What frightened you as a kid/teenager?

[odinn7]

Steve, as I said, please don't take my question the wrong way. I meant nothing by it other than to satisfy my curiosity.
Carry on...

[Archivist]

Box covers, TV ads for horror movies... a lot of the time, we've been scared more by what we *think* is going to happen than what actually *does* happen.  Andy C mentioned how ads for The Shining and The Changeling were scarier as ads (with horrible things implied) than they were as movies.

All of our childhood fears point to the fact that our imaginations can be more powerful than reality.  It also points to the effectiveness of movies like the Blair Witch Project, and that nasty scene at the end of 'Trilogy of Terror', with that wooden doll walking along with its snapping jaws.

This is a great topic, by the way.  Really fascinating stuff.

~A~

[Steve Byczek]

Andy C and Archivist both make good points. Sometimes the promotional materials (TV commercials,trailers,and ads) can be more frightening than the final product. I guess that is exactly their point. The people who make the ads trick us into thinking that there is more than what meets the eye...they can make almost any movie, even the low-budget terrible ones, look like the greatest film ever made,and our life will not be complete until we see it!

A good case in point is when my sister and I went to the movies in 1979. I forgot what the movie was. Probably some PG rated comedy. Before the film began they showed a bunch of trailers,and most of them were comedies,maybe one or two dramas. Just when we thought the main feature was about to begin...another trailer slowly emerged on the screen. It was for the original version of "The Amityville Horror" and all it consisted of was a still photograph of the house. All of a sudden the screen went blood red,eerie music began to play,and a narrator's voice said; "Based on a true story". I was so scared,I literally slid down in the my seat. I was trembling,and I wanted to cover up my eyes. But at the same time I was also
fascinated,and could not take my eyes off the screen. As a result I was too frightened to see the movie in the theater. I waited until it was on television,and the final product was indeed scary but it did not have the details and high "scare factor" I imagined it to have (based on how I felt after seeing the trailer.) Yes my friends,good advertising does raise our expectations,and can make or break the way we appreciate almost everything in life especially movies.


Other things that scared me as kid...

The made for TV movies "Sybil" (a drama based on a true story;Sally Field plays a disturbed woman who has over 10 different personalities) and "Helter Skelter"  
(an expose on the Charles Manson Family murders). We had a "Viewmaster" toy (does anybody remember those?) and two in particular scared the living daylights out of me. One was "Alice in Wonderland". The frame that showed a giant Alice inside a house creeped me out. All we saw was a house,and a huge hand sticking out of the top window. The second one was "A Christmas Carol" and the frame that showed a "ghost-head" materializing on Scrooge's front door with a grimace on his face always managed to frighten me. My sister tells me she had an "Addams Family" Colorform kit (does anybody remember "Colorforms"?) and the little piece that was supposed to represent Morticia scared her. They actually made the bottom of her dress infested with dust and spider-webs,and she always avoided bringing "Morticia" out when playing with the kit. LOL!


I am glad that a lot of people are enjoying this topic I came up with.

Sincerely,Steve.

[Bargle5]

OK, one more from me. When I was 6, I somehow convinced my parents to let me go with some other kids from the neighborhood to see a vampire movie at the theater. Given the time frame, ('61 or '62), it was probably an early Hammer films entry. Anyway, a short way into the movie, a vampire got up out of the grave (of course) and I freaked. I was so scared, one of the older kids had to take me home. Overall my parents did a good job of raising me, but they dropped the ball on that one.

[Dr. Kobb]

I saw a trailer (for an old Sinbad-style flick when I was really little) that featured a giant golden hand coming out of the floor, trying to swat at the hero.  That night, I awoke in a fit of terror.  I had a dream about the scene, and was drenched in sweat and all tangled-up in my blanket.

[Archivist]

Bargle, that reminds me of something that happened a long time ago.  My uncle took my brother and I to see Ghostbusters in the cinema.  When the first ghost roared out, my brother freaked out and he had to be taken out of the cinema.  I stayed and enjoyed the extra popcorn and movie.

I was also scared by some Marvel comics.  Can't remember what they were, but I do remember being scared.

~A~

[ulthar]

Dr. Kobb wrote:

>  giant golden hand coming out of
> the floor, trying to swat at the hero.  

I had a fear from scenes like this, too.  I remember some haunted house type movie that had a hand that would come out of the wall and grab at whoever was sleeping in the bed.  Creeped me out then, and is creeping me out now, typing this.

The thought of unseen hands grabbing at me is ultra-freaky.

[Dr. Kobb]

Whew!  Glad to hear I'm not alone in this, uthar!  I still to this day wonder which peplum flick that giant golden hand scene was from.

I don't suppose you've ever seen "Jack The Giant Killer"?  It has a scene with a whole hallway of walls with hands that stick out, ready to grasp at anyone who enters.  That was a creepy scene, too!

[Texdar]

I remember when I was like 9 or 10, I stayed up late one night to watch a movie by myself.  It wasn't a horror movie, I think it was Bless the Beast and Children.  I was starting to get really sleepy when the commercial for Halloween came on.  It showed Michael Myers dressed like a ghost standing at the end of the girl's bed.  Freaked me out and I immediately became wide awake and couldn't sleep at all that night because I was always scaring myself by thinking about a maniac or monster staring at me at the foot of my bed.  The little clip was exactly my worse fear.

[Mofo Rising]

ulthar wrote:

> The thought of unseen hands grabbing at me is ultra-freaky.
>

Hmmm.  Probably shouldn't watch REPULSION.  Or LABYRINTH for that matter.

[Steve Byczek]

Comic books can be very scary to a child. I had a "Wizard of Oz" comic book as a kid,and there was one part in the story that always frightened me. The plot was a sequel to the 1939 movie we are all familiar with. A new witch is threatening Oz,and the newly elected Mayor of Oz,the Scarecrow, summons Dorothy to come back and help the citizens defeat her. In one scene, she changes into a spider and they show her crawling on the wall of the room Dorothy is in,and spying on her. She looked like a spider with a human head,and she reminded me of the tiny half human,half fly creature at the end of the original version of "The Fly" (1958). I was so scared of this part of the comic, I would literally skip the pages that featured this scene. LOL!
 
I also remember being scared of a record my sister and I used to play. It had several songs of various musical genres. I only had a problem with the opera song because the singer was a man with a very deep baritone voice, and my sister informs me that I would hide in the corner of the basement when this song came on!  I thought he was a monster!  I must have been no more than 4 or 5 years old at the time.

Speaking of deep voices...I actually remember being frightened of an episode of "Mork and Mindy". In this particular episode,another alien,or was it a mad scientist (?) wanted to kill Mork. He had a machine that would literally drain Mork of all his energy. But Mork would retaliate by re-charging himself with this special Orkan instrument. There was a scene where the villian almost drained Mork of all his bodily strength,and he ran in slow motion and said in a VERY slow and deep voice:
"I must recharge!!!" This episode creeped me out for some reason, and I even avoided it when it popped up as a re-run.

There was a few other TV shows that got to me as well. Does anybody recall a show called "That's Incredible!"?  It featured people doing weird stunts in front of the camera. One article talked about a man who accidentally chopped off all four of his fingers in a paper cutting machine. They grafted an articial electronic hand on his arm in the same vein as "The Six Million Dollar Man". I would have had no problem with the article if they left it at this. But they did show a black and white photo of his hand AFTER the paper cutting machine accident. You actually saw his bloody hand, and the severed fingers laying seperatly on the table. This scared the living hell out of me. Even though the photo was not in color, and was shown very briefly,I was absolutely petrified. I almost covered my eyes when I accidentally caught this episode as a re-run. There was another popular show around the same time (late 70',early 80's) called "Real People" which featured interviews with people who practiced unusual lifestyles,or had strange hobbies. They interviewed a man who did everything backwards. He dressed backwards,walked backwards,and even talked backwards. I found his "backwards speech" very weird and disturbing!


Sincerely,Steve.

[Archivist]

Oooh, I remembered another one!  I used to be scared of a black and white picture of the author of a cook book!  This guy had big, thick-framed 70's glasses and a black 70's beard.  Eek!

And I used to love watching 'That's Incredible'.  I also loved (and still have somewhere) my Viewmaster.  Best thing on the planet as a kid.

[AndyC]

That's Incredible was a great show. I recall they did have a few stories that dealt with the macabre, ghost stories and such.

Funny, when you talk about severed fingers, I try to imagine what little kids think about the stuff on TV today. You can turn on a daytime talk show and see the guy with the scooped-out face. Nothing but a mouth and a big, open sinus cavity. Hell, that freaked me out when I saw it the first time, and I was 32 and desensitized by years of slasher films.

Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember something pretty disturbing from That's Incredible. Remember that Chinese guy with the parasitic twin? Had a second mouth with teeth in place of one ear, and a big patch of head hair on the side of his face, among other things.

[odinn7]

OH! I remember that episode of That's Incredible. I watched it in horror and was unable to turn away but I had nightmares about that twin. Thanks for reminding me...

[AndyC]

odinn7 wrote:
> Thanks for reminding me...

Happy to help  :)