Childhood scares

[david_b]

Geez, I'd agree on the Pufinstuff boat, also the Oz movie..: The wicked witch definitely put me behind the couch along with the flying monkeys, besides Dorothy's worried look made it all very convincing.

My older brother took me to see 'Tommy' at an early age, so the Acid Queen's needles in the armored suit was irritating to watch, as was watching the Omen (another film I ended up seeing in the movie theater with my parents..).

I think the apes in the original Apes movie had me nervous, but I don't recall off-hand. 'Posiden Adventure' gave me nightmares for some reason as well.

[HardyGirl]

"Dead" balloons: When balloons would start to lose their air and looked pinched. I used to get Buster Brown balloons when I got new shoes and of course it would lose air right at Buster's face and make him look distorted. If that thing was on the floor, I wouldn't go to the bathroom alone!

"Broken" mechanical dolls: I had a 2 battery-op dolls at age 5. One of them lost a leg and you could see her machine innards. Watching all those sci-fi movies w/ my older brothers when the people would find out that the robot wasn't human and then the robot went beserk made me think my dolls would turn on me when I found out they were machines.

Which leads me to...

FEMBOTS! Being a big fan of the Bionic Woman, they scared me and fascinated me at the same time. The idea that something could look and act human and not be, made me question whether or not my family could be robots. When I got over my fear, and wanted a Fembot doll, my mom vetoed that idea. I guess she had enough.

[nvmbrsdoom5]

Oh, another thing that scared me badly was that mechanical monkey with the cymbals in his hands. My best buddy when I was kindergarten age had one of those, it used to freak me out. Then I saw Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and there's the part where all the toys in Barry's bedroom start going off on their own, and they specifically showed that crazy monkey. Not cool man!!!

[4NDR01D]

"The Changling" staring George C. Scott is IMHO the all time scariest movie ever. Saw it when I was about 8. Scared the **** outta me. And for some reason after the movie (which was on TV) my sister started playing records, first one she put on was Billy Idol "White Wedding". Now that song scared the **** outta me too! She would bug me for years afterwards, black mailing me to do chores, or "I'm gonna play White Wedding"!!

Oh, and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned The Shining yet, those two girls in the hall, all covered with blood, "Come play with us danny, for ever.... and ever..... and ever"
YouTube - The Shining hallway scene

[Hotfoot]

Oh, another thing that scared me badly was that mechanical monkey with the cymbals in his hands. My best buddy when I was kindergarten age had one of those, it used to freak me out. Then I saw Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and there's the part where all the toys in Barry's bedroom start going off on their own, and they specifically showed that crazy monkey. Not cool man!!!

Heessss BaaaaaK!

[nvmbrsdoom5]

My friend would lock me in this small bedroom in his basement and turn that thing on and throw it in there with me! It freaked me out but I kinda laughed too.

[UnderdogDJLSW]

Then I saw Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

I remember the teaser trailer in the theatre for Close Encounters and it was that scene where the air traffic controller loses contact with the plane, and the tense music is building up. I was 10 years old and I was freaked out! The kid scene got me, too, but not as bad since the time I saw the movie I was older.

[mego73]

Gosh, I could write a novel about the things that scared me as a kid. But I'll spare everyone here, no worries I was a bit of a wussy kid I have to admit.

Needless to say The Exorcist scared me. Still does, I'll admit. It's a deep psychological thing with me I guess. I can't look at Regan's face (once she's started becoming possessed) without getting a strong chill. Being that it's such an iconicly popular image, I come across it all the time in magazines, websites, etc. I can't stand it, haha.

My mother had a hard cover book of it as well, and it had this dust cover with some weird image of a Mary statue on the front. I HATED that pic. I've always had a weird scary vibe from statues as it is. That's a whole 'nother story I won't get into now, lol.

Let's just leave it at anything related to The Exorcist scared the bejeebus out of me!

Some of those old Ben Cooper/Collegeville mask & costume sets used to freak me out too. I remember one particularly that had black hair and a pasty vampyric face, always saw that one every Halloween in the 1970s, and it both intrigued and frightened me.

The movie Salem's Lot really got to me as a kid too, mostly because young kids were victims as well. I was really afraid of some kid floating up to my window and scratching at it for a lil' while there after seeing that flick.

Going back even earlier, when I was probably pre-school age, I can recall being pretty scared of this one Sesame Street cartoon short, where the little kid gets lost riding his tricycle and goes past a bunch of pyschedelic weird stuff (with appropriately trippy music playing) and then comes across this psych-out guy with a yo-yo and a scary laugh. I don't find it scary now, but as a 3 year old it was rather unsettling, especially sandwiched between my blissful SuperGrover and Ernie & Bert sketches!

You mirror my feelings about The Exorcist. Up until the 1980's or so, Warner Brothers forbid pictures of Linda Blair fully in full possession makeup in magazines and books. This was part of their successful ploy to maintain the mystery and to promote the idea that she was too terrifying to behold for people who weren't ready. Now, whenever they talk about the movie on TV or in print, there she is (it's actually usually a picture of the head turning dummy).

But The Exorcist is the only movie I don't want to watch alone and I don't like seeing possessed Regan without any warning.

BTW, do you know that they are finally coming out with Regan action figures? First one is a Spiderwalk figure and the next is her fully possessed on the bed (head turns around, of course) and their is a bobble head of her coming too.

[vintage spideyfan]

I remember the teaser trailer in the theatre for Close Encounters and it was that scene where the air traffic controller loses contact with the plane, and the tense music is building up. I was 10 years old and I was freaked out! The kid scene got me, too, but not as bad since the time I saw the movie I was older.

The first Grey type alien that comes out with the really long, out-spread arms caused some problems. Something about aliens. E.T. even freaked me out a bit, especially with the neck stretching...

[nvmbrsdoom5]

You mirror my feelings about The Exorcist. Up until the 1980's or so, Warner Brothers forbid pictures of Linda Blair fully in full possession makeup in magazines and books. This was part of their successful ploy to maintain the mystery and to promote the idea that she was too terrifying to behold for people who weren't ready. Now, whenever they talk about the movie on TV or in print, there she is (it's actually usually a picture of the head turning dummy).

But The Exorcist is the only movie I don't want to watch alone and I don't like seeing possessed Regan without any warning.

BTW, do you know that they are finally coming out with Regan action figures? First one is a Spiderwalk figure and the next is her fully possessed on the bed (head turns around, of course) and their is a bobble head of her coming too.

Gahhhh!!!! Not the "spiderwalk".....funny thing about that is, I didn't see that scene until I was an adult sometime in the 1990s, as part of a documentary about the film, before they added it back into the movie for the latter day "special edition". I had heard about this fabled spiderwalk scene and so I was really curious. I watched it in this documentary one night with a couple of other buddies. After we saw it the first time, we were all like, "Whoa.....rewind that and lets see that again". After which, we all kinda looked at each other, and you could see we were all pretty creeped out, LOL. Fully grown adult men, sitting there looking freaked, it's funny to think about now! It was the version where she has the long lizard tongue sticking out (which I think is far more freaky than the CGI'ed bloody mouth version they used later for the special edition release).

I have absolutely no desire to own or see those action figures you mentioned

Of course with it being Halloween season now, I keep seeing pics of her all over the place, "without any warning" as you said. I really hate that.

The television commercial ads for movies like this and others (like the aforemtnioned "Magic" and "It's Alive", etc.) really could freak a kid out back then. They try to still do that with the current crop of horror flicks coming out, but those commercials don't have the same kind of eerie vibe about them. Maybe I'm just getting too old...

[Jmass]

As a little kid, my friends father read the over-the-top black & white monster magazines that were gory as heck. I still remember one where this poor dude (I'm suuurre he did something to deserve it) had his eyes pop out of socket on the last panel of the story. It obviously left a lasting impression as 35 + years later I still can see the panel. Around 1980, I remember going to another friend's house and watching "Halloween" on HBO. I had never seen a movie like that before. I'd seen horror movies, but they never scared me like "Halloween" did. We lived in a very Haddonfieldish small town and I set some Tour de France type biking record on the way home

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

As a third generation "monster kid" I was pretty much immune to fear as a youngster. There were a few things that scared me though:

-"The Late, Great Planet Earth." I read this book when I was 4 and it freaked me out bigtime!

-There was a movie that featured "the horror horn" in the opening speech. That sound scared me so bad I can't even remember what movie it was. (I THOUGHT it was "the Raven".... not the Karlof one... but that was on a few years back and it wans't it.)

-"Torchbearer" by Arthur Tofte, from the book "Monster Tales." (Edited by Roger Elwood.) The idea of unholy water really bothered me as a kid.

Don C.