Ask Lemmy

The Fly

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

I was about 6 when it was running in free TV here, as a major blockbuster and everyone talked about it, so I begged my dad to let me watch it.

Was good fun in the beginning, but when they ripped the slave's heart out, I nearly shat myself.

The Seventh Sign.

To this day I can’t watch biblical horror in particular without nightmares. I’m not even Christian.

For some reason, I have always found The Brave Little Toaster deeply unsettling, but I can’t really explain why.

Bonus round suggestion: was there a book you read when you were too young?

Mine was Pillars of the Earth. I was, like… 5? I think?

Ghost Ship. Every now and then the wire scene and the scene where they eat maggots comes back to me in my thoughts, and i hate it lol.

Jaws

I was around 6 or 7 when I saw it on television, before R rating was even a thing and almost 40 years later I am still terrified of sharks.

Gremlins. Still freaks me out.

Alien is pretty high up on the list. The chest-buster scene was a bit much for this 8yr old. Next up would be the faces melting scene in Raiders.

Arachnophobia. That movie is the reason I’m scared of spiders. I loved spiders prior and had a book of spiders that I’d read while pooping (grass spiders are so fckn cool) and would even play with them, but after that movie I couldn’t anymore. I’ve gone back and watched it as an adult and it’s so campy and cheesy. If only I’d watched it when I was older I could have enjoyed it.

The Omen at seven. I wasn't allowed to watch the "scary parts" so I only heard them. Turns out the audio design was way better than my parents gave them credit for. The sounds of the dog attack, falling shingles, and zombie nanny were burned into my brain for years.

Then I watched the movie properly as an adult and... it kind of sucked. The reality couldn't compare to what my imagination conjured up from the sounds alone.

The Big Boss, there is a scene where some killed guys are frozen in a ice factory and their bodies cut into smaller pieces. I was watching it through the door which was opened just a little bit instead of sleeping, while my dad and uncle where watching it.

Cats.

I was so confused by all the singing cat people.

Goldeneye - the squeezing scene

Anaconda - regurgitated people

Congo - when they throw his brain

Mercury Rising - "Mother, Simon is home"

Peewee Herman - Large Marge

The truly harrowing experience I had as a kid was the Alien Encounter ride at Disney Orlando. I was 8 and it was a field trip so the peer pressure was high. Nightmares for weeks after that. I still remember it breathing on me in the pitch dark.

Apparently my parents were extremely good about not exposing us to stuff too early. Except for blazing saddles. My brother picked up some new vocabulary from that film at the age of 2.

I saw a bit of Ghoulies by happenstance at a very young age back in the 80s. While it doesn't haunt me, I do remember it making me very irrationally uneasy any time I remembered the incident later. Not even uneasy in the context of the clip, which was the stupid puppet monster popping up out of a toilet lol

The Blair witch project when I was 8. Watched it by myself.

Jaws. The first one. In a theater. To this day I won’t swim in water where I can’t see the bottom.

I was 11, and the movie was the sixth sense. The girl vomiting scared me, and also when the mom leaves the kitchen and returns a few seconds later and all the cupboard doors and drawers are open…

I was watching this with my family at home and during the movie my older brother used his cell phone to call our home phone which was located on the other side of the house in the kitchen. I hadn’t realized it was him calling the home phone and I jumped at the opportunity to leave the scary move to go answer the phone. All the lights were off as I entered the kitchen. I flipped the lights on and boom… all of the doors and drawers are wide open. My brother lured me into the kitchen with that phone call just to scare me.

It’s not that scary of a movie but to this day I refuse to watch it. Also, I stopped speaking with my brother years ago.

Fire In The Sky. I haven’t rewatched it ever since.

Eight Legged Freaks fucked me up with the cat scene at the beginning. I’m a big softie for animals in films.

Alien. Saw it when I was under 10 years old. I wouldn't say it haunts me but close enough.

Aliens. I was terrified of facehuggers being under my bed for a decade. Not so much anymore.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The Thing messed me up as a 14 year old.

Sybil

It's never an entire movie, it's a scene here and there.
Like in The Exorcist, when they showed it on network television back in the late-70s it must have been, the CBS Saturday Night Movie or something like that, "viewer discretion is advised".
Anyway... clicking channels, I stumbled upon a moment during the ritual itself, with the girl in silhouette on her knees, arms towards the ceiling, the demon Pazuzu behind her. That screwed up many a night afterwards.

As a young adult, another scene that fucked with my head for many a night was the grainy dream transmission, with the faint audio covered in static noise, from John Carpenter's "Prince Of Darkness".

Now I'm gonna flip the concept on its' head and tell you what film cured my fears of the dark at the time. Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation Of Christ".

Ghostbusters 2 - that painting and the pink goo gave me nightmares for weeks.

The Gate