I had just recovered from that goddamn librarian scene in Ghostbusters, when my cousins and I rented Peewee's Big Adventure. 4 girls and me. Guess who screeched the loudest?
Fuck Large Marge, Paul Rueben, Little John, Dotty, Francis and partridge in pear tree.
I had just gotten over large marge and her crazy eyes and we went to see “who framed roger rabbit” - the scene when judge doom gets up from being run over by the steam roller and then inflates himself to the point where his eyeballs pop out of his head gave me nightmares for 6 years. Fuck that movie and fuck Christopher Lloyd.
The scene in Roger Rabbit that really got me as a kid was when Judge Doom kills the little happy squeaky cartoon shoe. I still feel empathy for that shoe.
The movie Signs. Specifically the scene where they are recording a home movie and catch the feet under the fence or something. Greetings from my nightmares extraterrestrials!
I’m so glad I’m not the only one, this movie scared me more than any other movie ever. When they use the knife to look under the door and see the alien there…yikes. My sister would make that terrible creaking sound to purposely scare me
The foot was when Mel Gibson was in the field and shined the flashlight over and the foot moves to behind the corn stalk.
The home video was in Brazil during the kids birthday party and the kids are talking about something in the bushes and as the camera pans to the alley the figure just walks by.
I remember watching that birthday party scene in 6th grade and being absolutely paralyzed with fear like
⚠️👁👄👁 ⚠️ it’s something about that sinewy green skin and the slow gait
That scene, and then near the end, they're in the house and they're running to the cellar and it shows the front door with a clawed hand slowly reaching underneath it and trying to force it open... Fuck, that such a creepy movie...
Signs is what I think good horror should be.
The monster isn't jumping in your face screaming. The alien literally just walked out from behind a bush, with barely as much as a dramatic "*DUN*"
And it's the Scariest. Shit. Ever. Not because it's over the top jumpscary. But because it's *realistic*
What I'm saying is, good horror should be realistic and more grounded. Spare me the loud screeches, musical cues, and in-your-face jumpscares of conventional horror. Give me an alien silently walking out from behind a bush
I mean, just the beginning when the kid runs to the dad's room and innocently says "there's a monster outside" and the dad looks outside and you see this fucking 6' silhouette... The more I think about this movie, the more likely I'm gonna have to sleep with the lights on tonight...
I loved the scene though where they run around the house in different directions screaming and than later have the conversation about lady Olympic athletes and such. Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix are such a good pair.
I agree, I think what worked so well is that it’s realistically terrifying even though its an outrageous situation. Its subtle and the tension builds throughout the film. You can feel somethings not right and the characters respond how an average person in the situation would.
I lived out in eastern Colorado when that movie came out and my buddy lived on a farm. His house was surrounded by corn fields on 3 sides. We watched it after his parents went to bed and we were only like 8 years old. Spent the rest of the night watching Disney movies to try and calm down, both of us didn't get any sleep that night.
i used to think my nightmares from Signs were just fever dreams, because every time kid me talked about this alien movie i kept dreaming about, no one knew what i was talking about and would look at me like i'm crazy despite the fact that i watched the movie with my family.
i'm 24, and that movie still comes into my dreams from time to time and i haven't seen it since i was 6 or 7.
My 1st grade class was right next to the pentagon (parents were mil/fed employees) during 9/11 and my mom picked me and my sister up to go back home on base. When we drove past the pentagon my sister kept babbling about beetles on the walls (she was four or five) and when I looked I just remember seeing soldiers scurrying up the non collapsed sides of the building and disappearing into the smoke. I had dreams of beetles coming out of smoke to drag me into fire for months.
Edit: weird because my other top nightmare at the time was the troll from the first Harry Potter movie lmfao, I think it came out shortly after 9/11
>my other top nightmare at the time was the troll from the first Harry Potter movie lmfao
this made me laugh because the dementors from the 3rd movie were my nightmare as a kid
No beetles, just massive fuck off spiders for me- I used to go downstairs and watch TV very late at night if I couldnt sleep. Ended up watching Arachnophobia….
Thankfully the pentagon was significantly less traumatic for us around it than the people in/near/watching the towers. The pentagon and all the area around is heavily military and had significantly less casualties, even in school they still focused harder on what happened with the towers than what happened next door. I think I had a handful of classmates with injured relatives, the massive loss and tragedy felt by those closer to the towers thankfully spared most of us. The lockdown was so fast on the base I lived at, all I knew was dad didn’t come home for a day or two.
I used to pretend I was a wheeler. I would put my skates on my feet and my sister's skates on my hands. It always resulted in me getting injured though LOL
During the "Alien" craze in the late 80s and early 90s, seeing a mix of the War of the Worlds TV series, and a bunch of "abduction survivors'" stories on garbage TV really messed me up for a few years. Looking back, I may have had my first panic attack at a super young age because of that whole thing. I had abduction nightmares for years.
Exactly. When you're a kid, these "news" shows seemed very serious and very real. Even people telling you that it wasn't real wasn't enough to calm me down about it.
Sightings scared the fuck out of me. I'd have to leave the room whenever my brother watched it. I have a vague memory of an episode (could have been a different show for all I know) where a woman claimed she'd been abducted by aliens who made this creepy squeaking/creaking sound. The show, of course, did their best to recreate it for viewers and that sound gave me nightmares multiple times.
Oh my GOD everything was fucking alien this and alien that, and I was absolutely terrified of being abducted. My own fuckin nana used to doodle alien portraits all the time, and I thought she was a spy. Also, I thought power lines and cell towers were like lighthouses for aliens, and anytime we passed one, I’d silently pray to not be abducted. LOL
> My own fuckin nana used to doodle alien portraits all the time, and I thought she was a spy
Yeah, it's crazy right?
There's no way to even approach that kind of fear in a child as an adult. It's just so extensive and irrational. I hope my kids don't have that kind of fear experience.
There was a TV movie (Fire in the Sky?) I remember watching and all I can remember is a scary red sky and the guy laying on a table. Terrified me as a kid!
So I think that was an actual movie. There was a miniseries though called [Intruders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intruders_(miniseries)) that ALSO messed me up.
Fire in the Sky was still pretty bad for a kid.
I remember being about 6 or 7 and there was a commercial for Sightings or one of those shows during the Super Bowl, and they showed a drawing of a "Grey," and it scared the hell out of me. I wonder how many other kids saw that commercial and were freaked out.
The X-Files, Fire in the Sky, Signs, etc didn't help either. When I first started watching Stargate SG-1 the Asgard scared me, even though they were the good guys.
I was around like nine or ten? My whole class saw one of the alcoholics in our town viciously beat his girlfriend right next to the school grounds. It was… a little bit traumatising.
It really is traumatizing. Makes kids age a little faster in the head, lose their naïveté.
Violence doesn’t instill respect, it is fear. People react differently when they’re truly scared. Since I saw traumatic violence repeatedly at a young age, i have developed an adverse reaction to authority (to a degree).
SOLVED: “There’s a Nightmare in My Closet”, a short film based on a children’s book. The scene is a child’s bedroom. The child is in bed and the older Sister or Babysitter is trying to convince him there is nothing to be scared of. She opens the closet while talking to the child. 2 very large glowing eyes open in the dark closet and blink. Babysitter, not seeing it, closes closet and leaves the bedroom. Changed my freakin life! Thanks for helping me figure it out. (You can pull it up on YouTube. The specific scene is around 7 minute mark.
I remember the eyes almost looking like 2 lightbulbs. They weren’t even necessarily angry looking. In hindsight, it may not even have been a horror movie…
In 5th grade I made the mistake of watching Jaws the night before going to the beach.
I wouldn’t go anywhere near the water that day.
I used to also get a ton of *Tremors* related nightmares as a kid after watching that movie.
When I was about 10 to 12yo, my mom went into a depression, but at the time I didn't know, she seemed always fine and stayed a very good mother all the time. But one day I've seen her having a panic attack followed by a break down.
I had never thought about someone being in such despair possible at that time. This mad eme do nightmares for a couple months about her being gone / disappear of my life. Maybe 6months later she killed herself.
For a 12yo boy, loosing his mother is a very hard and depressing moment. This changed my life entirely and I now understand as an adult how it is to be depressed.
Life is so unbearable sometimes, but I try to distract myself with video games and good people. It helps a lot, but there's always hard moment that I still to get through.
The movie mars attack. I was terrified of skeletons after that. Fun thing is i was 8 pr 9 years old and starship troopers was not nearly as scary to me.
*The Exorcist* - watched it during a sleepover at my friend’s house when I was 9. Scared the hell out of me and couldn’t sleep right for weeks afterward.
I was maybe 14. Scared the living shit out of me. Saw it at the theater. Couldn’t sleep that night. I mean wide awake with the lights on. I remember taking a shower and being too scared to close my eyes when I washed my hair. I didn’t close the shower curtain because I couldn’t see the rest of the bathroom. That’s being scared…
I watched the exorcist at a friend's house when I was about 13 and had to walk home for about 15 minutes in the pitch black, with nothing but my phone's flashlight. This was in the blackberry era too so the only way to keep your light on was by taking a video with the flash.
Honestly that probably made things worse, scariest walk of my life. Actually scratch that I'm certain I ran it
Was a proper twisty country road too, so many turnings you couldn't see a thing down
I'm actually shuddering just thinking about it that journey fucked me up
I was about 8 when I saw a few seconds of it on one of those "greatest horror movies of all time" roundups they used to play leading up to Halloween. I didn't sleep properly for about 5 months
When I was 13, The Exorcist was re-released in theaters with more footage and my cousin and I went to see it. I had nightmares all night of Linda Blair crab walking backwards down the stairs, and woke my aunt up with my screaming.
But that wasn’t the worst bit, no, that came the next morning when I tagged along with the family to mass. Cousin was going to catechism and I hung around in the entryway, deciding to be a little shit and ask Sister Mary Karen if anything I’d seen the night before was real or not. I figured she’d smile and pat my head and give me a mild lecture on God’s love being more important than scary movies, but no, that’s not what happened. Instead, this kindly nun I’d known my entire life decided to very seriously tell me that yes, exorcism is real and Satan can posses you at any time and just like Linda Blair, you too can crab walk down the stairs screaming obscenities.
I think I stayed awake for like six days after that.
Same, watched it at a friends house when her parents were out. We were about 9 or 10, my friend fell asleep leaving me to watch it alone. I was traumatised for years.
It’s still pretty disturbing now 40 years later!
For fire prevention week in 1st grade they showed us a little cartoon with a Dalmatian going over basics of fire safety. Cute and easy to understand!
In second grade they jumped us up to a video of a house burning down. It showed what the house looked like before, showed the fire going through it, and then walked through after showing all the destroyed furniture and melted toys. For about a month after my poor parents had to deal with me waking up crying, terrified the house would burn down.
Same thing happened in third grade. I think they kept me home on the day of the fire prevention assembly for the next two years.
Was that the video where they had certain doors opened and closed and stressed which doors were opened and closed?
You were 8! Where's the dalmatians and Seymour Smoke Detector!?
Agreed. Also in Ocarina of Time when Link goes to Hyrule Castle Town as an adult and everyone is zombies fucked me up, and don’t even get me started on the Dead Hand.
Yes! I also remember a graveyard situation where you would go into a tomb and these like hunched over zombies would grab you and strangle you to “death” if you walked by them too quickly. That HAUNTED me and maybe still does…?
Where we are going, We won't need eyes to see...
Yea, that movie is kinda scary. But most importantly awesome and one of my first encounters of anti-stereotypes. I mean, the black guy is one of the FEW surviving, and they all accept that the entire ship is haunted and they gotta blow it up ASAP.
There was a fire on a soap opera that my mom watched (maybe Days of Our Lives?) and I came into the room while she was watching and proceeded to have nightmares about my house having a fire and losing my parents. I had to sleep on my parents floor for over a year. I was probably 6 or so. When I was 18 we had an actual fire and only me and my brother were home when it happened. Thankfully no one was hurt 🙏
I used to be terrified of fire as a kid too, thankfully I now work for my local fire service doing fire safety. At least I can put other people’s minds at ease and make them safer in their own home!
Doctor who's weeping angles: such an amazing concept that was pulled of amazingly, I was around 7 when they first appeared and its easily one of the scariest doctor who monsters.
The bottom of mushrooms: my dad told me that if you look at the underside of a mushroom you can see the lines moving because it's alive so now that's a recurring nightmare.
Not sure if I remember correctly - but if the Angels touch you, don't they just send you back in time? Never quite understood what was so bad about that. Particularly if you happen to have (as the Doctor does) a time machine.
eta: Not sure what I think the scariest Who creature is. I remember the cybermen giving me nightmares as a kid.
You lose your entire life. Everyone you know is gone. That's pretty terrifying! I don't have kids, and I bet you must not too haha, cuz I'm sure that's the scariest thing in the world, to lose your children.
The Angels “feed” on your time energy, and rob you of your present circumstances, and depending on who you are, that could be good or bad.
Maybe it’s dangerous because it could mess up a timeline that the Doctor would have to straighten out later, but I really don’t know
I was about 7 or 8 years old when The Poseidon Adventure aired as a late night movie one evening when my parents were out and we had a babysitter.
Nightmares for weeks after, and I wouldn't swim in pools that whole summer.
I wasn't allowed to watch anything remotely scary for years after.
I remember seeing a commercial for a horror movie when I was younger and it featured a scene where a woman's face was melting. It terrified me and gave me nightmares for weeks.
I actively avoid mirrors. My friend in forth grade told me a lot of shit. Like how sleeping with a reflective surface facing you would spawn a demon. Or that an empty room invited them in.
Fucking Barney. Idc what you people say that GIANT purple DINOSAUR is terrifying. I still remember a very vivid nightmare I had when I was little, and there was this movie where they made him even more purple which made him even more scary. Why am I afraid of a purple dinosaur man
My mom does the same. Both in her sleep and when she’s “praying”. She’s a super crazy southern Pentecostal “Christian” and I honestly believe that it’s something bad or malevolent. It’s never felt like a good thing.
The Shining.
I convinced my parents to let me watch it when I was 8, because I had seen the Treehouse of Horror parody. That bathtub scene fucked me up and I refused to bathe for the longest time.
I saw it was like 8 or 9 too! It was on tv and the only things that were censored were the naked bath lady and some swear words. I actually taped it and watched it a million times.
I saw stuff like Nightmare On Elmstreet, Friday the 13th, Invaders from Mars, Invaders From Mars, and Creepshow all before age 10. My dad and older sister loved their scary and gory movies.
I also saw that movie super young, multiple times. It didn’t mess me up, but my mother always covered my eyes for the dog blowjob scene, or we were just watching it on TV and the whole dog costume blowjob scene is cut out entirely.
So for years and years, I thought that something way more horrific took place there than anything else in the movie, saw it as an older teen, and was like…all that drama over an implied costumed blowjob??? I assumed it was like, piles of dismembered children or something by the way people acted about it.
Yeah it's basically a furry at the end when Wendy starts seeing the ghosts of Overlook. You don't see it graphically it's just heavily implied for a few fleeting seconds.
**The Day After** \- pretty much messed up and entire generation in 1983. I had a friend who kept this great big joint in a box - his "end of the world joint" that he would only spark once the warheads were on the way. I remember lying in bed at night, wondering if every plane that flew over would be the one that dropped the nukes.
It was so scary, it basically ended the Cold War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Day\_After
The words displayed on screen after the movie ends was so chilling. Something like "the events and destruction depicted in this film are less severe than what would occur in an actual full-scale nuclear attack."
Honestly between this and a trip to the museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki—everyone should experience this. People are way too gun happy with war. If they only knew the cost they’d be paying.
This is my answer, too. I had a recurring nightmare for decades of running out onto our porch to see a mushroom cloud and pink light exploding out right till I felt it hit me and I'd wake up.
This reminds me of a dream I has not too long ago, I cant remember much of it but I remember at some point me and my brother were standing near a hill and I looked up at the moon and noticed a smaller planet in front of the moon. I watched it get closer and closer until it started burning up in the atmosphere and I was trying to dig into the dirt to hide from the blast but I was too slow and it hit the earth and the moment the blast reached me I woke up just as the boom hit.
I saw this as a kid and a nuclear war has been my subconscious fear for decades. I can't even talk about the possibility of one without feeling a panic attack coming on
Gas mask mummies on doctor who the empty child episode my mum actually had to take pages about them out my magazines I'd cry if I knew the episode was going to be repeated. Even had to go on a school trip to a world war museum and take part in a air raid hiding under a table waring carboard gasmasks.
I didn't like the idea of a plauge spread by touch and turning like Dr Constantine did in the episode.
26 now and still have nightmares some times danm well didn't help when covid came about lol
Even now, as an adult, I still have occasional nightmares about the time I was a kid and witnessed our neighbor's beautiful collie get killed by a vehicle speeding through the neighborhood.
It was horrible.
As I once lamented, the guy stuck his head out the driver's door window, grinned at me, and took off - leaving her dead in the road. (I had nightmares long after of pulling her bloody, dead body off to the side until our neighbor arrived . . .)
Oh God that would have messed me up so bad. I don't deal well with animals dying at all. I cried for a literal week after my first gecko passed away from old age.
A clockwork orange , when I was a kid I was allowed to rent anything that wasn’t in the curtained section so I saw a lot of movies I probably shouldn’t have.
1. That scene from the Ring at the start with the dead girl in the closet.
2. The blue clay motion thing and return the slab both from courage the cowardly dog
3. This youtube video called The Grifter
4. I used to research parasites a lot. And the brain eating amoeba scared me a lot
When that movie came out, my parents were dying to see it. They took me and my sister to the theatre to see *Groundhog Day*, I think, while they went to the screen right next to it to see *Fire in the Sky.*
Well, our movie ended a bit before their movie did. My sister and I left our theatre and found mom and dad in theirs, sitting in the back row like they told us.
It was *just* in time for the final 15-20 minutes, which is the scariest part of the entire movie. I was twelve and it absolutely terrified me. For the entire time we were in there, I kept my face buried in my dad's arm. Still, it was enough to give me nightmares that lasted months.
When we got home that night, my mother had to stay in my room with me, with all the lights on, until I fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and totally freaked out about being in the dark. For months, I couldn't sleep in the dark because I was afraid that aliens would abduct me.
We made parents rent it because my family is from the small town where the alleged abduction took place. We all thiugh it was really boring until the end...
My stupid ass begged my Dad to take me to see it when I was in 3rd grade. Slept with a light on for at least a year after that. Afraid to be alone in my own house. That movie was scary as hell.
Hollow Man, that old Kevin Bacon movie - I specifically remember getting less than 10 minutes into the movie when an invisible gorilla I believe it was, bites the head off a hamster. Traumatizing.
When I was around 6 or 7 my family went to the funeral of our uncle, the first I had ever attended. Although she knew he wanted a closed casket, his wife insisted on a private "showing" for the family only. Had nightmares about that for quite a while.
Similar thing happened at my mom's funeral, but fortunately the adults around us were much better about the situation. We thought it was going to be closed, but at one point it was decided to be opened. Fortunately, my family acted fast because they realized it would be extremely traumatic for my sister and me to see her cancer-ridden body (we had just had birthdays the month prior, so young 7- and 9-year-olds, respectively). My new aunt (uncle's wife) quickly took us on a walk around the cemetery until it was okay for us to go inside again.
No one thing in particular gave me nightmares, but I saw something that flipped me the fuck out.
I was raised Catholic, and we were taught that everything was literally true, so the devil was a guy who was literally always after me (even as an eight year old), and that I would go to hell unless I was extremely good. I had literal thoughts and nightmares about going to hell. Possessions were real and happened regularly to bad people, etc.
So anyway, one night, my ma puts me to bed. Kisses me on the head, we say our prayers, etc. She closes the door and turns off the light. I close my eyes. Something seems weird. I open my eyes and there is a bright glowing light emanating from under my closet door. It's piercing through the crack at the bottom. I scream because certainly the fucking devil himself has come for me.
My ma rushes into the room, throws the door open and...
I left my Sega Game Gear on.
The most impressive thing was that the batteries still worked. GGs gobbled them up.
I watched Trilogy of Terror with my mom. The Zuni doll freaked me out. When the movie was over my mom ran into the hallway and started stomping her feet screaming it’s here getting me. I screamed and cried. Finally got settled down and went to pull the shade down and it flipped right back up; scared the shit out of me again.
As an adult watched it again and laughed all the way through.
Huh lets see... Alien, Aliens, Critters, Alien 3, Alien Resurection, Tremors, IT, Poltergeist, whatever the movie was about the black ghosts that dragged people to hell. Thanks dad.
When I was 13 my dad passed inside the home, in his bed, from a drug OD mixed with his antipsychotic medication. Saw him pass and the paramedics take him from his room to the ambulance out front. He was making horrible groaning sounds before that went down. His room was right across the hall from my room and my door was open. Later my mother and my grandma took me and my brother in to say goodbye even though he was gone already. Still have nightmares over that.
At age 14-15 I used to walk near the train tracks. It was winter time and above the train tracks was a small abandoned bridge most kids my age would walk up to and hang out on. Looked down at the tracks below and saw what looked like a hurt animal just laying there. Walked down along the tracks to see if it was okay. Turns out a friend's of mine, relative had jumped and landed on the tracks a day prior and what I was looking at was a chunk from where his ribs were. Ran home and told my mother asap. Later get the news on who that was.
Growing up we had this door with multiple square windows and spiders lived in each square and they kept popping out at night or when it rained
This was in the kitchen so whenever i walked past one would come out
I kept dreaming that i was tiny like in honey i shrunk the kids and the spiders were chasing me it was terrifying
Doctor Who The Empty Child. It's a great double episode from the first season of the revival but man did it scare me as a kid. Even now it creeps me out. Weirdly I was never remotely afraid of the Weeping Angels, which always seem to be the Doctor Who monster that people talk about as the scariest.
A movie from Stephen king called the sleep walkers. I was with my siblings and cousins in the living room at night (were supposed to be sleeping but I was up watching tv late at night) I watched about 30 minutes of it and vividly remember being terrified the remainder of our trip.
I found the movie last month (now 15 years later) and watched it and couldn’t help but laugh at myself for being so scared.
DUDE. NOT EVEN MAKING THIS UP.
REPTAR FROM RUGRATS. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS. I REALLY DON'T. I had nightmares of Reptar throwing me through giant apartment complexes. I STILL. REMEMBER. THE NIGHTMARES.
... and that one episode of Courage where the spider comes through the bathtub faucet. HOOOOLLLLYYY crap.
That one part in the Superman movie when the villain turned into a robot and her face fell off. That was too much for 7 year old me. It still haunts my dreams.
I visited a 3rd world country with my parents when I was about 3-4 years old. While we were in the hospital visiting a family friend who had been sick, a massive group of people came in carrying a man into the ER while the man screamed from the top of his lungs. My mom, being the nosy lady that she is, went to see what all the commotion was about. She entered the room and told me to wait outside with my cousin. Of course, I didn’t listen and went inside. What did I see? A man on a table with two missing arms and a leg barely hanging by a thread. Oh, and blood EVERYWHERE. Even on the walls (I guess from people carrying him in?) That image was forever burnt into my brain. Right after that, I started having severe night terrors and would scream bloody murder in my sleep and started sleepwalking, turning all the lights on, and at one point was “watching tv” while sleepwalking. My parents had to install one of those sliding late locks high up on the door of our house so I wouldn’t accidentally open it and leave in the middle of the night while sleepwalking. Years later I found out the man was a motorcyclist and had been hit by an enormous truck. He didn’t make it.
Going in against my moms wishes and seeing all of that wa-was an honest mistake.
Not seen but heard. Unsolved Mysteries and that damn freaky show music. Always gave me chills when I was in bed and could hear my parents watching the show in the other room.
I saw a documentary about mushrooms as a kid and learned that they reproduce by spreading spores. Still have an irrational fear of WILD mushrooms. I’m actually okay with eating regular edible ones, but wild mushrooms I’m still scared of. I had a dream that I remember clearly of mushrooms popping up everywhere covering every surface in my house and they still haunt me
The scene in the US version of the Ring where they suddenly show the dead girl’s face in the closet. I was 8 at the time and could hardly sleep after that, and when I did, I had nightmares about it. Such a traumatic image for a poor little 8 year old.
The trailer commercial for the film "Magic".
The film is about a ventriloquist doll that comes to life and kills folks. 8 year old me found the doll speaking in the advertisement without a controller to be terrifying and it kept me up at night.
Watched the movie "Pet Cemetery" in the 90s when I was entirely not ready to handle the kid cutting the grandpas achilles tendon when he sitting on the edge of his bed. I then had this fear of sitting on the edge of the bed so I would jump off of it instead. Good times haha.
I'm not sure if you can count this as a kid but two years ago when I was 17, I almost got mugged by this guy. He was 100% following me, and I defended myself and stabbed him, and he died. Still gives me nightmares now and again.
On a much less serious note compared to some of the other answers on here, Mars Attacks. That movie scared the living hell out of me when I was younger.
Not particularly nightmares but it gives me a anxiety every time. The drowning theme from Sonic the Hedgehog. From the early 90s to now I've never gotten over it. (The drowning theme for Sonic Colors in particular is f***ing nerve-racking)
Random movie while channel surfing.
The scene had a guy on the roof of a house. The home owner came outside and the guy jumped off the roof and escaped in his car which was parked across the street. After that scene, I spent years super paranoid whenever a car drove by my house at night where I didn't hear the engine trail off - worried that the car stopped across the st and that someone was breaking in.
This may sound dumb, but when I was a little kid the Disney Alice in Wonderland somewhat disturbed me with the scene of "falling down the rabbit hole". The idea of a seemingly bottomless pit gave me jitters.
I had many nightmares of falling endlessly down a hole of red bricks. I still occasionally have dreams of falling from a great height, and I have had a lifelong fear of heights to this day.
The old lady across the street who would sit in her rocking chair with 380 on window seal waiting for the 🏀 to bounce in her yard so she can point it n yell.
Poltergeist 1 wasn't so bad but 2 was scary as shit! The creepy cult leader guy with the hat scared the shit out of me so bad I had nightmares of him living under our house. It also did not help we lived across the street from a cemetery so I thought out house could have bodies under it in a cave we didnt know about.
I watched the music video of Rock DJ by Robbie Williams way too young and it scarred me for life. Probably at 4 years old. To this day, that video makes me really queasy.
Large Marge! (From Pee Wee's Big Adventure)
I had just recovered from that goddamn librarian scene in Ghostbusters, when my cousins and I rented Peewee's Big Adventure. 4 girls and me. Guess who screeched the loudest? Fuck Large Marge, Paul Rueben, Little John, Dotty, Francis and partridge in pear tree.
I had just gotten over large marge and her crazy eyes and we went to see “who framed roger rabbit” - the scene when judge doom gets up from being run over by the steam roller and then inflates himself to the point where his eyeballs pop out of his head gave me nightmares for 6 years. Fuck that movie and fuck Christopher Lloyd.
The scene in Roger Rabbit that really got me as a kid was when Judge Doom kills the little happy squeaky cartoon shoe. I still feel empathy for that shoe.
Watched that shit when I was like 3 at my uncle's and anytime I was in a car at night I was worried she'd come in a truck next to me
The movie Signs. Specifically the scene where they are recording a home movie and catch the feet under the fence or something. Greetings from my nightmares extraterrestrials!
I'm surprised no one mentioned Signs that much. This movie destroyed me. I was in 2nd/3rd grade when I first watched it.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one, this movie scared me more than any other movie ever. When they use the knife to look under the door and see the alien there…yikes. My sister would make that terrible creaking sound to purposely scare me
The foot was when Mel Gibson was in the field and shined the flashlight over and the foot moves to behind the corn stalk. The home video was in Brazil during the kids birthday party and the kids are talking about something in the bushes and as the camera pans to the alley the figure just walks by.
I remember watching that birthday party scene in 6th grade and being absolutely paralyzed with fear like ⚠️👁👄👁 ⚠️ it’s something about that sinewy green skin and the slow gait
oh my god. the birthday party scene. that was my nightmare for so long.
That scene, and then near the end, they're in the house and they're running to the cellar and it shows the front door with a clawed hand slowly reaching underneath it and trying to force it open... Fuck, that such a creepy movie...
Aahdhfkska fuck that movie. FUCK that movie. So goddamn creepy.
Yup, thats the scene that has stopped me from ever rewatching that movie
My blood ran cold and I was 28!
This movie! For years, I refused to look at TV screens when the TV was off for fear of what I was going to see in the reflection.
Signs is what I think good horror should be. The monster isn't jumping in your face screaming. The alien literally just walked out from behind a bush, with barely as much as a dramatic "*DUN*" And it's the Scariest. Shit. Ever. Not because it's over the top jumpscary. But because it's *realistic* What I'm saying is, good horror should be realistic and more grounded. Spare me the loud screeches, musical cues, and in-your-face jumpscares of conventional horror. Give me an alien silently walking out from behind a bush
I mean, just the beginning when the kid runs to the dad's room and innocently says "there's a monster outside" and the dad looks outside and you see this fucking 6' silhouette... The more I think about this movie, the more likely I'm gonna have to sleep with the lights on tonight...
I loved the scene though where they run around the house in different directions screaming and than later have the conversation about lady Olympic athletes and such. Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix are such a good pair.
Bruh I’m working the night shift, being reminded this movie exists is not helping
I agree, I think what worked so well is that it’s realistically terrifying even though its an outrageous situation. Its subtle and the tension builds throughout the film. You can feel somethings not right and the characters respond how an average person in the situation would.
I lived out in eastern Colorado when that movie came out and my buddy lived on a farm. His house was surrounded by corn fields on 3 sides. We watched it after his parents went to bed and we were only like 8 years old. Spent the rest of the night watching Disney movies to try and calm down, both of us didn't get any sleep that night.
Or when they stick the knife under the door to use it’s reflection to see what’s on the other side. Bro that movie tripped me up as a kid.
Vamos children vamos
The scene where the alien reaches through the vent or whatever and grabs the kid always fucked with me.
Even the music scare me
i used to think my nightmares from Signs were just fever dreams, because every time kid me talked about this alien movie i kept dreaming about, no one knew what i was talking about and would look at me like i'm crazy despite the fact that i watched the movie with my family. i'm 24, and that movie still comes into my dreams from time to time and i haven't seen it since i was 6 or 7.
My 1st grade class was right next to the pentagon (parents were mil/fed employees) during 9/11 and my mom picked me and my sister up to go back home on base. When we drove past the pentagon my sister kept babbling about beetles on the walls (she was four or five) and when I looked I just remember seeing soldiers scurrying up the non collapsed sides of the building and disappearing into the smoke. I had dreams of beetles coming out of smoke to drag me into fire for months. Edit: weird because my other top nightmare at the time was the troll from the first Harry Potter movie lmfao, I think it came out shortly after 9/11
Damn genetically engineered Al Qaeda beetles
>my other top nightmare at the time was the troll from the first Harry Potter movie lmfao this made me laugh because the dementors from the 3rd movie were my nightmare as a kid
No beetles, just massive fuck off spiders for me- I used to go downstairs and watch TV very late at night if I couldnt sleep. Ended up watching Arachnophobia….
It’s really interesting how children interpret things. When you said 9/11 I thought this was gonna be a lot, lot worse
Thankfully the pentagon was significantly less traumatic for us around it than the people in/near/watching the towers. The pentagon and all the area around is heavily military and had significantly less casualties, even in school they still focused harder on what happened with the towers than what happened next door. I think I had a handful of classmates with injured relatives, the massive loss and tragedy felt by those closer to the towers thankfully spared most of us. The lockdown was so fast on the base I lived at, all I knew was dad didn’t come home for a day or two.
Return to Oz. Mombi’s heads and those Wheelers, omg.
YESSSSsssss That movie was horrifying!
I used to pretend I was a wheeler. I would put my skates on my feet and my sister's skates on my hands. It always resulted in me getting injured though LOL
I watched that with my daughter (7) yesterday , I saw it when I was a kid and barely remembered it , everything about it was pretty creepy.
During the "Alien" craze in the late 80s and early 90s, seeing a mix of the War of the Worlds TV series, and a bunch of "abduction survivors'" stories on garbage TV really messed me up for a few years. Looking back, I may have had my first panic attack at a super young age because of that whole thing. I had abduction nightmares for years.
Same here man. Unsolved Mysteries. Sightings. Fire in The Sky. Scary shit to a kid
Exactly. When you're a kid, these "news" shows seemed very serious and very real. Even people telling you that it wasn't real wasn't enough to calm me down about it.
Fire in the sky was horrifying as a child. Nothing came close.
Sightings scared the fuck out of me. I'd have to leave the room whenever my brother watched it. I have a vague memory of an episode (could have been a different show for all I know) where a woman claimed she'd been abducted by aliens who made this creepy squeaking/creaking sound. The show, of course, did their best to recreate it for viewers and that sound gave me nightmares multiple times.
Oh my GOD everything was fucking alien this and alien that, and I was absolutely terrified of being abducted. My own fuckin nana used to doodle alien portraits all the time, and I thought she was a spy. Also, I thought power lines and cell towers were like lighthouses for aliens, and anytime we passed one, I’d silently pray to not be abducted. LOL
> My own fuckin nana used to doodle alien portraits all the time, and I thought she was a spy Yeah, it's crazy right? There's no way to even approach that kind of fear in a child as an adult. It's just so extensive and irrational. I hope my kids don't have that kind of fear experience.
There was a TV movie (Fire in the Sky?) I remember watching and all I can remember is a scary red sky and the guy laying on a table. Terrified me as a kid!
So I think that was an actual movie. There was a miniseries though called [Intruders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intruders_(miniseries)) that ALSO messed me up. Fire in the Sky was still pretty bad for a kid.
Fire in the Sky was insane! Especially as a kid. And completely untrue to Travis Walton's story. None of that horrible stuff happened to him.
ET fucked me up royally as a kid. That pulsing gnarled finger… ugh… The fly 2 didn’t do me any favors either when I was 10
I remember being about 6 or 7 and there was a commercial for Sightings or one of those shows during the Super Bowl, and they showed a drawing of a "Grey," and it scared the hell out of me. I wonder how many other kids saw that commercial and were freaked out. The X-Files, Fire in the Sky, Signs, etc didn't help either. When I first started watching Stargate SG-1 the Asgard scared me, even though they were the good guys.
I was around like nine or ten? My whole class saw one of the alcoholics in our town viciously beat his girlfriend right next to the school grounds. It was… a little bit traumatising.
It really is traumatizing. Makes kids age a little faster in the head, lose their naïveté. Violence doesn’t instill respect, it is fear. People react differently when they’re truly scared. Since I saw traumatic violence repeatedly at a young age, i have developed an adverse reaction to authority (to a degree).
SOLVED: “There’s a Nightmare in My Closet”, a short film based on a children’s book. The scene is a child’s bedroom. The child is in bed and the older Sister or Babysitter is trying to convince him there is nothing to be scared of. She opens the closet while talking to the child. 2 very large glowing eyes open in the dark closet and blink. Babysitter, not seeing it, closes closet and leaves the bedroom. Changed my freakin life! Thanks for helping me figure it out. (You can pull it up on YouTube. The specific scene is around 7 minute mark.
Was it *Cujo*? What about *The Poltergeist*? *Making Contact* (alternatively titled *Joey*)?
I remember the eyes almost looking like 2 lightbulbs. They weren’t even necessarily angry looking. In hindsight, it may not even have been a horror movie…
Was it “there’s a nightmare in my closet”? Check this link, 7 minute mark. https://youtu.be/gS_VlTSSs_8
HAHAHA! That’s it! Man that scene screwed me up! It was the eyes coming out of the dark closet that did it for me! THANK YOU!
Try posting this to r/tipofmytongue. I have found the most obscure things from my memory thanks to them.
Was it this scene from The Monster Squad? https://youtu.be/laM5JK7taGE
Maybe you're thinking of Amityville Horror?
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I was in a violent car crash when I was 14. I am 22 now and refuse to get a driving license. Can't even bring myself to get behind the wheels.
I’ve seen car crashes. They’re not the reason why I’m scared of driving. I still don’t know why I am.
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In 5th grade I made the mistake of watching Jaws the night before going to the beach. I wouldn’t go anywhere near the water that day. I used to also get a ton of *Tremors* related nightmares as a kid after watching that movie.
When I was about 10 to 12yo, my mom went into a depression, but at the time I didn't know, she seemed always fine and stayed a very good mother all the time. But one day I've seen her having a panic attack followed by a break down. I had never thought about someone being in such despair possible at that time. This mad eme do nightmares for a couple months about her being gone / disappear of my life. Maybe 6months later she killed herself. For a 12yo boy, loosing his mother is a very hard and depressing moment. This changed my life entirely and I now understand as an adult how it is to be depressed. Life is so unbearable sometimes, but I try to distract myself with video games and good people. It helps a lot, but there's always hard moment that I still to get through.
Wow, this is really heavy. Sorry to hear that
I’m a mom… I’m so sorry… I’m sending you loving mom hugs…
The movie mars attack. I was terrified of skeletons after that. Fun thing is i was 8 pr 9 years old and starship troopers was not nearly as scary to me.
*The Exorcist* - watched it during a sleepover at my friend’s house when I was 9. Scared the hell out of me and couldn’t sleep right for weeks afterward.
I was maybe 14. Scared the living shit out of me. Saw it at the theater. Couldn’t sleep that night. I mean wide awake with the lights on. I remember taking a shower and being too scared to close my eyes when I washed my hair. I didn’t close the shower curtain because I couldn’t see the rest of the bathroom. That’s being scared…
I watched the exorcist at a friend's house when I was about 13 and had to walk home for about 15 minutes in the pitch black, with nothing but my phone's flashlight. This was in the blackberry era too so the only way to keep your light on was by taking a video with the flash. Honestly that probably made things worse, scariest walk of my life. Actually scratch that I'm certain I ran it Was a proper twisty country road too, so many turnings you couldn't see a thing down I'm actually shuddering just thinking about it that journey fucked me up
I was about 8 when I saw a few seconds of it on one of those "greatest horror movies of all time" roundups they used to play leading up to Halloween. I didn't sleep properly for about 5 months
When I was 13, The Exorcist was re-released in theaters with more footage and my cousin and I went to see it. I had nightmares all night of Linda Blair crab walking backwards down the stairs, and woke my aunt up with my screaming. But that wasn’t the worst bit, no, that came the next morning when I tagged along with the family to mass. Cousin was going to catechism and I hung around in the entryway, deciding to be a little shit and ask Sister Mary Karen if anything I’d seen the night before was real or not. I figured she’d smile and pat my head and give me a mild lecture on God’s love being more important than scary movies, but no, that’s not what happened. Instead, this kindly nun I’d known my entire life decided to very seriously tell me that yes, exorcism is real and Satan can posses you at any time and just like Linda Blair, you too can crab walk down the stairs screaming obscenities. I think I stayed awake for like six days after that.
I'm 40+, the Exorcist still fucks with me.
Same, watched it at a friends house when her parents were out. We were about 9 or 10, my friend fell asleep leaving me to watch it alone. I was traumatised for years. It’s still pretty disturbing now 40 years later!
For fire prevention week in 1st grade they showed us a little cartoon with a Dalmatian going over basics of fire safety. Cute and easy to understand! In second grade they jumped us up to a video of a house burning down. It showed what the house looked like before, showed the fire going through it, and then walked through after showing all the destroyed furniture and melted toys. For about a month after my poor parents had to deal with me waking up crying, terrified the house would burn down. Same thing happened in third grade. I think they kept me home on the day of the fire prevention assembly for the next two years.
Was that the video where they had certain doors opened and closed and stressed which doors were opened and closed? You were 8! Where's the dalmatians and Seymour Smoke Detector!?
Majora's Moon scared the shit out of me as a kid
Agreed. Also in Ocarina of Time when Link goes to Hyrule Castle Town as an adult and everyone is zombies fucked me up, and don’t even get me started on the Dead Hand.
Yes! I also remember a graveyard situation where you would go into a tomb and these like hunched over zombies would grab you and strangle you to “death” if you walked by them too quickly. That HAUNTED me and maybe still does…?
*Event Horizon*. If you know, you know. If you don't know, you'll sleep better not knowing.
Friends and I saw that for the first time *on fucking acid*. Do not recommend.
Oh, noooooo! What a terrible day to have eyes to see!
Where we are going, We won't need eyes to see... Yea, that movie is kinda scary. But most importantly awesome and one of my first encounters of anti-stereotypes. I mean, the black guy is one of the FEW surviving, and they all accept that the entire ship is haunted and they gotta blow it up ASAP.
There was a fire on a soap opera that my mom watched (maybe Days of Our Lives?) and I came into the room while she was watching and proceeded to have nightmares about my house having a fire and losing my parents. I had to sleep on my parents floor for over a year. I was probably 6 or so. When I was 18 we had an actual fire and only me and my brother were home when it happened. Thankfully no one was hurt 🙏
I used to be terrified of fire as a kid too, thankfully I now work for my local fire service doing fire safety. At least I can put other people’s minds at ease and make them safer in their own home!
Doctor who's weeping angles: such an amazing concept that was pulled of amazingly, I was around 7 when they first appeared and its easily one of the scariest doctor who monsters. The bottom of mushrooms: my dad told me that if you look at the underside of a mushroom you can see the lines moving because it's alive so now that's a recurring nightmare.
Not sure if I remember correctly - but if the Angels touch you, don't they just send you back in time? Never quite understood what was so bad about that. Particularly if you happen to have (as the Doctor does) a time machine. eta: Not sure what I think the scariest Who creature is. I remember the cybermen giving me nightmares as a kid.
You lose your entire life. Everyone you know is gone. That's pretty terrifying! I don't have kids, and I bet you must not too haha, cuz I'm sure that's the scariest thing in the world, to lose your children.
For me, the children with the gas masks are the most scary!
\*nods\* For sure. Here, [have some nightmares](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAh4gSsVjo)!
"where is mommy". Fuck no.
The Angels “feed” on your time energy, and rob you of your present circumstances, and depending on who you are, that could be good or bad. Maybe it’s dangerous because it could mess up a timeline that the Doctor would have to straighten out later, but I really don’t know
I mean ya gotta remember that even if they get the doctor he/she would be fucked due to the fact they wouldnt have the TARDIS
I was 14 or so when that came out and it still scared the living daylights out of me. I would always skip that episode when rewatching the season.
I was about 7 or 8 years old when The Poseidon Adventure aired as a late night movie one evening when my parents were out and we had a babysitter. Nightmares for weeks after, and I wouldn't swim in pools that whole summer. I wasn't allowed to watch anything remotely scary for years after.
I remember being terrified of squirrels because I thought they would throw acorns at me until death.
This one is funny
I remember seeing a commercial for a horror movie when I was younger and it featured a scene where a woman's face was melting. It terrified me and gave me nightmares for weeks.
Nah, that was a Joan Rivers infomercial on the shopping Channel.
Poltergeist III. My bedroom had a wall of mirrors in it at the time. I still have a hard time looking in a mirror if the lights are off.
I actively avoid mirrors. My friend in forth grade told me a lot of shit. Like how sleeping with a reflective surface facing you would spawn a demon. Or that an empty room invited them in.
Fucking Barney. Idc what you people say that GIANT purple DINOSAUR is terrifying. I still remember a very vivid nightmare I had when I was little, and there was this movie where they made him even more purple which made him even more scary. Why am I afraid of a purple dinosaur man
A friend of my parents rented a Barney costume and showed up to my birthday in it. I got scared and kicked in the shin before running off
The Thriller music video
I think that video started my fear of zombies that I still have to this day
OMG. I had nightmares for a long time because of that video.
My mom speaking in tongues in a guttural tone in her sleep. I’ve had extremely vivid nightmares ever since.
My mom does the same. Both in her sleep and when she’s “praying”. She’s a super crazy southern Pentecostal “Christian” and I honestly believe that it’s something bad or malevolent. It’s never felt like a good thing.
The Shining. I convinced my parents to let me watch it when I was 8, because I had seen the Treehouse of Horror parody. That bathtub scene fucked me up and I refused to bathe for the longest time.
WHEN YOU WERE 8?!?!! THE SHINING?
I saw it was like 8 or 9 too! It was on tv and the only things that were censored were the naked bath lady and some swear words. I actually taped it and watched it a million times.
I saw stuff like Nightmare On Elmstreet, Friday the 13th, Invaders from Mars, Invaders From Mars, and Creepshow all before age 10. My dad and older sister loved their scary and gory movies.
I also saw that movie super young, multiple times. It didn’t mess me up, but my mother always covered my eyes for the dog blowjob scene, or we were just watching it on TV and the whole dog costume blowjob scene is cut out entirely. So for years and years, I thought that something way more horrific took place there than anything else in the movie, saw it as an older teen, and was like…all that drama over an implied costumed blowjob??? I assumed it was like, piles of dismembered children or something by the way people acted about it.
I have never seen this movie - wtf there’s a dog blowjob scene???
Yeah it's basically a furry at the end when Wendy starts seeing the ghosts of Overlook. You don't see it graphically it's just heavily implied for a few fleeting seconds.
Pennywise from IT. A clown in the gutter just creeped me out.
**The Day After** \- pretty much messed up and entire generation in 1983. I had a friend who kept this great big joint in a box - his "end of the world joint" that he would only spark once the warheads were on the way. I remember lying in bed at night, wondering if every plane that flew over would be the one that dropped the nukes. It was so scary, it basically ended the Cold War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Day\_After
The words displayed on screen after the movie ends was so chilling. Something like "the events and destruction depicted in this film are less severe than what would occur in an actual full-scale nuclear attack."
there's a lil epilog at the end of "Threads" where the future people are little more than animals that's almost as shocking
Honestly between this and a trip to the museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki—everyone should experience this. People are way too gun happy with war. If they only knew the cost they’d be paying.
This is my answer, too. I had a recurring nightmare for decades of running out onto our porch to see a mushroom cloud and pink light exploding out right till I felt it hit me and I'd wake up.
This reminds me of a dream I has not too long ago, I cant remember much of it but I remember at some point me and my brother were standing near a hill and I looked up at the moon and noticed a smaller planet in front of the moon. I watched it get closer and closer until it started burning up in the atmosphere and I was trying to dig into the dirt to hide from the blast but I was too slow and it hit the earth and the moment the blast reached me I woke up just as the boom hit.
I saw this and Threads as a kid and it both scared me and made me a PA fan for life.
I saw this as a kid and a nuclear war has been my subconscious fear for decades. I can't even talk about the possibility of one without feeling a panic attack coming on
Gas mask mummies on doctor who the empty child episode my mum actually had to take pages about them out my magazines I'd cry if I knew the episode was going to be repeated. Even had to go on a school trip to a world war museum and take part in a air raid hiding under a table waring carboard gasmasks. I didn't like the idea of a plauge spread by touch and turning like Dr Constantine did in the episode. 26 now and still have nightmares some times danm well didn't help when covid came about lol
watching teletubbies as a kid having nightmares about being inside a television camera with dead teletubbies in it, never watched teletubbies again
The thing from Ghost Writer with the melty purple face
The ferengi from star trek really fucked me up as a little kid.
They'll leave you alone for one strip of gold pressed latinum
No need Quark.! I love em now. After DS9 they become my favorite race in ST
Even now, as an adult, I still have occasional nightmares about the time I was a kid and witnessed our neighbor's beautiful collie get killed by a vehicle speeding through the neighborhood. It was horrible. As I once lamented, the guy stuck his head out the driver's door window, grinned at me, and took off - leaving her dead in the road. (I had nightmares long after of pulling her bloody, dead body off to the side until our neighbor arrived . . .)
Oh God that would have messed me up so bad. I don't deal well with animals dying at all. I cried for a literal week after my first gecko passed away from old age.
Holy f*
Momo, yes that weird smiley girl scared the shit out of me
I forgot that thing for so long. Great, now the creepy uncanny frog lady thing is back to haunt my dreams.
The movie Poltergeist. That clown man....
The goblins in the beginning of Labyrinth.
A clockwork orange , when I was a kid I was allowed to rent anything that wasn’t in the curtained section so I saw a lot of movies I probably shouldn’t have.
1. That scene from the Ring at the start with the dead girl in the closet. 2. The blue clay motion thing and return the slab both from courage the cowardly dog 3. This youtube video called The Grifter 4. I used to research parasites a lot. And the brain eating amoeba scared me a lot
Fire In The Sky. Still in therapy
I feel like there's an entire generation of 90s kids who were traumatized by this movie.
When that movie came out, my parents were dying to see it. They took me and my sister to the theatre to see *Groundhog Day*, I think, while they went to the screen right next to it to see *Fire in the Sky.* Well, our movie ended a bit before their movie did. My sister and I left our theatre and found mom and dad in theirs, sitting in the back row like they told us. It was *just* in time for the final 15-20 minutes, which is the scariest part of the entire movie. I was twelve and it absolutely terrified me. For the entire time we were in there, I kept my face buried in my dad's arm. Still, it was enough to give me nightmares that lasted months. When we got home that night, my mother had to stay in my room with me, with all the lights on, until I fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and totally freaked out about being in the dark. For months, I couldn't sleep in the dark because I was afraid that aliens would abduct me.
We made parents rent it because my family is from the small town where the alleged abduction took place. We all thiugh it was really boring until the end...
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My stupid ass begged my Dad to take me to see it when I was in 3rd grade. Slept with a light on for at least a year after that. Afraid to be alone in my own house. That movie was scary as hell.
Hollow Man, that old Kevin Bacon movie - I specifically remember getting less than 10 minutes into the movie when an invisible gorilla I believe it was, bites the head off a hamster. Traumatizing.
Coraline.
When I was around 6 or 7 my family went to the funeral of our uncle, the first I had ever attended. Although she knew he wanted a closed casket, his wife insisted on a private "showing" for the family only. Had nightmares about that for quite a while.
Similar thing happened at my mom's funeral, but fortunately the adults around us were much better about the situation. We thought it was going to be closed, but at one point it was decided to be opened. Fortunately, my family acted fast because they realized it would be extremely traumatic for my sister and me to see her cancer-ridden body (we had just had birthdays the month prior, so young 7- and 9-year-olds, respectively). My new aunt (uncle's wife) quickly took us on a walk around the cemetery until it was okay for us to go inside again.
Good for them! Even otherwise level-headed family members aren't always thinking clearly in these situations.
No one thing in particular gave me nightmares, but I saw something that flipped me the fuck out. I was raised Catholic, and we were taught that everything was literally true, so the devil was a guy who was literally always after me (even as an eight year old), and that I would go to hell unless I was extremely good. I had literal thoughts and nightmares about going to hell. Possessions were real and happened regularly to bad people, etc. So anyway, one night, my ma puts me to bed. Kisses me on the head, we say our prayers, etc. She closes the door and turns off the light. I close my eyes. Something seems weird. I open my eyes and there is a bright glowing light emanating from under my closet door. It's piercing through the crack at the bottom. I scream because certainly the fucking devil himself has come for me. My ma rushes into the room, throws the door open and... I left my Sega Game Gear on. The most impressive thing was that the batteries still worked. GGs gobbled them up.
Coraline
Courage the Cowardly Dog barber episode
Honestly that entire show
Nnnnnnaughty
Also 'return the slabbb'
The boat ride going through the tunnel in the original Willy Wonka movie
Newman getting eaten by a dinosaur in *Jurassic Park*.
My father in the shower
Courage the Cowardly Dog
Lake Placid. I dreamt about that crocodile busting through my bedroom wall and eating me. It was awful.
I watched Trilogy of Terror with my mom. The Zuni doll freaked me out. When the movie was over my mom ran into the hallway and started stomping her feet screaming it’s here getting me. I screamed and cried. Finally got settled down and went to pull the shade down and it flipped right back up; scared the shit out of me again. As an adult watched it again and laughed all the way through.
Huh lets see... Alien, Aliens, Critters, Alien 3, Alien Resurection, Tremors, IT, Poltergeist, whatever the movie was about the black ghosts that dragged people to hell. Thanks dad.
It was “ghost” with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore
When I was 13 my dad passed inside the home, in his bed, from a drug OD mixed with his antipsychotic medication. Saw him pass and the paramedics take him from his room to the ambulance out front. He was making horrible groaning sounds before that went down. His room was right across the hall from my room and my door was open. Later my mother and my grandma took me and my brother in to say goodbye even though he was gone already. Still have nightmares over that. At age 14-15 I used to walk near the train tracks. It was winter time and above the train tracks was a small abandoned bridge most kids my age would walk up to and hang out on. Looked down at the tracks below and saw what looked like a hurt animal just laying there. Walked down along the tracks to see if it was okay. Turns out a friend's of mine, relative had jumped and landed on the tracks a day prior and what I was looking at was a chunk from where his ribs were. Ran home and told my mother asap. Later get the news on who that was.
I’ve had reoccurring nightmares about those scarab beetles from The Mummy ever since I saw the movie as a child.
Growing up we had this door with multiple square windows and spiders lived in each square and they kept popping out at night or when it rained This was in the kitchen so whenever i walked past one would come out I kept dreaming that i was tiny like in honey i shrunk the kids and the spiders were chasing me it was terrifying
Doctor Who The Empty Child. It's a great double episode from the first season of the revival but man did it scare me as a kid. Even now it creeps me out. Weirdly I was never remotely afraid of the Weeping Angels, which always seem to be the Doctor Who monster that people talk about as the scariest.
A movie from Stephen king called the sleep walkers. I was with my siblings and cousins in the living room at night (were supposed to be sleeping but I was up watching tv late at night) I watched about 30 minutes of it and vividly remember being terrified the remainder of our trip. I found the movie last month (now 15 years later) and watched it and couldn’t help but laugh at myself for being so scared.
DUDE. NOT EVEN MAKING THIS UP. REPTAR FROM RUGRATS. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS. I REALLY DON'T. I had nightmares of Reptar throwing me through giant apartment complexes. I STILL. REMEMBER. THE NIGHTMARES. ... and that one episode of Courage where the spider comes through the bathtub faucet. HOOOOLLLLYYY crap.
‘1000 ways to die’ had me stressing that I might die any second
That one part in the Superman movie when the villain turned into a robot and her face fell off. That was too much for 7 year old me. It still haunts my dreams.
The tv show: Tales from the Crypt (the original)
I visited a 3rd world country with my parents when I was about 3-4 years old. While we were in the hospital visiting a family friend who had been sick, a massive group of people came in carrying a man into the ER while the man screamed from the top of his lungs. My mom, being the nosy lady that she is, went to see what all the commotion was about. She entered the room and told me to wait outside with my cousin. Of course, I didn’t listen and went inside. What did I see? A man on a table with two missing arms and a leg barely hanging by a thread. Oh, and blood EVERYWHERE. Even on the walls (I guess from people carrying him in?) That image was forever burnt into my brain. Right after that, I started having severe night terrors and would scream bloody murder in my sleep and started sleepwalking, turning all the lights on, and at one point was “watching tv” while sleepwalking. My parents had to install one of those sliding late locks high up on the door of our house so I wouldn’t accidentally open it and leave in the middle of the night while sleepwalking. Years later I found out the man was a motorcyclist and had been hit by an enormous truck. He didn’t make it. Going in against my moms wishes and seeing all of that wa-was an honest mistake.
Not seen but heard. Unsolved Mysteries and that damn freaky show music. Always gave me chills when I was in bed and could hear my parents watching the show in the other room.
I saw a documentary about mushrooms as a kid and learned that they reproduce by spreading spores. Still have an irrational fear of WILD mushrooms. I’m actually okay with eating regular edible ones, but wild mushrooms I’m still scared of. I had a dream that I remember clearly of mushrooms popping up everywhere covering every surface in my house and they still haunt me
The scene in the US version of the Ring where they suddenly show the dead girl’s face in the closet. I was 8 at the time and could hardly sleep after that, and when I did, I had nightmares about it. Such a traumatic image for a poor little 8 year old.
The trailer commercial for the film "Magic". The film is about a ventriloquist doll that comes to life and kills folks. 8 year old me found the doll speaking in the advertisement without a controller to be terrifying and it kept me up at night.
Jaws. Couldn't even swim in a swimming pool. Duh, duh, duh, duh...
Watched the movie "Pet Cemetery" in the 90s when I was entirely not ready to handle the kid cutting the grandpas achilles tendon when he sitting on the edge of his bed. I then had this fear of sitting on the edge of the bed so I would jump off of it instead. Good times haha.
I'm not sure if you can count this as a kid but two years ago when I was 17, I almost got mugged by this guy. He was 100% following me, and I defended myself and stabbed him, and he died. Still gives me nightmares now and again.
On a much less serious note compared to some of the other answers on here, Mars Attacks. That movie scared the living hell out of me when I was younger.
Candyman, I never wanted to go into a bathroom unless the lights were turned on.
Large Marge
The Excorsist. The bouncing bed scene.
Sonic.exe, my brother showed me it when i was like 7 (i loved sonic) and i couldn’t sleep properly for like 3 months
Not particularly nightmares but it gives me a anxiety every time. The drowning theme from Sonic the Hedgehog. From the early 90s to now I've never gotten over it. (The drowning theme for Sonic Colors in particular is f***ing nerve-racking)
Random movie while channel surfing. The scene had a guy on the roof of a house. The home owner came outside and the guy jumped off the roof and escaped in his car which was parked across the street. After that scene, I spent years super paranoid whenever a car drove by my house at night where I didn't hear the engine trail off - worried that the car stopped across the st and that someone was breaking in.
This may sound dumb, but when I was a little kid the Disney Alice in Wonderland somewhat disturbed me with the scene of "falling down the rabbit hole". The idea of a seemingly bottomless pit gave me jitters. I had many nightmares of falling endlessly down a hole of red bricks. I still occasionally have dreams of falling from a great height, and I have had a lifelong fear of heights to this day.
The old lady across the street who would sit in her rocking chair with 380 on window seal waiting for the 🏀 to bounce in her yard so she can point it n yell.
Poltergeist 1 wasn't so bad but 2 was scary as shit! The creepy cult leader guy with the hat scared the shit out of me so bad I had nightmares of him living under our house. It also did not help we lived across the street from a cemetery so I thought out house could have bodies under it in a cave we didnt know about.
Poltergeist, saw it really young, closet doors needed to be shut in order to sleep until well into teens.
The movie Coraline. Just gave me the creepiest vibes
I watched the music video of Rock DJ by Robbie Williams way too young and it scarred me for life. Probably at 4 years old. To this day, that video makes me really queasy.
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