SILLY movies that TERRIFIED us as kids...

[BlackAngel]

The thing that was more disturbing that terrifying was the scene in the docks in the movie Downtown.  Anthony Edwards is getting strangled while driving a car erradiclly.  A little man on top of the care was doing the strangling. When Edwards stopped the car, the little man went flying into  those big would shredders and...well y'know the rest.

The movie Child's Play caught me a lot when I was younger.  And I think it was playing the same time that toy "My Buddy" was in the stores.  Coincidence?  I think not.

And now, the one thing that scare the s**t outta me when i was kid wasn't in a movie, wasn't a cartoon or tv show.  It was (drum roll please) a game show. Not so much a game show, but a game in the show.  The show is the Price is Right.  The game is The Moutain Climber.  When contestants tried to guess an item, and make a wrong answer (price guessed: $70, acuall price: $50 )  the climber climbes the difference.  And when he's near the top, say 5 paces, and the idiot would say $20 on a $10 item, the climber would fall off and I used to hug my moms up tight every time that happen.

[sm]

Very few films scared me as a kid, I was the obnoxious friend who tormented my friends who were "afraid of the dark", and loved watching horror movies. Hmm, so I have to think back earlier to maybe years 5-7.

"Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger", the movie itself didn't scare me, just that weird damn minion thing that rowed that old lady around.

After seeing "Jaws" i also was afraid to use the bathroom, I had an irrational fear that jaws would appear in the toilet.

Oompa Loompas gave me the creeps as did the scene with the Pink elephants in "Dumbo". They didn't scare me so much as give me the feeling the world was a very dark and disturbed place.

Also there was a movie with Giant Tarantulas. Years and a series of spider movies later I developed a phobia which wasn't helped by the fact I moved to Arizona and lived with them in and outside the house on a daily basis.

[mr. henry]

just remembered another one...similar to Mofo Rising's comment about the yupyupyup aliens on sesame street...

there was a locally produced (i think) pbs show for kids...one of those where the host talked at the audience, read books, etc...anyway, every episode the host(-ess)  would leave and there would just be a shot of the empty set for a while. then this big rabbit would come in and silently poke around the place and look at the camera every so often. then the rabbit would leave and the host would come back...sometimes finding things had moved. i hated and feared the rabbit.

this and the sesame st. aliens appearing when everyone else leaves is a pretty creepy concept for kids i think...

ALSO like a lot of people THE EXORCIST---because didn't we all think we'd become possessed watching that movie?  That movie was a dividing line in grade school...who had seen it...who hadn't...and who lied and said that they had seen it.

-mr. henry

[sm]

Comments about a rabbit on a children's show makes me remember the late 70's. There was "The Bozo Show" - i'm not really sure if it was a local thing i watched or if it was nationwide..but that particular guy who played the clown freaked me out. He'd drag these pitiful looking kids from sitting on the floor to try and toss stuff in cups to win prizes like bikes. Usually the kids didn't win and he gleefully and evilly would chant "Oh so SORRY Billy, you didn't make it!" then he'd shove the crying kid aside and let him know the cheap consolation prize he won. Fear Bozo!

[Akira Tubo]

Gremlins.

It was cute and funny, then all of a sudden Gizmo gets water on him, grows these horrible boils, and more Gizmos grow from them.  From there on in, it only got more terrifying.

The Gremlins attacked the kitchen, the school, the theater, and the toy store, for crying out loud!  Those were all of my favorite places.

As if that weren't enough, Billy's dad had to warn the audience that there might be Gremlins IN YOUR HOUSE!  UNDER THE BED!  IN THE CLOSET!

I mean, ye gads!  I had nightmares about Gremlins biting me for months and Dad had to check the house at night for a year.

[Mofo Rising]

In response to Akira Tubo's post:

You know, your reaction is a textbook example of why GREMLINS was one of the main instigators of the PG-13 rating.

[mr. henry]

regarding SM's comment about BOZO...the original BOZO show came from WGN in Chicago...they might have experimented with franchising it at some point...

it was so hard to get tickets that some parents signed up when wive's became pregnant...somehow we got tickets when i was 12 and my mom made me go with her and my younger sister...didn't have to sit on the floor though...there were bleachers!...maybe in the early days they roughed it.

i feared being picked for the Grand!...Prize!...Game! for fear someone would see me on tv.

don't fear bozo...he was alright. fear that other chicago clown...john gacey.

-mr henry

[Cullen]

"Gremlins" was the first movie my brother and I saw by ourselves.  I've got fond memories of that film, but for some reason can't sit through it now that I'm older.

[jmc]

WGN was carried on cable systems nationwide...I remember watching the Grand Prize Game when I was a kid.  It worked on a kid's greed, because the harder the throws got, the better the prizes.  And there was always some "lucky" winner at home who would get whatever prize the kid playing the game won.   That must have been nerve-wracking.

I remember "music of humiliation" being played whenever a kid lost...lots of trombone glissandos, etc.....

[ErikJ]

For me I have to say it was a movie I just watched for the first time., Susperia. Not taking anything away from it but the TV spots used to give me nightmares. Having seen it though I can't believe it scared me like that.

Now about Bozo, it was never Bozo or Cookie that bothered me. It was that freaky wizard that they had on the show. Wizaro I think they called him. He was very very disturbing

[David Tatlock]

I vaguely remember watching some movie called "This House Posessed" when it aired on tv in the early 80s. It involved a "blood coming out of the shower" scene which freaked me out. Although, I may be confusing this with Death Ship, since I saw that around the same time.

[TammyL]

His name was Wizzo. His eyes were a tad bit devestating. Just way too freaky to see him look at the screen.

[Lucidique]

I remember that Raggedy Ann & Andy movie!  It was terribly frightening. Also "Rikki, Tikki, Tavi" scared me nearly to death. The shadow of the cobras freaked me out so much that I couldn't talk. I remember my mother thinking I was choking on something because all I could do was wheeze until she realized what I was watching.
I saw it again on Nickelodeon about 5 years ago, and it still bothered me.

[john]

I recall seeing a couple episodes of Bozo many years ago, before we even had cable I think. It was probably on a New York station. Never scared me though.

 What did scare me?

 Horror Express - The fossil corpse with the glowing eyes in the crate really freaked me out and I turned the movie off. I didn't see the whole thing until years later.

 Kolchak creeped me out a little, especially one night when my parents were out and I watched it alone.

 Lost In Space - The episode with an invisible creature wandering around at night leaving 3-toed footprints in the ground and Dr. Smith thinking it wast he ghost of his ancestor.

 Twilight Zone - The episode with William Shatner seeing the gremlin on the wing of the plane. The part that really creeped me out was when he pulled up the shade and it was pressing its face right up against the window. For years I was afraid to look out the window at night.

 Bigfoot recreations - These always gave me nightmares. One in particular showed a guy sitting on the toilet when a big hairy arm came in the half-open window next to him and started reaching around. Another one had a guy hearing noises outside his home and opening the door to find Bigfoot standing there. There was also a cheesy movie called (I think) The Horror of Bigfoot where some college students find a mummy in a cave, bring it back to the farm and it wakes up to be an ugly and very p**sed off Bigfoot like creature that goes on a rampage. It was shot like a high school science film, which helped give the impression that it was real. I think Bigfoot scared me the most because unlike other creatures, many people claim to have actually seen him/it.

[K-Sonic]

Man, I gotta tell you...for me it was "Dracula vs Frankenstein"! When I was a real little guy, WPIX in NY (Channel 11) had Chiller Theatre on Sunday nights.

Now, Chiller had an animated hand (with 6 fingers!) coming out of a hole in the ground with a tree next to it. A very bleak picture, almost like a desert. And while the hand swiped away the word "Chiller", a voice is heard with all this echo and weird sound effects that would surely freak out a little 4-year old.

Top it off with the greatest monsters of all time dueling to the death, literally. All I remember is Dracula ripping off the Monster's arms & head (!) in the woods, then getting hit by sunlight and turning into hay. This was just crazy to see and I was scared alright!

Many,many years later I caught a little bit on tv. It was the scene of the two lovers on the beach talking. I was like, "Is this the same movie from years ago?". And I changed the channel.

Then years after that, I found the movie in a bargain video rack for $10. I read the box. Lon Chaney! Russ Tamblyn! J. Carroll Naish! Angelo Rossito! Directed by Al Adamson! Man, I had to buy it. When I was watching it I couldn't believe that this used to scare me so. I knew I had grown up. HaHa

I like this movie and my friends & I watch it often when we're together. The new DVD is a must if you enjoy it too. Troma.com has it real cheap if you want to get it.