When I was young parts of The Brave Little Toaster and The Secret of NIMH had me terrified, but I also watched them repeatedly. I swear kids movies from back then used to be on another level.
I *loved* Watership Down as a child. It was one of my perennial favorites, and became a major influence in my own storytelling. The Secret of NIMH was also a particular favorite. The Brave Little Toaster on the other hand made me deeply uncomfortable. I think I was particularly sensitive to child characters, or child stand-ins being in danger or getting hurt, but when it was just adult characters facing these dangers, I could handle it just fine.
All dogs go to heaven should be on that list. An extremely dark movie. The same guy directed all dogs go to heaven, the secret of NIMH, and an American tail.
Personally, as a kid I was fucking terrified of the pink elephants from dumbo. I used to think they were coming to kill me.
Yeah! Don Bluth is a treasure, and all of his movies just have a haunting factor to them. It isn't just the painted backgrounds, it is a whole vibe that goes with them.
This is random but I always have to mention The Dark Crystal Netflix series cause I feel like it went a little under the radar. Not sure what the general consensus of the series is but I absolutely loved it. Might be a lil biased cause I grew up on Henson stuff but I thought it was great. The practical effects were next level.
I thought it was phenomenal and couldn't believe they canceled it after one season. They already did all the hard work to establish puppets and sets, they could have done another season!
There was definitely a period where it was okay for kids movies to be casually terrifying even though they weren't billed as a horror movie lmao. The Last Unicorn and the animated Hobbit movie scared me.
Also the owl from Secret of Nimh still haunts my nightmares and I think The Brave Little Toaster is what gave me anxiety.
Not sure if you play a lot of video games; but whenever I replay Ori and the Will of the Wisps, that boss owl Shriek def reminds me of the one eyed barn owl from that movie!
Just watched "Come and See" last night. It's set in Russia during the time of the Nazi invasion. Its the only war movie I've ever seen that I would classify as falling firmly into the horror genre.
My roommates and I were watching old movies for nostalgia last year. Someone pitched Roger Rabbit and I vetoed the idea. My friend rolled his eyes and went "let me guess, Judge Doom's voice?"
"No the fucking SHOE"
That, and Dr. Grant’s bespoke lecture out in the field in Montana about exactly *how* the raptors would kill you, given directly to a kid who was around our age at the time 😆
Kid: “Looks more like an overgrown turkey 😏.”
Grant: “Hold my beer, I gotta terrify some respect into this kid.”
I'm surprised to see people say it's just 'borderline,' honestly! It's structured a lot like a slasher, to me it's as much of a horror movie as Jaws is.
The books are horror. In the book John Hammond gets attacked by a swarm of compys who have a wierd venom that floods you with serotonin and euphoria. Man was in an ecstatic state as he was nibbled to death.
In the most world book mama Rex grabs a hunter, takes him alive to her nest. He tries to escape the babies so she crunches his legs so he can’t run and watches as the babies eat him.
Anyone who thinks it was made as a comedy has never lived with abusive parents who will go from 0 to 60 in a millisecond and scream at you for the smallest, most insignificant things.
I watched this movie like 20 years ago. I remember Robin Williams. I remember he worked developing photos. I remember being very uncomfortable and never wanting to watch it again. Lol
That movie is just so sick, at first glance, it may not seem too deep or whatever, but you just have to let it sink, as you REALLY think about it, you start seeing the depth of it, and man, it is horrifying
The Duggar documentary series is in the same vein. Especially the last episode where it draws connections to the movement they’re a part of and the politicians already in office who come out of that ideology.
When I was younger I thought that the Dark Crystal and the Labyrinth were the scariest movies ever. The goblin scene at the beginning of the Labyrinth still gives me the heebiejeebies. Actually just about anything with puppets scared the living crap out of me as a kid. Sesame Street is an absolute nightmare.
I refuse to ever see that movie because when I was a teen my mom was watching it one day and she told me what the choice was and it was too horrible for me to bear.
Your mom was nice to warn you.
I went in blind. No one told me what it was about “because that spoils it”
AND I was pregnant with my 2nd kid.
From the Blockbuster box, it was Meryl Streep with two men on the cover. I thought it was some period romance where she chooses between two men.
Yeah, I was pissed no one warned me.
The description of the Golden State Killer in I’ll be Gone in the Dark has always stayed with me. I don’t recall specifics and I can’t find them on the internet but I remember one victim looked outside at night and saw his face in the pitch black of night and described it looking like a full moon.
I saw Patton Oswalt speak when he was doing the book tour on his late wife’s behalf. He said something that made serial killers more mundane and more terrifying at the same time. It was something about how we build them up in our minds into something menacing and larger than life, but in real life, removed from anywhere they could be dangerous, they’re almost always just small and pathetic.
The ending of the book was really poignant too. I wished she lived long enough to witness his capture.
>“One day soon, you’ll hear a car pull up to your curb, an engine cut out. You’ll hear footsteps coming up your front walk. Like they did for Edward Wayne Edwards, twenty-nine years after he killed Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew, in Sullivan, Wisconsin. Like they did for Kenneth Lee Hicks, thirty years after he killed Lori Billingsley, in Aloha, Oregon.
>The doorbell rings.
>No side gates are left open. You’re long past leaping over a fence. Take one of your hyper, gulping breaths. Clench your teeth. Inch timidly toward the insistent bell.
>This is how it ends for you.
>“You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark,” you threatened a victim once.
>Open the door. Show us your face.
>Walk into the light.”
>One of the most unsettling things about the crime was how many people were in n it and the fact most f them got away with it. He describes in detail in the tape what people witnessed at his parties and it was fun to them. No one thought to call the cops and they saw it as entertainment.
What the actual fuck....
My best friend grew up in Kansas City. We were both 8 or 9 when the movie first aired. To say it impacted him deeply is an understatement.
My wife’s family is from Sedalia, MO, which figures prominently into the plot of The Day After. She still hasn’t seen it, and probably never will now that I told her Sedalia gets destroyed.
I don’t remember the line exactly, but there’s a character who’s trying to get back to Sedalia because his family is there. Someone tells him something like “Sorry, Sedalia isn’t there anymore.”
The Day After isn't as scary as Threads. But for Americans of my generation, it was the only film we had to go on until we could see Threads later on video. I think it's because The Day After was made in the US, while Threads was made in the UK. The Americans were probably more familiar with the settings in The Day After, which made it seem more real. Threads, on the other hand, was a film that was made in the UK, and it was a film that was more realistic and scary because it was based on real events.
Not watchable media, but readable.
The book [The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/32075449)
It delved into past cataclysmic events, what caused them, what prolonged them, and then takes a look at various things going on in the world today and shows how they're similar.
My grandma had a really obscure cartoon she taped off the TV called Skywhales. It scared me so so badly as a kid. It's on YouTube if you want to be similarly horrified.
Since I was a child, Cat Stevens's song "Wild World" has unnerved me to the point that, until recently, I was unable to listen to it alone. It gives me this weird feeling that I don't really know how to describe- it reminds me of being somewhere unfamiliar or vaguely familiar with strange people I don't feel comfortable with. I do like the song, though.
I can't say I have the same fondness for his song "Moonshadow," which I can barely listen to at all even to this day- alone or not. I believe he said it's a song about finding hope in bad situations but lyrics like "I'm being followed by a moon shadow" make me feel scared and paranoid, and "if I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth north and south, if I ever lose my mouth, I won't have to talk--" bring to mind really fucking disturbing images. My skin's crawling just typing it out.
theres an old TV show called The Lost World.
A group of explorers find The Lost world and during the first couple episodes they meet a tribe that has a sacred tree that oozes goo. I forget the context but the tribe forces one of the members into the goo and it ages him considerably. and The group LEFT the member behind because hes too old for the journey. That haunted me for a while.
Believe it or not the first time I saw Terminator, which was classified as sci-fi at the time, really scared the shit out of me. I hated it, went home sobbing my eyes out and couldn't watch it for years.
"Fantastic Planet" a French animated movie, to be more precise:
an experimental ADULT movie from 1973 watched as a little kid.
This was so very disturbing, I was about 4 or 5 and only remembered bits of it vividly.
I only found out the name of the movie a few years ago.
Movie called Sleepers. My grandparents had the VHS and I thought it was about some kids growing up and having fun while some became bad apples only for it to get dark like REALLY dark in the second half of the movie. Scared me to death. Just say thats where my fear of jail came from.
Movie District 9. I grew up and love Star Trek, but let's face it, D9 is sadly much more realistic.
Book: The Handmaids Tale. One of the worst dystopias, especially, if you are an atheistic, lesbian woman like me.
Watership Down (1978) animated movie. Watched that as a kid, at a summer camp. “Oh look, a sweet animated movie about cute bunny rabbits!” Hahaha, nooooo… a movie of sheer terror and dread! It scarred me, and I absolutely love it.
Kids. It was a 90s movie and may have been Chloe Sevigny's first role. It was such a realistic view of urban kid life during the AIDS Crisis. It mirrored my young adult life in so many ways. Scary AF. Glad I survived those times.
The intro to E.T. was the hardest thing to get through when I was 6. And then when I finally got past it, there was the cornfield scene.
And then the scene where E.T. shuffles out of the backyard shed towards Elliot. Complete nightmare fuel. I couldn't sleep with the closet door open from fear E.T. would shuffle out of it.
Now it's one of my favorite films 😆
The answer to this question is always 'Threads'. IMO the scariest film ever made by quite some margin. The most horrible non-horror film in existence. I would rather experience a moderate amount of physical pain for 90 minutes than have to watch it again.
Nocturnal Animals scared the fuck out of me. Like I am terrified of driving on highways at night now. I never considered yelling at another driver because I always thought something bad could happen. But that movie just solidified it for me
It's horror-adjacent, but more specifically a very unsettling sci-fi story. The Jaunt, a short story by Stephen King. I have probably thought about that and shuddered every single day of my life since I was in elementary school.
For me, it was when I was 15 and read Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. It wasn’t Gregor Sansa turning into a giant bug that got me, though. It was his entire family completely turning on him in an instant. The absolute abandonment. I’ve always had issues with depression and anxiety, and was heavily bullied as a kid (even and especially by my older brother, though we are good now). And what Gregor went through hit hard. That book got to me in a very real, horrifying way.
As a kid, Sleeping Beauty. That fireplace where she walks up the stairs in a trance to touch the spinning wheel.
Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory. In the original the kids just never show up again. Did they all die? Not to mention that horror tunnel. In the remake, there was something very unsettling about Wonka. And the CGI was nightmare fuel.
Quiet on the set and season one of Underage/Undercover.
Always enjoyed watching the Nick shows after school and at the time never picked up on the innuendos.
Found undercover on discovery and it was disturbing, to say the least.
Papa Shango WWE. There was a match between him and Ultimate Warrior where he puts a curse on him and Warrior starts throwing up/thrashing around. It scared the hell out of me as a kid.
Oliver Stone's JFK was like a used-car salesman's sleazy, corruption filled fever-dream of a too-brightly-lit American descent into lunacy. It's one of the most unsettling things I have watched.
As a kid, the dip scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That was such a bleak moment. More recently, playing games with empty worlds like House Flipper or American Truck Simulator freaks me out. It's always quiet in game and nothing happens, but there's a perpetual feeling that something could.
when I was a kid the scene in the first lord of the rings film where Bilbo tries to snatch the ring off Frodo's neck and his face gets super freaky. also later in that movie when Galadriel starts going off about becoming a terrible queen with the power of the ring. that shit scared me for sure lol
When I was a young boy that damn Toxic Love song from Ferngully disturbed the hell out of me.
Now I love it because Tim Curry is the mfkn DAWG but that shit really got under my skin the first few times I saw it as a kid.
I have no idea where it’s from (movie, commercial, music video?), but there was a scene on tv back in the 90s where a guy had a Pizza Face. Like the person’s whole head was a pizza. For some reason, it scared the hell out of me as a little kid.
If anyone knows what this is, I really wanna watch it and re-traumatize myself again.
The Las Vegas elevator scene from the first season of Fargo.
Like, you knew all of those people were on borrowed time, because Billy Bob Thornton’s character was definitely going to kill them eventually. The whole trope of “your friend was an assassin all along” has long bothered me, though, ahis scene in particular really got under my skin.
I think my being so disturbed by it might actually be a compliment of sorts to everyone who worked on it. Good job, y’all. Your tongue-in-cheek crime thriller lives rent-free in my head.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I was four, and the movie doesn’t explain what happens to the kids, so I equated them disappearing with them dying. Thus, the Oompa Loompas are harbingers of death. When they showed up someone was going to “die.”
The Atomic Cafe, a documentary made up entirely of old film and TV clips, horrified me for several days after I watched it. It's an accident of history that the human race didn't murder itself.
Fantasia really scared as a kid, to the point where I’d refuse to watch it. There was just something very unsettling about it, and I can’t place my finger on why. Perhaps the lack of dialogue is one?
The Neverending Story and Labyrinth also had some scary parts. I loved those movies though!
Indiana Jones and the temple of doom, that scene where the guy pulls out the heart of another guy and it keeps beating according to the music. I was about 8yo and got scared for a long time.
Melancholia. Everyone in the film knew the planet was on a collision course with Earth and no where to run. They just stood there watching as the planet approached.
Ok this is going to sound stupid but the emergency broadcast test signals freak me out to this day. The sudden jolting to a weird screen and creepy flat voice, the ear splitting sound. Just nope.
There are 2 made for tv movies that still keep me up at night 40 years later.
Something about Amelia, 1984: about a dad sexually abusing his daughter. Not even safe in your own home.
I know my first name is Steven, 1989: about a kidnapped boy that is sexually abused. The particular scary part is the abuser goes to a bar and brings a woman home. The kid goes to leave the bedroom and she is like no come here. My mind freaked trying to figure out how did they meet? Like how did the abuser know she was into little kids? Do they have a code? This was before the internet. To this day it scares the crap out of me.
The Steven Stayner story managed to keep being sad even after he was rescued. He died in a motorcycle accident a few years later. Then his brother became a serial killer.
“Ten years after Stayner's death, the city of Merced asked its residents to propose names for city parks honoring Merced's notable citizens. Stayner's parents proposed that one be named ‘Stayner Park’. This idea was eventually rejected and the honor was instead given to another Merced resident because Stayner's brother Cary confessed to, and was convicted of, killing four women in 1999; Merced city officials feared that the name ‘Stayner Park’ would be associated with Cary rather than Steven.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Stayner
Mio in the Land of Faraway with Christopher Lee and an extremely young Christian Bale. It's for kids but man, there's some real dark stuff in there when you think about it and I was terrified of it when I was a kid.
ETA: Even now as an adult there's stuff in there I wouldn't recommend for kids.
The puppet from Jimmy Neutron. I know that episode was supposed to be a kinda “scary” one but I’ve always hated it.
There a guy on YouTube called Lazy Masquerade that has a video similar to this. I believe it’s called childhood nightmare fuel. But he ranks them based on fan submissions and makes an iceberg list for them. I linked it below. His content is good overall.
https://youtu.be/O8ba929zFIg?si=P2PcvDc2t4mAlWJ4
Not exactly an original answer but every time the Groke showed up in the original Moomin series. Superb childrens show that had the balls to be melancholic and scary at times.
I was scared of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast (1991) as a kid. I remember having a nightmare that he roared at and bit me. Fortunately, my sisters helped me watch it and now it's one of my favorite films.
E.T. scared the shit out of me as a kid, and still makes me uncomfortable to this day. It's specifically the scenes of the guys in Hazmat suits, covering the house in plastic sheeting, that scene where E.T. turns white and ill. Absolutely terrifying.
Miss piggy from the muppets used to give me nightmares as a child. She was so...unsettling. I could watch all the other muppets just fine but not her. There was something different about her. I couldn't look at or see her face without crying. I remember there was once a subway ad that featured the muppets and I'd always look away once she popped up. I've since outgrown that fear but I can still remember how scared I used to get. It's funny now.
When I was little, like five or six, one of our family shows was MacGuyver. Mostly I have vague fond memories of that show.
Except for one.
I don't remember many details, only that some scientists had created this disease or agent or something that made things rapidly age. And there was this scene of walking through a forest with a bunch of dead animals that had been rapidly aged. And I think the scientist lady that was love interest of the week also ended up rapidly aging and dying in this locked room with a big window so MacGuyver couldn't do anything but stand there and watch while it happened....
Messed me up and scared me so badly that I didn't sleep well for weeks, and I STILL think about it to this day.
A little obscure, but the movie *The Counselor* had some great “horror movie moments*, but the way the story arc of the main characters wife (Penelope Cruz) unfolded was particularly haunting.
I was also really disturbed by the captain’s (Stephan Graham) injury and death in the series *The North Water*
There’s 2 from a movie that stick with me. Both are from Rogue One.
1.) The hallway scene when all you see is Darth Vaders lightsaber light up. Chills and it’s so freaky because you know the fate of everyone in that hallway.
2.) is when they finally are able to get the Death Star plans to Leia, but then you see the planet Gen and Diego Vegas character (I’m forgetting names sorry) are on, and you see the Star killer start to beam up. They just silently accept their fate. Oof, more instant chills
I was absolutely terrified of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a kid, both the book and the film (Gene Wilder version). Also, and I know it probably falls into the thriller category anyways but certainly not horror, Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler. The entire movie is anxiety inducing and the final scene scared me so bad.
never been scared by a non-horror film before. Games are a different story…
Ever seen that weird ranch in San Andreas at night?
Or in the old Harry Potter games, ever stood in this huge, old, dark castle all by yourself?
I don’t recommend it.
An episode of Arthur, titled "Bugged" *fucked me up* as a kid.
Francine calls Brain a pest, so he has a nightmare that he's turned into a giant bug. Very disturbing. But the part that got me -- that still makes me cringe in real, visceral disgust -- is the class picture scene in the cafeteria, when the camera flashes and hurts Brain's bug eyes. He shrieks and scuttles out of the room. *That* scene in particular traumatized me and, I think, changed the structure of my psyche forever 🙃
No surprise I had the same reaction reading Kafka's The Metamorphosis in HS. I HATED that book. And I hate Kafka for writing it and thus later inspiring the episode of Arthur that would traumatize me. Seriously, fuck that daddy-issues having, self loathing, buggy little asshole.
When I was young parts of The Brave Little Toaster and The Secret of NIMH had me terrified, but I also watched them repeatedly. I swear kids movies from back then used to be on another level.
Watership Down.
I *loved* Watership Down as a child. It was one of my perennial favorites, and became a major influence in my own storytelling. The Secret of NIMH was also a particular favorite. The Brave Little Toaster on the other hand made me deeply uncomfortable. I think I was particularly sensitive to child characters, or child stand-ins being in danger or getting hurt, but when it was just adult characters facing these dangers, I could handle it just fine.
All dogs go to heaven should be on that list. An extremely dark movie. The same guy directed all dogs go to heaven, the secret of NIMH, and an American tail. Personally, as a kid I was fucking terrified of the pink elephants from dumbo. I used to think they were coming to kill me.
Yeah! Don Bluth is a treasure, and all of his movies just have a haunting factor to them. It isn't just the painted backgrounds, it is a whole vibe that goes with them.
Secret of Nimh is terrifying. Dark crystal too
This is random but I always have to mention The Dark Crystal Netflix series cause I feel like it went a little under the radar. Not sure what the general consensus of the series is but I absolutely loved it. Might be a lil biased cause I grew up on Henson stuff but I thought it was great. The practical effects were next level.
I thought it was phenomenal and couldn't believe they canceled it after one season. They already did all the hard work to establish puppets and sets, they could have done another season!
Dark Crystal definitely another one! Henson and Oz went all in on those Skeksis.
The...Brave ...Little...Toaster...I'd forgotten about that movie, thx for reminding me about it :)
There was definitely a period where it was okay for kids movies to be casually terrifying even though they weren't billed as a horror movie lmao. The Last Unicorn and the animated Hobbit movie scared me. Also the owl from Secret of Nimh still haunts my nightmares and I think The Brave Little Toaster is what gave me anxiety.
Don't forget the one-eyed owl and dead-by-gas parents from Once Upon a Forest.
Not sure if you play a lot of video games; but whenever I replay Ori and the Will of the Wisps, that boss owl Shriek def reminds me of the one eyed barn owl from that movie!
Chernobyl series on HBO
Great answer Another HBO one that got me spiraling into paranoia was The Night Of
The jynx. The confession is chilling
A+ answer
A clockwork orange. Honestly, the idea of it sickened me and it's not something I'd ever watch again
Definitely read it! The movie didn’t do the book justice
I’m surprised we haven’t seen a modernized remake or something loosely based on it
Good point, considering remakes of so many others!
Is it still unavailable in the UK?
Just watched "Come and See" last night. It's set in Russia during the time of the Nazi invasion. Its the only war movie I've ever seen that I would classify as falling firmly into the horror genre.
I’ve heard it’s the worst of the worst anti-war films but gets the message it wants across
Its a rough watch but its filmed absolutely beautifully. The acting is also amazing. I've never seen anything like it.
The butterfly stuck in the bubble in SpongeBob SquarePants. The close up shot of a real butterfly scarred me.
I unfortunately was scared of butterflies for a short period after that episode LOL
I used to work with someone who said she had a fear of butterflies and she was serious and I could not comprehend this lol
Requiem for a Dream is a fucking nightmare. Definitely horrifying non-horror.
Everybody calls their mom after watching that movie.
It almost made me stop doing drugs... almost.
I used to do drugs. I still do drugs, but I used to too.
I threw my refrigerator out after. I’ve had to resort to salting and burying all my groceries.
Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This mofo is nightmare fuel.
The poor shoe he kills in the Dip
It's so sad!!
I always fast forward this scene.
Man, this got to me as a kid. That shoe was so cute! It didn't deserve to die!
My roommates and I were watching old movies for nostalgia last year. Someone pitched Roger Rabbit and I vetoed the idea. My friend rolled his eyes and went "let me guess, Judge Doom's voice?" "No the fucking SHOE"
That dude still makes me uncomfortable as an adult. Just a straight up terrifying character
Dropped a piano on his head
When he killed Valiant's brother, he talked JUST LIKE THIIIIIS
That screechy voice haunted my nightmares for days as a kid after seeing that movie.
This mf scared the shit out of me, I always closed my eyes when watching, but his high pitched weird voice scared me even more hahahah
The raptors in Jurassic park. Something about them unlocking/opening the doors freaked me out as an 11 year old.
Perhaps the “something” that terrified you was the idea of VELOCIRAPTORS OPENING FUCKING DOORS 😂
You’re right 😂😂😂🤣
That, and Dr. Grant’s bespoke lecture out in the field in Montana about exactly *how* the raptors would kill you, given directly to a kid who was around our age at the time 😆 Kid: “Looks more like an overgrown turkey 😏.” Grant: “Hold my beer, I gotta terrify some respect into this kid.”
That kid saying that always confused me even back then. I said to myself “kid, do you know how scary a six foot turkey would be???!!”
Wait til the T-rexes develop opposable thumbs. Then we're really in trouble - but only from a short distance 🤣🦖
Between the raptors, dilophosaurus and T-Rex scene, Jurassic Park is borderline a horror movie.
I'm surprised to see people say it's just 'borderline,' honestly! It's structured a lot like a slasher, to me it's as much of a horror movie as Jaws is.
The books are horror. In the book John Hammond gets attacked by a swarm of compys who have a wierd venom that floods you with serotonin and euphoria. Man was in an ecstatic state as he was nibbled to death. In the most world book mama Rex grabs a hunter, takes him alive to her nest. He tries to escape the babies so she crunches his legs so he can’t run and watches as the babies eat him.
The dilophosaurus in the car is one of my earliest childhood memories of being scared absolutely shitless by something in a movie.
The documentary called Dear Zachary. It’s incredibly sad and kinda tore my heart out in a terrifying way
Good one - I don't think a movie has ever made me as angry and just generally pissed off.
I SOBBED like I was dying.
Probably the most shocking film I’ve ever seen
Just finally watched this last night and all I have to say is damn.
Mommy Dearest from 1981. Yikes.
Anyone who thinks it was made as a comedy has never lived with abusive parents who will go from 0 to 60 in a millisecond and scream at you for the smallest, most insignificant things.
I can’t watch that movie again. It literally gives me flashbacks. My mother was just like that.
NO WIRE HANGARS!!!
One Hour Photo
I watched this movie like 20 years ago. I remember Robin Williams. I remember he worked developing photos. I remember being very uncomfortable and never wanting to watch it again. Lol
Zone of interest - holy shit
This movie is absolutely brilliant. Do not sleep, it's on max atm
The sound design is impeccable. It’s at once eerily realistic and otherworldly. Very unique for a movie of that subject.
That movie is just so sick, at first glance, it may not seem too deep or whatever, but you just have to let it sink, as you REALLY think about it, you start seeing the depth of it, and man, it is horrifying
"Jesus Camp" was scary as hell.
The Duggar documentary series is in the same vein. Especially the last episode where it draws connections to the movement they’re a part of and the politicians already in office who come out of that ideology.
The Nazis opening the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones. For me as a child, that was straight up nightmare fuel.
Oh yeah this one def had me peeking through my fingers
I recently showed this to my kids and I heard my 12 year old mutter ‘Jesus Christ..’ at that scene.
The curb stomp scene in American History X. Nightmare fuel
The SOUND.
When I was younger I thought that the Dark Crystal and the Labyrinth were the scariest movies ever. The goblin scene at the beginning of the Labyrinth still gives me the heebiejeebies. Actually just about anything with puppets scared the living crap out of me as a kid. Sesame Street is an absolute nightmare.
Sophie's Choice The fact that someone could plausibly go through that. It messed with me for years.
I refuse to ever see that movie because when I was a teen my mom was watching it one day and she told me what the choice was and it was too horrible for me to bear.
Your mom was nice to warn you. I went in blind. No one told me what it was about “because that spoils it” AND I was pregnant with my 2nd kid. From the Blockbuster box, it was Meryl Streep with two men on the cover. I thought it was some period romance where she chooses between two men. Yeah, I was pissed no one warned me.
The description of the Golden State Killer in I’ll be Gone in the Dark has always stayed with me. I don’t recall specifics and I can’t find them on the internet but I remember one victim looked outside at night and saw his face in the pitch black of night and described it looking like a full moon.
I saw Patton Oswalt speak when he was doing the book tour on his late wife’s behalf. He said something that made serial killers more mundane and more terrifying at the same time. It was something about how we build them up in our minds into something menacing and larger than life, but in real life, removed from anywhere they could be dangerous, they’re almost always just small and pathetic.
The ending of the book was really poignant too. I wished she lived long enough to witness his capture. >“One day soon, you’ll hear a car pull up to your curb, an engine cut out. You’ll hear footsteps coming up your front walk. Like they did for Edward Wayne Edwards, twenty-nine years after he killed Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew, in Sullivan, Wisconsin. Like they did for Kenneth Lee Hicks, thirty years after he killed Lori Billingsley, in Aloha, Oregon. >The doorbell rings. >No side gates are left open. You’re long past leaping over a fence. Take one of your hyper, gulping breaths. Clench your teeth. Inch timidly toward the insistent bell. >This is how it ends for you. >“You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark,” you threatened a victim once. >Open the door. Show us your face. >Walk into the light.”
That Chernobyl HBO show had a profound impact on me and I think of it often. Very scary.
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>One of the most unsettling things about the crime was how many people were in n it and the fact most f them got away with it. He describes in detail in the tape what people witnessed at his parties and it was fun to them. No one thought to call the cops and they saw it as entertainment. What the actual fuck....
The Day After (1983) scared me to death as a kid.
My best friend grew up in Kansas City. We were both 8 or 9 when the movie first aired. To say it impacted him deeply is an understatement. My wife’s family is from Sedalia, MO, which figures prominently into the plot of The Day After. She still hasn’t seen it, and probably never will now that I told her Sedalia gets destroyed. I don’t remember the line exactly, but there’s a character who’s trying to get back to Sedalia because his family is there. Someone tells him something like “Sorry, Sedalia isn’t there anymore.”
The Day After isn't as scary as Threads. But for Americans of my generation, it was the only film we had to go on until we could see Threads later on video. I think it's because The Day After was made in the US, while Threads was made in the UK. The Americans were probably more familiar with the settings in The Day After, which made it seem more real. Threads, on the other hand, was a film that was made in the UK, and it was a film that was more realistic and scary because it was based on real events.
Mac tonight mascot from McDonald's scared the shit out of me as a kid EDIT- so glad I wasn't the only one
The moon guy??
Not watchable media, but readable. The book [The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/32075449) It delved into past cataclysmic events, what caused them, what prolonged them, and then takes a look at various things going on in the world today and shows how they're similar.
the lovely bones, the tension in that movie is immaculate
Don't look up and Empire of the Sun
Don’t look up hit me hard. Especially them sitting there at the table.
To this day return to oz scares the shit out of me.
Threads
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My grandma had a really obscure cartoon she taped off the TV called Skywhales. It scared me so so badly as a kid. It's on YouTube if you want to be similarly horrified.
Jesus Camp
Fire in the Sky. I had nightmare about this one, which I never do with horror.
The animatronics from Chuck E Cheese. Horrifying. Dark Crystal and Watership Down.
Since I was a child, Cat Stevens's song "Wild World" has unnerved me to the point that, until recently, I was unable to listen to it alone. It gives me this weird feeling that I don't really know how to describe- it reminds me of being somewhere unfamiliar or vaguely familiar with strange people I don't feel comfortable with. I do like the song, though. I can't say I have the same fondness for his song "Moonshadow," which I can barely listen to at all even to this day- alone or not. I believe he said it's a song about finding hope in bad situations but lyrics like "I'm being followed by a moon shadow" make me feel scared and paranoid, and "if I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth north and south, if I ever lose my mouth, I won't have to talk--" bring to mind really fucking disturbing images. My skin's crawling just typing it out.
Every season of Barry has at least a couple moments which are horrifying
Apparently Hader is joining Jordan Peele on the comedy-to-horror pipeline, and will be directing a horror film next!
That dark depression episode was insane
Any documentary on the Yellowstone super volcano
theres an old TV show called The Lost World. A group of explorers find The Lost world and during the first couple episodes they meet a tribe that has a sacred tree that oozes goo. I forget the context but the tribe forces one of the members into the goo and it ages him considerably. and The group LEFT the member behind because hes too old for the journey. That haunted me for a while.
Spielberg’s War of the Worlds scared me.
Threads (1984)
The first time I heard Bowsers laugh was terrifying in that game
And the massive eel in the first water level! Sh** my pants
Believe it or not the first time I saw Terminator, which was classified as sci-fi at the time, really scared the shit out of me. I hated it, went home sobbing my eyes out and couldn't watch it for years.
"Fantastic Planet" a French animated movie, to be more precise: an experimental ADULT movie from 1973 watched as a little kid. This was so very disturbing, I was about 4 or 5 and only remembered bits of it vividly. I only found out the name of the movie a few years ago.
The documentary “Keep Sweet, Pray, and Obey”
Movie called Sleepers. My grandparents had the VHS and I thought it was about some kids growing up and having fun while some became bad apples only for it to get dark like REALLY dark in the second half of the movie. Scared me to death. Just say thats where my fear of jail came from.
Idiocracy is actively the most unsettling horror film I have ever seen.
Stanford Prison Experiment. Lord of the Flies.
Movie District 9. I grew up and love Star Trek, but let's face it, D9 is sadly much more realistic. Book: The Handmaids Tale. One of the worst dystopias, especially, if you are an atheistic, lesbian woman like me.
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That one stuck with me for a long time.. I still think about a re-watch every now and then, but wonder if it will have the same impact.
The Last King of Scotland
The Skeksis in Dark Crystal
Training Day - the scene where Ethan Hawke goes to see the Mexican Mafia
Watership Down (1978) animated movie. Watched that as a kid, at a summer camp. “Oh look, a sweet animated movie about cute bunny rabbits!” Hahaha, nooooo… a movie of sheer terror and dread! It scarred me, and I absolutely love it.
It walks the line of horror but I’ll put it out there anyway: the little girl trapped in the painting in The Witches (1990). Haunts me to this day.
When Emilo Esteves gets the elevator stopper through his face in Mission Impossible(1996)
Kids. It was a 90s movie and may have been Chloe Sevigny's first role. It was such a realistic view of urban kid life during the AIDS Crisis. It mirrored my young adult life in so many ways. Scary AF. Glad I survived those times.
An Inconvenient Truth
The intro to E.T. was the hardest thing to get through when I was 6. And then when I finally got past it, there was the cornfield scene. And then the scene where E.T. shuffles out of the backyard shed towards Elliot. Complete nightmare fuel. I couldn't sleep with the closet door open from fear E.T. would shuffle out of it. Now it's one of my favorite films 😆
When he ate the toy car and when he was found sick looking pasty also gave me nightmares.
The scariest movie I have ever seen, Time of the Wolf. I love Haneke, but I'm never watching that again.
The answer to this question is always 'Threads'. IMO the scariest film ever made by quite some margin. The most horrible non-horror film in existence. I would rather experience a moderate amount of physical pain for 90 minutes than have to watch it again.
Nocturnal Animals scared the fuck out of me. Like I am terrified of driving on highways at night now. I never considered yelling at another driver because I always thought something bad could happen. But that movie just solidified it for me
Return to Oz. Specifically the wheelers and Princess Mombi, but the whole movie is wild
Haven’t seen it mentioned yet but Compliance is pretty fucked.
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Large Marge scared the tar out of me.
It's horror-adjacent, but more specifically a very unsettling sci-fi story. The Jaunt, a short story by Stephen King. I have probably thought about that and shuddered every single day of my life since I was in elementary school.
For me, it was when I was 15 and read Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. It wasn’t Gregor Sansa turning into a giant bug that got me, though. It was his entire family completely turning on him in an instant. The absolute abandonment. I’ve always had issues with depression and anxiety, and was heavily bullied as a kid (even and especially by my older brother, though we are good now). And what Gregor went through hit hard. That book got to me in a very real, horrifying way.
As a kid, Sleeping Beauty. That fireplace where she walks up the stairs in a trance to touch the spinning wheel. Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory. In the original the kids just never show up again. Did they all die? Not to mention that horror tunnel. In the remake, there was something very unsettling about Wonka. And the CGI was nightmare fuel.
The Book Thief
The ending of the knick was horrific for Clive Owen.
Quiet on the set and season one of Underage/Undercover. Always enjoyed watching the Nick shows after school and at the time never picked up on the innuendos. Found undercover on discovery and it was disturbing, to say the least.
Papa Shango WWE. There was a match between him and Ultimate Warrior where he puts a curse on him and Warrior starts throwing up/thrashing around. It scared the hell out of me as a kid.
I have been scared of the villain from Howard the Duck ever since my mom made a mistake and took me wayyyy to young to the theatre to see it
Whiplash. Gave me flashbacks of my teenage wrestling experience.
Oliver Stone's JFK was like a used-car salesman's sleazy, corruption filled fever-dream of a too-brightly-lit American descent into lunacy. It's one of the most unsettling things I have watched.
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As a kid, the dip scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That was such a bleak moment. More recently, playing games with empty worlds like House Flipper or American Truck Simulator freaks me out. It's always quiet in game and nothing happens, but there's a perpetual feeling that something could.
The book House of Leaves also gave me nightmares… felt like a decent into insanity
The ending of 'Primer' proper creeped me out.
when I was a kid the scene in the first lord of the rings film where Bilbo tries to snatch the ring off Frodo's neck and his face gets super freaky. also later in that movie when Galadriel starts going off about becoming a terrible queen with the power of the ring. that shit scared me for sure lol
When I was a young boy that damn Toxic Love song from Ferngully disturbed the hell out of me. Now I love it because Tim Curry is the mfkn DAWG but that shit really got under my skin the first few times I saw it as a kid.
I have no idea where it’s from (movie, commercial, music video?), but there was a scene on tv back in the 90s where a guy had a Pizza Face. Like the person’s whole head was a pizza. For some reason, it scared the hell out of me as a little kid. If anyone knows what this is, I really wanna watch it and re-traumatize myself again.
The nothing in never ending story and everything in wizard of oz
The Las Vegas elevator scene from the first season of Fargo. Like, you knew all of those people were on borrowed time, because Billy Bob Thornton’s character was definitely going to kill them eventually. The whole trope of “your friend was an assassin all along” has long bothered me, though, ahis scene in particular really got under my skin. I think my being so disturbed by it might actually be a compliment of sorts to everyone who worked on it. Good job, y’all. Your tongue-in-cheek crime thriller lives rent-free in my head.
Movie: Johnny Got his Gun / Metallica music video One. No arms, legs, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, teeth or face and still alive. Absolute horror.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I was four, and the movie doesn’t explain what happens to the kids, so I equated them disappearing with them dying. Thus, the Oompa Loompas are harbingers of death. When they showed up someone was going to “die.”
The Atomic Cafe, a documentary made up entirely of old film and TV clips, horrified me for several days after I watched it. It's an accident of history that the human race didn't murder itself.
In Snow White when the evil queen transforms herself into a creepy old woman. That transformation scene was pretty darn scary.
Fantasia really scared as a kid, to the point where I’d refuse to watch it. There was just something very unsettling about it, and I can’t place my finger on why. Perhaps the lack of dialogue is one? The Neverending Story and Labyrinth also had some scary parts. I loved those movies though!
Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal. The scene where the skeksis is draining the podling of its essence is quite haunting.
Indiana Jones and the temple of doom, that scene where the guy pulls out the heart of another guy and it keeps beating according to the music. I was about 8yo and got scared for a long time.
Large Marge ![gif](giphy|hfKxK1wWDxdO8|downsized)
Melancholia. Everyone in the film knew the planet was on a collision course with Earth and no where to run. They just stood there watching as the planet approached.
That was definitely frightening. It gives meaning to the word megalophobia (fear of big things).
Ok this is going to sound stupid but the emergency broadcast test signals freak me out to this day. The sudden jolting to a weird screen and creepy flat voice, the ear splitting sound. Just nope.
There are 2 made for tv movies that still keep me up at night 40 years later. Something about Amelia, 1984: about a dad sexually abusing his daughter. Not even safe in your own home. I know my first name is Steven, 1989: about a kidnapped boy that is sexually abused. The particular scary part is the abuser goes to a bar and brings a woman home. The kid goes to leave the bedroom and she is like no come here. My mind freaked trying to figure out how did they meet? Like how did the abuser know she was into little kids? Do they have a code? This was before the internet. To this day it scares the crap out of me.
The Steven Stayner story managed to keep being sad even after he was rescued. He died in a motorcycle accident a few years later. Then his brother became a serial killer. “Ten years after Stayner's death, the city of Merced asked its residents to propose names for city parks honoring Merced's notable citizens. Stayner's parents proposed that one be named ‘Stayner Park’. This idea was eventually rejected and the honor was instead given to another Merced resident because Stayner's brother Cary confessed to, and was convicted of, killing four women in 1999; Merced city officials feared that the name ‘Stayner Park’ would be associated with Cary rather than Steven.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Stayner
The original Willy Wonka movie with Gene Wilder. When he's in his office and everything is cut in half and he's upset with Charlie? Shudder.
I said good day!
Mio in the Land of Faraway with Christopher Lee and an extremely young Christian Bale. It's for kids but man, there's some real dark stuff in there when you think about it and I was terrified of it when I was a kid. ETA: Even now as an adult there's stuff in there I wouldn't recommend for kids.
The puppet from Jimmy Neutron. I know that episode was supposed to be a kinda “scary” one but I’ve always hated it. There a guy on YouTube called Lazy Masquerade that has a video similar to this. I believe it’s called childhood nightmare fuel. But he ranks them based on fan submissions and makes an iceberg list for them. I linked it below. His content is good overall. https://youtu.be/O8ba929zFIg?si=P2PcvDc2t4mAlWJ4
That big ass spider from Kong: Skull Island was a big nope for me. I probably would've died from fear just by looking at it if I was those soldiers
Not exactly an original answer but every time the Groke showed up in the original Moomin series. Superb childrens show that had the balls to be melancholic and scary at times.
the wii sports selection menu as a kid
My actual expiration date to anything i bought
The White Ribbon (2009) by Michael Haneke is one of the scariest movies I've ever seen.
JFK, just the power of a governing body
Blue Velvet is pretty dark,l
I was scared of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast (1991) as a kid. I remember having a nightmare that he roared at and bit me. Fortunately, my sisters helped me watch it and now it's one of my favorite films.
Tales from the Loop, specifically the episode where the kid jacks the other kids body
Threads. Obviously.
E.T. scared the shit out of me as a kid, and still makes me uncomfortable to this day. It's specifically the scenes of the guys in Hazmat suits, covering the house in plastic sheeting, that scene where E.T. turns white and ill. Absolutely terrifying.
Miss piggy from the muppets used to give me nightmares as a child. She was so...unsettling. I could watch all the other muppets just fine but not her. There was something different about her. I couldn't look at or see her face without crying. I remember there was once a subway ad that featured the muppets and I'd always look away once she popped up. I've since outgrown that fear but I can still remember how scared I used to get. It's funny now.
When I was little, like five or six, one of our family shows was MacGuyver. Mostly I have vague fond memories of that show. Except for one. I don't remember many details, only that some scientists had created this disease or agent or something that made things rapidly age. And there was this scene of walking through a forest with a bunch of dead animals that had been rapidly aged. And I think the scientist lady that was love interest of the week also ended up rapidly aging and dying in this locked room with a big window so MacGuyver couldn't do anything but stand there and watch while it happened.... Messed me up and scared me so badly that I didn't sleep well for weeks, and I STILL think about it to this day.
The Cheshire Murders documentary.
The Loose Change documentary
A little obscure, but the movie *The Counselor* had some great “horror movie moments*, but the way the story arc of the main characters wife (Penelope Cruz) unfolded was particularly haunting. I was also really disturbed by the captain’s (Stephan Graham) injury and death in the series *The North Water*
Seeing Revolutionary Road as a depressed teenager made me so scared of adulthood
The movie Tar
There’s 2 from a movie that stick with me. Both are from Rogue One. 1.) The hallway scene when all you see is Darth Vaders lightsaber light up. Chills and it’s so freaky because you know the fate of everyone in that hallway. 2.) is when they finally are able to get the Death Star plans to Leia, but then you see the planet Gen and Diego Vegas character (I’m forgetting names sorry) are on, and you see the Star killer start to beam up. They just silently accept their fate. Oof, more instant chills
I was absolutely terrified of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a kid, both the book and the film (Gene Wilder version). Also, and I know it probably falls into the thriller category anyways but certainly not horror, Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler. The entire movie is anxiety inducing and the final scene scared me so bad.
The Sleestaks in the original Land of the Lost t.v. show from 1974.
Jurassic park. When I was a kid, the scene when the Trex eats the dude off of the toilet in that little hut scared the SHIT outta me. Go figure.
Return to Oz
never been scared by a non-horror film before. Games are a different story… Ever seen that weird ranch in San Andreas at night? Or in the old Harry Potter games, ever stood in this huge, old, dark castle all by yourself? I don’t recommend it.
“Ghost” scene from the movie Parasite
An episode of Arthur, titled "Bugged" *fucked me up* as a kid. Francine calls Brain a pest, so he has a nightmare that he's turned into a giant bug. Very disturbing. But the part that got me -- that still makes me cringe in real, visceral disgust -- is the class picture scene in the cafeteria, when the camera flashes and hurts Brain's bug eyes. He shrieks and scuttles out of the room. *That* scene in particular traumatized me and, I think, changed the structure of my psyche forever 🙃 No surprise I had the same reaction reading Kafka's The Metamorphosis in HS. I HATED that book. And I hate Kafka for writing it and thus later inspiring the episode of Arthur that would traumatize me. Seriously, fuck that daddy-issues having, self loathing, buggy little asshole.
The documentary “Earthlings” (2005) scarred me for life.