Books/films/TV that TERRIFIED you as a kid, and definitely were not trying to

Just discovered chatting with my roommate that both of us, amazingly, were TERRIFIED of a MathNet segment on Square One TV, in which (for reasons of explicating mathematical principles) one of the characters was believed trapped inside a car that was going to be crushed and compacted at the junkyard. "Those machines use a tremendous amount of heat and pressure!" Of course he escapes in the nick of time, but the whole sequence filled us each with dread and anxiety. I looked it up on YouTube a few months back, and could find other chapters in the same storyline, but not the climactic junkyard scene - as if whoever was out there taping them couldn't bear that one installment and taped over it.

Similarly, in high school a classmate and I realized that we'd both, in our youth, been startled and unsettled by Mr. Pluto in the film of The House of Dies Drear. However, whether or not the filmmakers were hoping to scare children, it seems clear that within the narrative, this is Pluto's objective, so maybe this one is more reasonable.

Other stuff like this? Not so much looking for "Bambi's mom" moments but stuff that the producers might not have ever expected would cause such trouble...

boo radley, dude

When ET and Elliot got sick, and they had to stay in the plastic room, and the dudes in the space suits are walking around...that shit freaked me out but I think that was the intended reaction.

I was so scared of Scooby Doo as a kid that I would start screaming every time it came on the TV.

I was also too scared to make through all of Ghostbusters and made my mom take me home 1/2 way through.

Is Ghoatbusters deliberately trying to be scary though? Apart from the librarian at the beginning I thought it was all played for lols.

Ghoatbusters

dur...

elephant man

x-post - Didn't matter - still scared the shit out of me!

watching a pbs show about how our sun would go supernova in millions of years completely freaked me out. not sure if it was the earth-being-destroyed part or the realization that i would be long dead by then.

When ET and Elliot got sick, and they had to stay in the plastic room, and the dudes in the space suits are walking around...that shit freaked me out but I think that was the intended reaction.

― Trip Maker, Tuesday, September 1, 2009 11:46 AM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark

The space suit dudes didn't scare me nearly as much as ET himself actually did. I had nightmares for years about that hideous thing. Still haven't been able to forgive Speilberg.

Also, once my parents scooted me off to bed because they wanted to watch some movie that wasn't for kids called "The Doors". I had never heard of the band and I laid in bed awake in horror hearing the muffled sounds of the TV through the wall and just trying to imagine what horrible things were waiting on the other side of "the doors".

1. I had a book that was about, I think, a farmer who got hold of a coconut and thought it was an egg, and sat on it to make it hatch with predictable results. I don't remember what happened in the book, but there was one illustration of the farmer crying that was so grotesque to me that I would have a total shit fit whenever we got to that page. I used to beg my dad to skip the page with the offending illustration and he was always all, "If you want me to read you the book, I'm going to read the whole thing!" because he was kind of an asshole.

2. An episode of Emergency! in which some fool fell into the lion habitat at the zoo and got bit on the knee resulted in me having years and years of recurring nightmares in which I fell into a lion or wolf (see 3, below) den and got bit on the knee.

3. The wolf part in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf/a Disney book that had a picture of a terrifying wolf combined to give me a v. srs fear of wolves (and by kid-logic-type extension, foxes) for most of my childhood.

4. A documentary on Pompeii that resulted in a crippling fear of volcanoes and lava that persists in a less intense form to this day, such that I no longer lie in bed awake, waiting for a volcano to develop nearby and kill us all, but still am very uncomfortable watching people go near active volcanoes on TV or in film.

5. An electrical safety film that had me so convinced that my entire family was going to die in a house fire that for about six months I slept with all of my stuffed animals in a trash bag so that I would be spared any kind of Sophie's Choice about who to save in the event of a house fire.

6. http://www.abc.net.au/myfavouritealbum/albumart/img/bitchesbrew.jpg

elephant man
Holy shit was I scared of this when it came on HBO. Also, Eric Stoltz as Rocky Dennis in MASK. Shit gave me nightmares.

did that make you afraid of bitches?

There was a nature documentary that I saw when I was about 10 that scared the living daylights out of me. It had a segment about those fungi that take over some poor insect's brain and make them climb up to the top of a tree so the fungus can eat them aliveand sprout a fruiting body to rain spores to the forest floor that will take over some other hapless creature.

I had nightmares for weeks...

No, I was scared of the album cover AND the actual music. xp

holy shit, i didn't think that could be real, but here's a narrator saying it is in a british accent so it must be!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuopJYLBvrI

I remember seeing some segment on Sesame Street or some other kids show that used "Thus spoke Zarathustra" (the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey) and me running out of the room because I was too scared to watch it. The music just seemed so ominous and scary to me.

Also, my parents had this poster up on a wall and my toddler mind didn't recognize it as the silhouette of a sax player but instead thought it was some freakish monster (the "holes" between the hands/neck being the monster's eyes and the musician's head and the butt of the sax being stumpy arms)
http://antiquesartcollectibles.com/images/M142892

Some scene in Starman where Jeff Bridges is in, like, some back yard or park? Naked, summoning the power of a star into this brilliant ball of light that he holds in his hands? Or something? Did not agree with me. Also, Whammies from Press Your Luck. Never trusted them.

The fingers and the droplets on the lighter face just gave me wicked creeps, and all I can say about the music is that maybe four years old is a little young to be exposed to revolutionary jazz, although I appreciate that my father thought I could handle it:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1131/725889376_570010a632.jpg

It wasn't that particular documentary. iirc correctly it was a Channel 4 one called "The Fragile Earth" (this was in the early 80s, so my memory is a bit hazy) I think I'd just seen "The Thing" for the first time, so my mind was doing all sorts of acrobatics anyway...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_and_His_Child_%28film%29

(I don't know why, either. I just remember seeing it with my Dad and it freaked me out--maybe it was a little trippy. Also: Willy Wonka.)

Also, once my parents scooted me off to bed because they wanted to watch some movie that wasn't for kids called "The Doors". I had never heard of the band and I laid in bed awake in horror hearing the muffled sounds of the TV through the wall and just trying to imagine what horrible things were waiting on the other side of "the doors".

This is brilliant.

There was an episode of the Flintstones where Fred and Barney fell into a bottomless pit. And fell. And fell some more. It came up every three months or so and I was terrified of it.

I've said it before, but Mr Noseybonk from the TV programme Jigsaw was terrifying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87NHueHBHwY

Years later, I found out I wasn't the only one who had been traumatised by this fiend.

Oh, and a book I got out the library once that had an olde illustration satirising cowpox, which I think I took a little too seriously

http://www.geocities.com/artnscience/Med_Ethics/gillray-cow_pock.jpg

1. I had a book that was about, I think, a farmer who got hold of a coconut and thought it was an egg, and sat on it to make it hatch with predictable results. I don't remember what happened in the book, but there was one illustration of the farmer crying that was so grotesque to me that I would have a total shit fit whenever we got to that page. I used to beg my dad to skip the page with the offending illustration and he was always all, "If you want me to read you the book, I'm going to read the whole thing!" because he was kind of an asshole.

I had one of those "Read And Listen" Storyteller magazines which I had to get my dad to hide in his wardrobe and under no account let me see ever again. The story was "Beauty and the Beast". Now the Beast was pretty creepy, like a sort of ugly green manlion, but the front cover of this magazine showed the Beast peering out of forest bushes at the Beauty, who was actively sobbing into her hands, and just as you describe this, I Think it was that that freaked me out the most.

i used to cry every time i heard "space oddity" because i was so scared for major tom, and sad

the man-eating plant from Electric Company

i was inordinately scared by the idea of children being turned into animals. there was a french tv show that was like "twilight zone" for kids with an episode here a kid was turned into a sheep, and there was also the scene in "pinocchio" where all the children are turned into donkeys. these were both trying to be creepy, but i was more freaked out than i should have been. this led to me having a nightmare where i was turned into a turtle. i think the scary aspect about it was not being able to tell anyone that you were you, that like my parents would think i was just some dumb turtle and not know i was their son.

I was 11 when this was shown on TV in the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alqEPrzSr8I

It lived with me for years. My mum let me stay up and watch it because it was educational.

She was right, but I don't think she ever realised just how effecting the first scene here, the opening credits and, especially, the music was to my innocent mind. The music still gives me chills.

WORZEL GUMMIDGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiP0j-LHv88
Horrible, horrible living scarecrow man

OK so there was a show that dramatized real life medical cases that aired when I was a preteen. I was probably around 12 when I saw an episode about a girl of 14 who had not yet started her period and who had developed a lump in her groin. The lump turned out to be a testicle and she was XXY. Well, I had not yet gotten my period and didn't until I was about 15 so for three years I watched as all my friends got theirs while I waited in fear for my balls to drop. TERRIFYING.

The puppets from Spitting Image still inexplicitly give me the occasional nightmare.

xpost, HAHA.

I didn't like ET. Not the film, because I only remember seeing bits and pieces of it, but ET himself.

For some reason I had a small ET toy, probably from McDonalds or something, and every time it surfaced in my toy box it creeped the shit out of me.

oh, but my little brother! That poor kid, he was terrified of so many things as a child... most memorably, Jim Carrey film The Mask. If I even MENTIONED it to him he would start crying... if I was cruel enough to whip out the VHS case, he'd run out of the room screaming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Kz6G8174w

Also: Willy Wonka

Yes! That scene where the fat kid gets stuck in the pipe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq0gwpYYX3I

This Disney logo(and its variations)from the early 80s used to terrify me when I was little. It would scream and hide until it was over.

these threads making me want to buy ENBB a beer.

LOL!

psychedelic mindfuck of Yellow Submarine featuring cheerfully eerie music of The Beatles plus especially the Blue Meanies, Apple Bonkers and Snapping Turtle Turks was a bit much for a 6-year-old... Sinker please corroborate!

Catweasel!! I could only ever watch a few minutes of it before his creepy non-talkingness would have me up and changing the channel.

The psychedelic boat ride in Willy Wonka gave me nightmares.

Also, I was terrified of Witchy-Poo in HR Puffnstuff. I was massively witch-phobic when I was little.

There's a scene in The Wiz where Dorothy & Co. are locked in a subway station, and the white-tiled pillars start moving around, eventually closing in and attacking them. That scared me a whole lot.

Oops, wrong thread.

I had a freakout about the Elephant Man too - but not from seeing the film; I was reading about him in a magazine, and it had that classic shot of him with the sack over his head that gave me the heebie jeebies.

The worst bit was, while I was reading it, "Upside Down" by Donna Summer was playing in the background, so now that disco classic is forever entwined in my mind with John Merrick's twisted person.

ENBB, I totally remember that show and that episode.

I had one of those "Read And Listen" Storyteller magazines which I had to get my dad to hide in his wardrobe and under no account let me see ever again. The story was "Beauty and the Beast". Now the Beast was pretty creepy, like a sort of ugly green manlion, but the front cover of this magazine showed the Beast peering out of forest bushes at the Beauty, who was actively sobbing into her hands, and just as you describe this, I Think it was that that freaked me out the most.

― the next grozart, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 18:37

Storyteller was amazing. The offending cover can be seen at 0.25 in this youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FrdmTlCzp0

So many amazing, and scary, covers

Oh I was scared of Dr Who episodes too but that surely doesnt count as that was intended! And also, a bit cliched for people to be scared of.

http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/en/7/78/Wayland_Flowers_and_Madame.jpg

ENBB, I totally remember that show and that episode.

― tokyo rosemary, Tuesday, September 1, 2009 9:54 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

OMG you do?! You have no idea how much that freaking episode scarred me. Walking around for years during your early teens terrified that you were about to develop balls will fuck a girl up. I am so glad someone else has seen that though because I've told other ppl and nobody did. I was 1/2 convinced it was a fabricated memory.

i always found the artwork in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to be horrifying when i was a little kid

For a moment I was thinking Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was the name of the story of the girl who grew testicles. It totally should be.

LOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!

I can't decide how intentional the trauma was for these ones, but anyway:
Punky Brewster ep where Cherie hides in a fridge and almost dies.
Webster episode where he burns down the apartment with his chemistry set.

OMG I totally forgot about another one. There was an episode of Webster where he got stuck in the dumbwaiter that was really scary!!

1. Picture of a two-headed snake in a set of animal books made me drop the book and run outside. Had to come back in with a stick and close the book and never open that volume again for a year.

2. The illustrations in "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator." GREAT MY ASS.

3. The freaky alien crewman in the "Star Trek" cartoon series. You know the one.

When i was a kid I was obsessed with monsters, of the mythological kind--dragons, werewolves, Loch Ness monster, centaurs, all that stuff--and saw my did (who was a biologist) had this book called 'Monsters' in his shelves, so I pulled it out to read it. But it was full of old photos and etchings of incredibly, seriously deformed people; things like two-headed babies and people born without bottom jaws and people with extra eye sockets and stuff like that. Pure nightmare material.

There was this movie or tv show that I saw on a hotel room tv sometime in the early 80s.

There was a magician onstage doing an act where his female assistant gets into a coffin and he seals her up inside. From what I remember, there is a fire or something. When the magician opens the coffin, there's just a skeleton left.

I freaked and made my parents turn it off because I was so horrified about the beautiful woman's demise. My feeling now is that it was probably some campy fun thing and the girl was probably alright, but the image plagued me for years.

(does anybody have any idea what show this was?)

Cheers for the nostalgia trip Henry Frog - I've also wanted to know what the tune playing in that Story Teller vid is? Anyone know?

The opening titles to '70s play series Armchair Thriller, where a shadow sits down in a chair. A SHADOW! Brr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Up8vQ0cd0

I was afraid to even touch the pages of this Shamu book I had as a wee kid.

Still read it all the time, though.

I didn't like ET. For some reason I had a small ET toy and every time it surfaced in my toy box it creeped the shit out of me.

Could have been worse, it could have been Badi: the Turkish E.T.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0U-M9W4nKw

Some good ones in here:

which characters on TV were you afraid of as a kid?

There was a TV news report about a guy who robbed a McDonalds in a Ronald McDonald costume that gave me nightmares. I don't think there was even a picture of him, it was just the thought of it that frightened me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMrbxYrMmOc

Imagine this every 90 secs or so with complete silence in between, first thing in the morning, before TVAM was invented.

Utterly terrifying, glad to see from the comments that it spooked other kids too.

This freaked me out but I don't really know why. Think it's mainly the tone of voice, but the whole thing quite creepy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IID-jIfwUhc

Following on from MaresNest's UK getting-up-too-early-for-kids-TV incident, I found the BBC testcard with the girl and the clown and the noughts and crosses deeply unsettling as a nipper. For a while I'd run out of the room if it came on. Not sure if it was the clown or the loud high-pitched sinewave which often accompanied it.

Also, I reread Alice in Wonderland so many times, but couldn't bear to see the Tenniel illustration of an extended Alice with giant neck, so I'd skip or race through the page opposite that one every time. Admittedly that one probably was meant to weird out small Victorian children, but probably not to quite that extent.
http://scienceblogs.com/bioephemera/alicetenniel.jpg

There's a particular vibe going through a lot of what appears on this thread - the peculiar clockwork Wickerman vibe of Windymiller, the creeping 8-bit pastoralism of the OU logo, the sped-up menace of Mr Noseybonk that really ought to be exploited by filmmakers somehow, maybe in a "Look Around You" sense, but more sinister.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yeA7a0uS3A

As a three-year old I thought that when Prince Adam turned into He-Man he was being set on fire. The OTT use of reverb on his voice didn't save this from freaking me out quite a lot.

I was reading Alice in Wonderland when I was around 10 and my uncle made some reference to the hookah-smoking caterpillar and that some people thought the whole story was a metaphor for a drug trip (lol college professor). This irrationally freaked me out to the extent that I didn't want to be in the same room with the book. Something about a seemingly innocent story concealing something sinister and adult I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ3HMQ_LyZY
This isn't so much terrifying as revolting but whenever slim goodbody appeared, i would smell formaldehyde and rotting meat coming from the TV. I don't know by how they did this, but I'm glad they stopped.

Punky Brewster ep where Cherie hides in a fridge and almost dies.

This, and then also the entire Halloween two-parter where the whole gang (Punky, Cherie, Allan, Margot, and Brandon) encounters an evil indian cave spirit that causes Punky's friends to slowly disappear while summoning flying hatchets and giant tarantulas before revealing itself to Punky and expressing its desire to consume her soul. I believe it qualifies for this thread because I don't think its intention was to TERRIFY with the pants-shitting intensity that it did.

Seriously, 2:05 and 4:10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbB1oEN0AyQ

I found the BBC testcard with the girl and the clown and the noughts and crosses deeply unsettling as a nipper.

Did you watch Life on Mars? They made very good use of its creepiness.

I think I was creeped out by test patterns and dead air on TV in general, as a kid. Anything unusual happening on TV would give me the willies. Not sure why - its an unsettling sense of "omg anarchy, world is ending!" or something daft.

If I'd seen this as a kid, Id've had nightmares for weeks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_intrusion_incident

>> I found the BBC testcard with the girl and the clown and the noughts and crosses deeply unsettling as a nipper.
> Did you watch Life on Mars? They made very good use of its creepiness.

and the windy miller music box thing too.

and now i will alienate 90% of the audience here by saying 'Lizzy Dripping' and Raggety from 'Rupert Bear'

Also, a BBC Scotland show called 'The Omega Factor', like a beige, late 70's
version of X Files, scared me half to death as a kid. I bought it when it
was released a couple of years ago on DVD and it *was* still creepy, but it
in a different way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n61IqDBhqC8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG3PnQ3tgzY

^ Was my favorite song for a long time when I was a kid. The video probably would have scared me though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN9GW_KO-XA

Tarragon the Dragon used to give me major nightmares for years.