical thinking skills make a long string of bad decisions, get killed” trope.
Same here. I thought it was super stupid, but everyone back then was like aaaaaa scariest movie ever zomg. I felt the same about the Ring, or any Japanese or Korean horror. Still kind of do.
I like the blair pimp project way more
You might have done some emotional damage there lol
My parents took me to see aliens when I was a we lad. To this day I am terrified of the alien series.
I'm a grown ass man and I occasionally still have nightmares about xenomorphs.
There were two that really left me scarred in retrospect.
There was this weird 70s or early 80s movie and this scene with these doll things coming to life in this small quarters.. like a genie bottle or some alien ship.. I think there was like satin and shit.. and the doll things had these sharp teeth and started biting this woman trapped in there.. and they all swarm her and overcome her.. 35 yrs later.. if anyone knows the name.... Please help?
The Accused.. saw that way too early.
Oh, and the song Hungry Eyes...
I think the film you are thinking of with the dolls is Barbarella (1968).
OMG decades of wonder and I've heard the name of this film a billion times let alone the Scott Weiland song.
Just watched the clip. So I remember there being more dolls and it being more closed in like the lamp in I Dream of Genie. But the image of the stocking ripping and the wound looks familiar.
Terror as a child. Campy af and no wonder mom had no idea it was scarring, as an adult.
Regarding the doll coming to life movie, was it [Trilogy of Terror](Trilogy of Terror https://g.co/kgs/gKb1fTb)? My wife and I vividly recall this movie from our childhood and it definitely scared the crap out of me. The movie was a collection of 3 stories but the one with the doll is the only one people seem to remember.
This looks ridiculous! But no it has a ton of dolls
Mine was Child's Play when I was 7.
Though by then, I was a little familiar with scary things from trying to play Doom and the like, so it was just a couple nights of bad sleep. Not that I wasn't a little scaredy cat. Took me in to my teens to beat Doom without cheat codes.
nope. I still hate ventriloquist dummies and similar things because of that film.
I remember saying, "I don't get why people are afraid of dolls!" before my parents tried to shoo me out of the room just to concede because I could articulate interest in a scary thing.
I definitely wasn't saying that after watching Child's Play! The funniest thing to me is, I rewatched it a couple years back, and... it's not very scary by today's standards. It almost boring since it relies on a lot of natural suspense and atmosphere that doesn't quite work when you're not feeling the suspense so much.
My genius parents took my brother and I to see SCANNERS in the theater.
Watched the whole fucking thing.
But that was back when your parents could beat you for waking them up at night with nightmares so I don't think it ruined their night.
Watched that movie for the first time recently. Man does it read like a low budget movie nowadays.
Ironically I totally dig the movie's effects today, there's a whole shotgun setup they used that is awesome. https://slate.com/culture/2014/07/scanners-exploding-head-scene-how-they-shot-it-as-revealed-on-the-new-criterion-collection-dvd-video.html
Me and my friends watched The Human Centepiede, when we we're 12 years old. God, sometimes I wish I could just go back in time.
and see it again for the first time?
Hell no 🤣
Split second is the horror movie I saw way too early in my life. I can't remember the circumstances but I may have been 4-5 seeing a particularly scary scene in the basement of my grandparents house.
Descent would have fucked me up, the claustrophobia messed with me seeing it as an adult.
That reminds me that my most terrifying movie scene as a kid wasn't actually an scary movie.
It was a movie with a scene were the toilet talks or acts as he is going to eat the kid, can't quite remember the details. The trauma was serious I couldn't go to the bathroom to take a shit without feeling weird, terrified that it would bite my ass and all that, I tried to avoid going as long as possible....
I can't seem to find the movie or the scene, all I see is a scene from Look Who Is Talking but that's not it. I did see it like later on life and I think it was like in a public bathroom and maybe the kid kind of had a daydream.... But honestly no clue, I couldn't find it.
The toilet scene from "Look Who's Talking Too" was the one that scared the shit outta me as a kid. Not sure which one scarred you, but I'm more curious as to why "scary toilets" was ever a thing to begin with
I just watched this movie in it's entirety for the 1st time, a month ago. It took me 3 "Yea, NOPE"s to successfully get thru the scene where the two are stuck in the narrow passage and the Earth shifts. I still cringe thinking about it.
I watched that movie when it came out and i didn't get anything out of it. I recently rewatched it and i noped so often out.
Whoa. This movie fucked me up as a grown-ass adult. Poor kid must have had nightmares for a whole year after that.
My first terror movie was The Shining when I was 5-7 and after that nothing was too scary to be honest. I remember my mum telling me that there was a whole bunch of people working behind what we see and that made it easier. I am still a fan of horror movies and I enjoy a good scare!
I saw the shining at around that age too and I didn't find it scary at all. Then I saw the ring and it was scary. I was always afraid that the woman is coming from somewhere until I got annoyed of being scared and started pointing middlefinger to anywhere I thought she would appear from and I was no longer afraid. Later when my little brother was having recurring nightmares I told him the power of middlefinger and next time he had it instead of running away from the boogieman he showed middlefinger to it and he no longer got those nightmares.
That was the best big brother moment I ever had :D
What a cool technique!
Such a lovely memory. You truly come to cherish these moments in retrospect
Had to stay with Aunt and uncle on weekends for a long time when I was about 7 or so. I was the oldest cousin on that whole side of the family, so I guess they overestimated me? I had nightmares all night after Predator 2. Could do scary after that.
My son was 8 when we sat down to watch the first Jurassic Park movie. He was shaking at the end. I learned a great lesson that day.
Ahh man, lil me was a dinosaur kid and loved that movie. Had it on repeat
Buuut I definitely remember the first scene with the raptor in the cage being all glitched up from fast forwarding the VHS so much haha
I was this kid. I ran out of the room before the trex got out of the paddock. I couldn't watch the movie till I was in my 20's...
Watched Seven when I was 11 or 12, such a fucked up movie.
Unironically. Watching that movie at 10 made me an atheist for life. From then on, I couldn't go to mass or listen to a priest without perceiving it as cynical and perverse. Churches started to creep me out, having a dead dude being tortured tied to a cross and demanding everyone to feel anything other than disgust is perverse in itself.
Horror fans: Haha this traumatized me for years, wanna watch?
I need help finding a horror movie (at least I think it was a horror movie, maybe horror/comedy). The ending has a woman kissing a big furry monster.
Beauty and the beast
Truly terrifying piece of animation.
Star Wars
You're thinking of Sesame Street.
For some reason the movie the dark Crystal had me fucked up when I was like 5years old.
Dude, The Dark Crystal was unnerving when I first saw it almost 20 years old in the late 90s. I don't think you were wrong there.
The Dark Cauldron was the first movie I walked out of when I was 5, followed the next year with Return To OZ
Unnerving! What a great word for it.
Feel like it applies to a lot of kid scary actually.. like Goosebumps or the carnival scene in Big.. just like lingering uneasiness
The 80s were a wild time for kids movies. I loved The Labyrinth but the scene where the puppets took their heads off and played soccer was unsettling. I still don't like that part.
My husband wanted to throw on The Secret of Nimh for our 5yo twins. He was sitting there confused why I would object, "it's rated G." It's 1980s G; that's a Don
BleuthBluth animation! "It will be fine! Come on kids, this is a movie Mommy and Daddy watched when we were kids." I got up to get a blanket in preparation for the inevitable hiding behind a blanket moments.
When my youngest sister was about 7 (18 years between us), all of the adults were watching this movie in the living room while the kids were playing outside and in the rooms with outdoor access. She came into the living room to talk to my parents about something and got terrified by the movie. She was balling and screaming while covering her ears as she continuously ran in and out of the living room while staring at the screen. She was stuck in some terror loop. Finally, my other sister just picked her up and carried her elsewhere because nobody else could stop laughing. Poor kid. She's alright now, super smart, responsible, and well adjusted. I'm sure your kid is alright.
She was stuck in some terror loop.
Okay, I can imagine a 7-year old doing this and it is kinda funny. Awful (poor kiddo), but funny.
Glad she turned out okay.
Yeah, it was absurd from our perspective. We all felt bad as well, but it was just so funny at the same time.
Watch screen, I'm terrified and fear for my life due to what is on the screen, quick run to a safe adult.
Runs towards living room, safe adult is sitting right in front of the screen that is scaring me, quick run away.
Runs away, I'm scared and terrified due to what I saw on the screen, quick run to a safe adult.
Ad infinitum.
Watched the original "Chucky" when I was like 10. had nightmares for WEEKS
I also saw the original Chucky movie when I was a kid at a slumber party. I spent a lot of time helping my friend's mom make popcorn.
Fast forward to my early 20s. A friend's 5yo found a Chucky doll at the thrift store. Oh, the poor baby's hurt! I want to take care of the baby and make it better! So her mom buys it for her and she took it EVERYWHERE. I gave that situation sooooo much side eye, I was not ok. The 5yo had zero idea of the context and loved that "hurt baby". My friend made it clear to us that we couldn't explain it to her.
my sister was deathly afraid of it, going as far as trashing any doll that looked like him. troll doll with red hair? nope, trash.
however, she watched that fucking movie every morning before school when she was like 6. wore that vhs tape out.
i personally loved the first 3, didn't get past that. the series is meh, couldn't get past episode 4 knowing that bitch lexy survives for 21 episodes, don't have it in me to watch her at all.
Geez. I have a friend who took his 10 yo son, and a friend to Bad Santa. This fits well with that miss-adventure.
My mom never let me watch scary movies growing up, so when I finally got the watch The Birds at 13 it scared the shit out of me. Couldn't sleep for a few weeks.
I don't watch scary movies still.
We watched The Birds in class in 6th grade, it was lovely. Absolute hysteria modulated by Hitchcock's suspense in between horror.
That teacher molded an entire class, swear.
The Dark Crystal is a good scary movie for kids. The movie that got me scared as a kid was a Ernest Scared Stupid. I can't explain why, that movie scared the shit out of me. After that it was watching The Relic.
I dunno what OP's daughter was watching that wasn't 'scary enough' but going straight to The Descent was a terrible idea.
Ernest Goes to Camp for me. Something really kid scary about those.
Never Ending Story was a mindfuck as well.
I saw Alien and Aliens back to back when I was 4. It was so terrifying, but so cool.
if you want to seal the bad parenthood in, complete it with a night of REC
Pet sematary did this to me
The original one? I still remember that little hand reaching out from under the bed to slice Jud Crandalls Achilles tendon. That and the scene where she's forced to take care of her disabled sister fucked with me for years. Real disturbing stuff for some reason, 10/10.
Gremlins here.
My parents let me stay up to watch Arachnophobia when I was about 6. That movie absolutely fucked me up for the longest time, and it's probably why to this day I'm absolutely terrified of bugs and spiders.
Umm... trigger warning, I guess, but the best way to fight fears that you know to be somewhat irrational is information and exposure. This guy, https://www.youtube.com/@travismcenery2919/videos , has very deep and detailed videos about the spiders you are most likely to meet, along with some cool pressure tests of said spiders showing that they really just want to be left alone rather than hunt you.
I liked spiders to begin with (except for the jerks that spin a single invisible strand at head-height in front of my door every morning), but his videos do a good job of giving them character and making them into cute eight-eyed goofballs instead of super predators.
I was a weird kid. My God parent's son showed me Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the first 3 Friday the 13th movies when I was, like 7 or 8, I think? I don't remember being scared. I do remember being grossed out at a scene from TCM where a dude was pulling maggots off his head, torching them with a lighter and then eating them, tho.
But then Pet Cemetery scared the shit out of me and gave me nightmares for weeks when I saw it at 10 or 11. Not because of the supernatural shit; but because of the flashback scene of the sick sister. The way she looked and how she puked. That's real shit. That can happen to me. An undead kid trying to kill me can't. That's not scary.
I was also very afraid of the tornado in Wizard of Oz as a child. Because tornados are real!
Fuck, I forgot about Pet Semetary. That movie and IT, were the ones that I refused to watch again as a kid. And also, fuck tornadoes. "Twister" didn't really 'scare' me that much when I first saw it, but I wasn't really a fan either... cause fuck tornadoes
The film that broke me as a child was *The Fair-Haired Child". Pretty unknown horror movie but goddamn it was a lot for ~11 year old me.
Oh, and The Outer Limits: Sandkings! Not ostensibly a horror movie but plenty creepy and weird.
