What movie did you watch as I kid which you shouldn't have?
What movie did you watch as I kid which you shouldn't have?
My dads brother visited us one time - when I was around 7 years old - and they sent me to bed and watched a movie together on TV. I'm not sure where my mom was, perhaps taking care of my little brother, but I quietly went down the stairs and saw them watching the movie, and I stayed very quietly so they would not know I'm there.
It was a Bruce Lee movie, "The Big Boss (1971)". In that movie Bruce works at a ice factory and his boss kills some people and puts them into the ice. That's not the worst of it. They then have those big ice blocks and a big blade saw and that saw cuts the big blocks into smaller peaces. It also cuts those bodies in the ice blocks into smaller pieces.
I couldn't believe what I saw and went back upstairs and couldn't fall asleep. I never told my parents.
I watched Event Horizon when I was 10 not knowing it was an horror movie and I had recurring nightmares for weeks
Same. Where we're going, we don't need eyes.
Same but I was in my mid twenties.
The director's cut would have been a classic for the ages.
I saw this in my 20s as well, somehow never having heard a thing about it. I thought it was gonna be a standard sci-fi movie. Boy was I surprised.
Also, I've heard about that lost footage that they filmed but never released. Shit sounds wild.
Watch a movie called Demon Wind when I was 9. Only scary movie that ever got to me and I had been watching them since I was 5. But for whatever reason that movie fuck me up that I had accident in bed.
Funny watch that movie as an adult and it so bad and corny but it disturb me at 9.
The brothers Grimm for me. I don't see many people discussing it online, but I enjoyed it. That scene where the horse eats a kid is still distressing to me years later.
I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I saw Akira when I was four and my brother was three. Our dad picked it out because "animation is for children".
I can't remember much of it but it left me with a deep distate for body horror and nightmares for literal weeks.
I wasn't that young, maybe 8 but that movie still fucked me up. The hospital scene with the stuffed animals coming alive and breaking apart was and is super scary.
Ninja Scroll for me, my dad let me rent it when I was very young and I was like “holy heck what is this”
The Brave Little Toaster. I loved that movie cause what little kid doesn't want to watch a bunch of singing appliances? It's actually a really good movie but the themes about existential crisis and the need for purpose are way over a kids head. Also, the clown scene gave me nightmares.
The fucking magnet in the junkyard scared me so much
run
"I once ran the Indy 500. I must confess I'm impressed how I did it I wonder how close that I came."
"WORTHLESS!!"
Chucky, and I was quite young maybe 6 or 8? I had nightmares about that fucking doll for years after.
The blanket was my favorite character
Jaws. Watched it when I was about 8. Now in my 40s and still don't like being in open water or sea where I can't see the bottom... I know what's down there...
Same movie, same age, same irrational thoughts in water!
I live 3hrs from the coast and even swimming in a crystal clear fresh water river, it's still in the back of my mind as an adult, as I kid, I wouldn't even swim a alone in our pool!
Stephen King's IT was broadcast on network TV during primetime. I remember being excited to gather around the TV to watch a movie and oooooh boy was not prepared. I don't think my parents let me finish.
I remember hearing about IT from other kids, and them describing all these horrific things that happen. When I watched it as an adult I couldn't believe how tame it was. Everything had been exaggerated, and some of it was probably being confused with things from other movies.
I finished it! Couldn't take a shower without fear or let my feet stick out from the blankets for years. Definitely the one that scarred me most, likely because I was in 1st grade.
Lol I think we're around the same age. Definitely too young for evil clown Tim Curry.
I was watching IT at my grandma's and she just saw the clown at the beginning and thought it must be kids movie. But eventually my mum came home and stopped it (also my grandma got yelled at).
The Mummy. Terrified me. Which is hilarious because now I laugh at it, both because it is largely comedic but also it's so corny.
The fucking bugs under the skin.
Nightmares for weeks.
The scene with the guy without eyes and a tongue is imprinted into my mind because I happened to look at the TV just as that happened. I don't even remember how old I was, but definitely way under 10.
This really creepy Czech Alice in Wonderland movie. It used stop motion with animal skeletons, fish heads, and tons of other things.
My mom put it on when I was little in an attempt to keep me occupied.
“Would you like to watch Alice in Wonderland, Thelsim?” She’d ask.
“Yea!” I would shout enthusiastically, thinking she meant the Disney movie.
Half an hour later I’m crying and hiding under the blankets.I never did watch that movie again. Maybe it’s not so bad now, but the screenshots still make feel very queasy.
A sample 🫣
Pretty sure that's a horse skull, and holy fuck, why was that ever made?
Edit: probably not a horse, but some kind of ungulate.
I watched this movie in collage! It is definitely creepy and unsettling the whole way through. I never had a desire to watch it again either.
Jeeeebus!
It's on YouTube
Thank you. I wonder how many time Tim Burton watched that.
Yeah watched it too early as well. I'm watching it again now and it's much better than I remembered.
The Shining
I must have seen it at a very early age, maybe 2 or 3, because I had recurring nightmares about the chase scene that I couldn't contextualize until I saw it again in my teens.
This was mine too. The bathtub scene with the lady gave me nightmares for weeks.
An American Werewolf in London.
I stayed up watching it on my brother's black and white TV. My parents had no idea. I nearly shit the bed afterward when my brother jumped on me in the dark and yelled "raaaah."
Terminator 2. Also Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Oh and a glimpse of Silence of the lambs before I got caught by mum that time.
The heart part in Indiana Jones haunted me. as did the idea of a killer robot that you can’t reason with or plead mercy to.
Yeah Temple of Doom and T2 for me as well.
ToD was somehow approved by my parents (I think it was rated PG-13, not R) and we even owned it on VHS but I definitely lost some sleep over the heart scene and also the monkey brains.
T2 was definitely not approved, but I watched it at a friend's house.
Same!! I watched it at a friends house ahaha 😂 Mum was not pleased. Ah well. Now it’s funny.
I think it was rated PG-13, not R
In fact it was rated PG. The resulting backlash, along with a similar situation with Gremlins, directly resulted in the MPAA creating the PG-13 rating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Temple_of_Doom#PG_rating
My parents told me that I could watch any movie in theatres for my 13th birthday. I didn't know anything about it and picked The Devil's Advocate. They took me, my older brother, and my two younger brothers.
On the way home they yelled at me for picking an inappropriate movie.
I never saw it, what makes the movie inappropriate?
Probably age related.
Alien when I was about 4. That's what happens when you make an uncle who is still in high school babysit.
The X-Files episode "Home"
Darkness Falls for me.
E.T. --specifically the scenes starting with the government showing up to take care of him while he's dying. E.T. being lifeless in that clear body bag will never be removed from my mind.
E.T. is a funny one. It was the first movie I saw in a theater, as a smallish child on a school outing. And I was traumatized by it. That weird alien skin and eyes, those creepy bony fingers. As I remember, it literally gave me nightmares. But to this day I have never met anyone who didn't find E.T. "cute" as a child. Possibly I was just too young.
That color... How pale he was. Mom used to buy frozen burritos at the time. I felt uncomfortable eating them for months.....
I saw a nasty horror movie as a kid of around 7-8. My friend had this weird uncle who was living with his mother house next to ours. He was the only one at street with VHS player. One day, instead of our favorite Tom & Jerry, he put a cassette with the movie into the player. It was some weird horror called "the spirit of the Forest" or something like that, about a cabin in the forest and a spirit possessing its visitors, making them kill each other. I had trouble getting back home in the middle of the day. Fortunately, no nightmares. Few years later, the uncle killed his mother, because voices told him to. He got locked up in the psychiatric ward and my friend moved in with his parents, yay.
You're all in here with horror and mature movies, but I'll hit you with Watership Down for the win 😉
Look, it was the 80s/90s. We had one TV. My parents were not going to watch kid shit during their down time so we watched whatever they felt like watching. Thus, I have too many to list here.
But for context apparently Alien and Aliens made me squeaky and giggly/happy as a baby. To this day I sometimes have bizarrely detailed dreams with xenomorph subplots.
Yeah I still giggly at this scene in Aliens
Hudson: Hey Vasquez you ever been mistaken for a man?
Vasquez: ........No....Have you....???
Best come back ever her facial expression when she says it is priceless.
She also played John Connor's foster Mom in Terminator 2. Blade arm right through his foster Dad and the milk carton!
I'm old, so keep that in mind.
I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in the theater when I was 7. I wasn't even with my family, I was with a friend and his parents. It freaked me the freak out. That space baby at the end. The dreams I had.
Watching Hellraiser 2 was pretty bad. I didn't understand what was going on, but forever remembered the scary woman with no skin!
Scary Movie 3. Among many reasons that's a film you shouldn't watch as a child, that was my introduction to the Ring, and I had a TV in my room.
Pan's Labyrinth.
I've seen plenty of films but that one tops my list for ones that shouldn't be watched by kids.
When I was roughly 10 years old I watched my next door neighbors' parents' home made hardcore sex tape. She had found it while snooping in her dads closet. So yeah, little old me (boy) and closest friend (girl) sitting on her parents bed watching a very graphic homemade porn.
Definitely shaped my sexual development...
Starship trooper when I was still in kindergarten. The only thing I remember from this movie is the scene where the bug drills a hole in the soldiers head to drink his brain. Don't plan to watch this movie ever again in my life
would you like to know more?
Shame. It's a great film
I was a little older, like 3rd grade, but same. Nightmares about being overrun by bug hordes for months and months.
Akira definitely counts. I'm sure my parents were in the "all cartoons are for kids" camp that everyone was in in the 90s. Similarly, the Guyver.
Videodrome. Watched it few years ago and started strongly recalling watching certain scenes. 20 minutes in I was like oh wow I've seen this before, but by the time James woods was doing bdsm with a debbie harry television, I was like "who let me watch this?"
It explains a lot, honestly
Faces of Death, Faces of Death 2, Faces of Death 3, Faces of Death 4, Faces of Death 5 and Faces of Death 6
Oh god I'm glad those are erased from my brain after 30 years lol
Same
According to my parents, saw Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom when I was 4. Then I saw Jaws at age 6. But it was Ghostbusters that gave me nightmares for about 7 years afterwards.
That ghost in the library basement was pretty scary.
As bad as Large Marge for me as a child.
Hang on, am I reading that correctly? You had nightmares for 7 years?
Yup. Shit is fucked up.
I was chaperoning on a school bus full of kindergarteners. They started chatting about the scariest movies they had ever seen. Some of them were talking about Goosebumps and some were talking about stuff in the realm of ET. The one little boy in my group looked up to me and said that stuff for babies that's nothing. I said oh yeah? What are you watch. He said I like Jason I like Freddy I like Michael Myers. I asked him which scenes that he thought were the best and he actually seemed to have watched it all. I said so what did you think of IT by Stephen King. His eyes got wide and he said no no no no no no no. We're not going to talk about that.
I think I was about ten and an older girl down the road showed me and my friends Pet Sematary. There was a scene where this creepy ass girl chokes in bed and that scared me for years. I slept with the light on and was too scared to roll over in case she was in my bed. It's probably so cringey now though if I was to re-watch it.
It largely holds up. That scene in particular.
Oh really? Might watch then.
Yo, that girl was my scariest thing for years. Oh man.
The Ring
I watched The Shining at a friend's house when I was like 10. First and last time I ever watched that nightmare fuel.
I took my son to see this puppet movie when he was about 8. That sex scene went on for ever (I was covering his eyes).
Lmao one of my friends had just gotten a DVD player in his room around when that movie came out. His mom walked in the room when he was watching it, right at that scene, late on a school night. He scrambled to turn off the TV, but that made her think it was porn... Barbie doll/action figure porn.
She just slowly backed out of the room and wouldn't let him explain
The Gate I think I was 7-10 at the time? I don’t know how I stumbled on it flipping channels on the TV, but I did and it scared me.
Today? It’s so horribly bad it’s laughable.
Oh man, my oldest brother put this on when our parents were out and all I remember is being terrified of the eyeball in the guy's palm at some point. Probably my first experience with body horror.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
I couldn't sleep....
Same. And eggplants scared the hell out of me after seeing that. I guess they looked enough like the things the aliens came out of.
It was a mid-90s movie on HBO called “Cyber Sex” or something like that. I was much too young to be watching. Pretty sure it started my fascination with porn and eventual addiction…
Leprechaun and a slew of other horror movies, I can’t recall the names of. Still dislike 90% of the horror genre but was able to watch Alien (1979) just recently and it was surprisingly done well.
Same. Leprechaun, Species, and Chucky... I grew to be okay watching paranormal movies but not until late 20s
Watch The Thing next.
Dad let me watch Poltergeist when I was 6 and Mom let me watch The Shining when I was 7. I was also 7 when the Thriller video came out, and I think that scared me more.
You and I have a similar origin story
Watership Down
The scene where they're all buried and poisoned while the den is torn apart and the rabbits are trapped, desperately trying to push nose-first past all the bodies clogging the dead-end passages.. I had a lot of bad dreams from that one!
Twilight Zone movie.
Watched alone on dark night.
The part when the lady visits the house, where the family is terrified of putting a foot out of line.
That has the most distasteful feeling of dread. Really well done, not for kids!
Omen, Excorcist, Nightmare on Elm St, Jason, Cujo, Friday the 13th - I was a very free range kid. The one that really sticks out is (IIRC) The Amityville Horror. There is a scene with these red glowing eyes down a dark hallway...the adult in me knows it was probably just some guy with two flashlights, but it still raises the hairs on my arms thinking about it
First horror movie ever saw was Nightmare on Elm Street. Was 5 and only reason mom allowed it was because kids were calling me Freddy Kruger and I didn't know why. After I watched it I thought "cool" and when I went back to school I taught back to the kids that yes I was and I would visit them in their dreams. They didn't call me that anymore.
That's a pretty boss move, I don't know if I'd be that quick thinking
Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The dipping scenes haunted me.
And Judge Doom struggling as the steam roller flattens him. Up to that point he was treated as a human character. Fists pounding on the roller, he pleads and screams as it slowly crushes him. The other humans turn away rather than witness the horror. I was 6.
BUT turns out, it's all okay! He was a toon all along! So no worries that we watched his demise, right? He's fine! You can tell because of the high pitched laughing and bizarre "flat" version of the Judge standing up and re-inflating himself until his human eyes pop out.
Roger Rabbit. You know, for kids.
We watched that when it came out on VHS I think. Definitely not a movie for a pair of 8/9 year olds.
Though the only saving grace is that we were too young to understand what was going on.
Jaws at about 5 yrs old and Robocop a couple of years later at about 7yrs old the uncut version loved them both except jaws made me phobic of the ocean and open water so paid a price with that one lol although I have all 4 movies on dvd watch them from time to time. Have both Robocop original and the newer one which is sh@t comparitively, no surprise being just a 12A no swearing and or adult humour no guys exploading on windscreens from being melted down with toxic waste then hit by a car lol and no fist spike weapon either. It will never hold a candle to the original movie which is a true product of the 80s and a must own movie, one rad movie.
I still can't believe Jaws was classified just PG and still is that's to savage for kids really not all of it the shark looks awful corny and cheap tat but the scenes you don't see it and the man in the pond where you see it sideways it looks real then it bites his leg off and you see the leg sinking those scenes aren't fit for kids no way. .
Jaws was absolutely the first thing I thought of. So many kids suddenly developed a fear of ponds, lakes, and swimming pools because no one stopped and asked themselves if it was a good idea for a small child to watch people get eaten alive.
Yeah it was pretty realistic in some parts and B grade garbage in others but the movie overall was amazing it was the suspense and the invisible attacks and the acting chops that made that movie it scores 8.1 out of 10 all the other Jaws movies are steaming piles of doo doo though in comparisson, and the higher the number the movie the more ridiculously infantile and deranged the premise/plot gets lol to a point of the shark is now telepathically linked to the victims family it's seeking revenge on the familycand it's following them all the way from America to Jamaica to chomp someone up who just haplens to be the son of the voctims mum WTF? lmfao.
I could see one chasing you or circling you in real life especially if you whacked it over the head with something like an awe and it didn't kill it, but telepathic sharks with a axe to grind? That's when it starts to take the p@ss one drip too far haha.
But don't let that disuade anyone in any way from watching them all, they can be dark and good in certain parts, they all have character of the era they were made that by today's movie production standards makes everything today just look compketely dull/generic/plain and regurgitative un-charismatic cr@p
I pretty much accidentally watched Evangelion as a kid thumbing on a TV set. It has definitely shaped my type for women for years to come.
Dad took me and my brother to see Predator in the theater. Would have been about 10 and my brother 8. While I applaud him wanting to share something he was excited about with his children I am sure there were better options.
Stephen King's IT from behind the couch.
How I didn't develop a lifelong fear of clowns I have no idea.
The Lover 1992 when I was like 9 or 10. Those who know the movie, will understand that this maybe was a bit much for a boy. However it had a lasting effected on my appreciation, of what a good emotional movie looks like. I'd call it double edged sword, as obviously that movie is inappropriate for a kid to watch. However the relationship between the two is very beautifully portrait and made me a helpless romantic. It was at a time when they'd show movies like that on free TV at night and I was visiting my grandparents and they had a TV upstairs.
To many but the one that haunts me is “chaser”. A Korean movie about a serial killer who haunts prostitutes.
Why I remind it? Well, I watched it with my brother and when I got back from the toilet, he pretended to be some rando in a hoodie with a knife. Keep in mind, I was 14 and it was 11:30PM.
My parents were super strict. I was at a buddy's house when Terminator 2 first came to VHS and we watched it. I was probably around 11. Having not really seen anything like that, it definitely impacted me for a while. Then again, I was already having nightmares most nights by then anyway.
I was probably 11 or 12 when we got it on VHS. My sister was 9 or 10. We were huge Swarzenegger fans and were used to him being the good guy. Twins and Kindergarten Cop were rewatched multiple times. T2 was our first R rated movie. We didn't watch Terminator prior, though my parents did as it had been on TV (broadcast tv, censored) and they were eager to see it too.
Anyway, after it finished, I chased my sister around the house pointing my finger at her which freaked her out and got me yelled at. Fun times
Flatline (1990)
Big Boob Nurses 17
Night Shift Nurses with Detso Ritter the man who wrestles himself.
The Exorcist and Candyman.
Also, I can't remember the name of it, but my mom was watching some movie about women in prison. And someone got mad, took out her fork from her cup noodles, and stabbed a woman in the leg. Twisted, pulled it out, wiped it in her pants and kept eating.
I was maybe 5 or 6, but I swore I would never go to prison after that. I had nightmares of that woman and that fork
Unexpectedly got nightmares for years after watching the movie Twister.
Insidious 1. First and last time I was scared.
And I watched "Mission to Mars" (2002) somewhere around 22:00 on TV snd that was deeply creepy.My brother showed me a movie from my dad's hidden porno stash when I was 8. So probably that.
Dad allowed me to watch Species. Had to sleep in my parents' bed that night. Mom was FURIOUS :D
Candyman. I couldn't even look in a mirror for weeks.
The Howard Stern movie. Pretended to be asleep and watched through holes in blanked
There was a movie with Rosie O’Donnell called Exit to Eden. My mom was not particularly uptight about us seeing R rated stuff and the previews made it look like a slightly dirty comedy. It was Rosie O’Donnell in like…the 90’s so I mean…she did not look into it any further than that.
Turns out it’s basically a soft core porno with a couple funny bits and it was extremely awkward to sit through.
The movie (that I literally didn't know existed until right this moment) is based on a novel by Anne Rice, under the pen name Anne Rampling.
She also wrote a series of BDSM novels about Sleeping Beauty under the pen name A. N. Roquelaure.
I’ve read the sleeping beauty ones (knew what I was getting into with that)…but literally never knew that about the movie!
Mars Attacks! was very poorly marketed. I remember the commercials for it seeming tame and asking my parents to take me to the theater to see it and it fucked me up for a few good weeks. We didn't even stay to the end, but I had nightmares about it that very same night.
I had nightmares from Dawn of the Dead for weeks. I was 8 or 9 when my mom tried to show it to me, lol
A looooooot of porn.
I saw Cujo as a 6 year old and its still sitting with me 25 years later. Our house was always the summer hang out spot for my family since we had a pool, so my aunt and grandma would always go to blockbuster on Friday to get some movies. I got to rent Pokemon Stadium 2 and all I wanted to to was play the game.
I couldn't play it until I watched a movie with the family. The adults decided we should watch cujo (the perfect film for kids aged 8, 6, 5 and 4 right?)
I still have weird memories of watching the movie, getting freaked out and burying my head in the couch to try and not see or hear anything. After the movie my grandma said I could go play my game, and I still associate the Golbat mini game with it since the dog got rabies from a bat.
So next time you want your grandkid to bond with you, don't fucking scar them ok?
Candyman, a mates older brother showed it to us when I was around 10ish, don’t think I was ever the same again.
Also caught a bit of Toxic Avenger on late evening tv around the same age, when I should have been asleep but sneaked on the tv. Boy did I regret that.
When I was 10, my parents rented The Kiss of the Spider Woman. I was forbidden to watch it, so I snuck downstairs and watched it late at night. They were right, I should not have watched it. I was definitely not mature enough to understand everything that was happening and it really caused me some emotional turmoil for a month or two, just thinking about it. It's such a tragic movie. Likely Raul Julia's finest performance, and William Hurt is also quite excellent in it.
It's the only movie my parents ever forbid me from seeing.
Evil Dead
I watched Borat with my dad when I was 9.
Revenge of the Nerds when I was 7. Adult forgot about the peephole scene.
My mom led horror movies but was too scared to watch them alone.
For some reason she thought kids don't really remember things until around 6 years old.
So with her I watched hellraiser, IT, Freddy Krueger, Chuckee, The Thing (Carpenter version), Amytiville horror, Pet Sementary, Alien, the exorcist, and some others when I was 4 and 5.
Only ones that really freaked me out as a kid was Chuckee, and that hellraiser movie where pinhead comes out of a screen specifically (the third hellraiser I think?). Alien and Amytiville were my favorite ones.
Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, when I was like 8. Was all fun and games until they ripped that slaves heart out and dunked it into the lava, or something to that extent. It's been a while since I last watched it, the details are a bit hazy.
I can totally clear up those details for you, but the details are rather extreme, so you get to decide.
Spoiler!
They ripped the guys heart out, and slowly lowered the guy into the lava. During the descent you can see the heart beating faster and faster as the guy panics, then just as he gets to the lava they do a close up shot of the high priest holding the heart up as it bursts into flames. spoiler:::
Thanks, I remember now. I've actually watched the movie when I was a fair bit older, but that must have been some 20 years ago now as well. Guess it's really time for a rewatch!
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I’m scarred for life :/
Back door sluts 9
Back Door Sluts 9?‽! Not that one!
Brain Damage. Scary and way too sexual for a little kid.
I like Wolfie's Just Fine's song about this exact experience https://youtu.be/qG8iAtpavK4?si=VzTW2qGWlJ7Lg9f0
I was around 7 and my much older brother convinced me to stay up until very late in the evening when the dirty softcore stuff was on tv. Must have been midnight or whatever. Finally it started... I don't know what I expected but I was like "that's it??!" It was so boring! Fell asleep a minute later.
When I was around 10-11 my dad sat me down to watch Mulholland Drive with him (because a coworker got it confused with another, more wholesome movie)
For the most part, my neurons were plastic enough to just accept the weird surreal dream logic, but for some reason my subconscious drew the line at sex. I must have been flushing, because my dad turned to me after the movie was over and started apologizing profusely.
The only time I remember feeling that much stunned embarassment/shame at watching a movie was when I got my sister Enter The Void as a gift, having never seen it. (Great movie, but the incestual implications make it hard to watch with family).
Now I'm a lesbian. Mulholland Drive got to me young enough to forever warp my sexuality. (Enter The Void, luckily, did not).
Watched old horror movies all the time with my grandfather growing up. None of that was scary. Watching Chuckey when I was probably 8 with my brother was terrifying. Didn't help we had one of those big my buddy type dolls in the house. I think I was Chuckey for Halloween that year.
...i don't know that i shouldn't've seen it, but the 1978 invasion of the body snatchers was my introduction to existential horror at the ripe age of seven years...
...what shouldn't i have seen?..about a year earlier, a family friend handed-down a big brown grocery bag stacked to the rim with pre-code EC horror comics: that was some teeth-gnashingly gruesome stuff...
- The Neverending Story: STARTS with a horse DYING FROM SADNESS and the movie is about existence being devoured by nothingness.
- Nightmare on Elm Street: where the fuck were my parents?!
- Time Bandits: the cages floating in the void, the dwarves being chased down a corridor, the parents die to evil at the end...don't they? Ambiguous existential dread all around this one.
- The Thing: no clear childhood memories or nightmares but I know I saw it before I was 10.
- Reanimator: ditto for The Thing.
- The Shining
- Cat People
Ninja scroll. Did you know cartoons can get raped??? I didn't...
The Brood, the captures of the film adverted at our movie theater fucked me up as a kid and I will never watch it.
Alien & Aliens by the 4th grade, the Terminators, Robocop...I had action figures for all those movies.
I also learned a lot from USA Up All Night.
Also got into my dad's playboy stash in the 3rd grade.
Beast master
I was really into He-Man and honestly all things medieval so thought it'd be great for me, but that film kinda fucked me up for a while as a wee one.
Homey the ClownShakes the Clown. Dad took that shit out after three lines. Maybe. The movie started with a group of clowns/men discussing their pussy preferences.There was a MOVIE?!?
Based on the In Living Color character?
I've come to learn from other responses that this was likely not a Homey movie, but I've always believed since childhood that it was. Someone said it might be called Vulgar (2000), but that seems too late in my life to correlate to the movie we saw. I'm currently digging to figure out what it was. I swear the men sitting around talking about pussy were clowns.
Edit: Looks like it was Shakes the Clown.
Horror Express and Poltergeist, or how to gain a fear of of glowing red eyes in the dark, televisions, closets, windows near trees, and mirrors.
My family bought in to cable television very early on, and we had HBO as part of the service. My parents forbid me from watching it alone, but of course that just upped the intrigue and I would sneak viewings when they weren't around.
The first mistake was The Thing. I had no idea what the movie was about, and so the first part of the film seemed unremarkable; they're at an arctic base, there's the shootout, all relatively tame. Then the dog scene. Holy crap that one is burned into my memory forever. I was utterly terrified but glued to the screen. That gave me screaming nightmares for a bit but I could never admit what the issue was, since I wasn't supposed to have watched it!
The second a few years later was Aliens. Wasn't nearly as bad of an experience but the scene with the people glued to the walls in the tunnel was a bit much. I recovered from that one much quicker than The Thing.
I dunno what the movie was called, I was 7 and had fallen asleep in front of the TV. When I woke up there two 'grey' aliens of in hindsight terrible costumes crouching in some bushes.
I had never seen a depiction of a grey alien before that and my uncanny valley sensor peaked higher than ever at any other point in my life and I ran to my room without even shutting off the tv.
It's funny to look back and remember that as a moment of legit fear, knowing what I do now.
Death Wish (1974). There is a rape/murder scene at the beginning that really affected me as a seven or eight year old. It made me afraid of NYC as well lol.
I caught Robocop 2 on late night cable at some point when I was definitely too young to see the scene when the criminal robot picks up his girlfriend by her head and snaps her neck.
My mom took me to watch Superman (with Christopher Reeves). I was 3. I had to sleep with the light on for 2 years because the moment I was in the dark, my brain would freak out giving me flashbacks of the movie very bright scenes.
Basically I had cinematic PTSD at 3yo.
