Growing up we were not allowed to watch scary movies or anything R-rated. One weekend when I was 14 my whole family went out of town and I went to my friends house because his parents were also gone and we watched an 80s vampire movie called fright night. If you had seen other scary movies, maybe it would bother you, but I had never seen anything like it before and was so terrified I can’t even begin to describe it.
Then the movie had a scene Where a woman took her top off. I had also never seen anything like that and was absolutely absolutely convinced that the devil was going to come get me for being a pervert. That may sound stupid to you, but the things I had heard from my grandma growing up, I knew I was in literal trouble
I then had to walk the mile home in the dark in our rural neighborhood to my empty house. Because of the immodest scene I didn’t feel like I could pray and ask for help. I also don’t think I have ever spent the night alone until then. I turned every light on in the house and sat in the middle of my floor with a revolver the entire night
Maybe objectively it wasn’t that scary of a movie, I don’t know, i’ve never watched it again. I don’t like scary movies at all! My daughter was 14 last year. She also has never seen an R movie or a scary movie and saw the movie bird box on Netflix at a friends house. She spent over a month sleeping on our bedroom floor terrified and with all of the downstairs lights on after that for three months. Sorry for the typos, I’m speaking into the iPad
The never-ending flight Of future days. Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 221
Jaws! No movie screwed up my childhood more than Jaws. I watched it when I was 7-8. I was scared of all water for a couple years. I wouldnt even go out in lakes fishing with my Dad.
I must be a sociopath, never had a “scary movie” cause emotional disturbance.
Now, those guys that filmed and free-climbed El Capitan creeps me out.
Yep. Watching some of those climbing videos has made me sweat before.
When I was a little kid, Jaws made me scared of what was in the water, but I still loved to watch the movies. Something about being in water where you can't see the bottom.....
There were a couple of low budget movies in the 1970s or '80s about cannibal families or couples who appeared to be ordinary middle class people to the general public, but always maintained a large walk in freezer full of human meat. Those were gruesome, and sometimes scary. Not sure if it was one movie or two that I'm remembering. One scene was where they'd cut their victims' tongues out, tie them up, and bury them in the garden, only exposing their heads, as if a row of cabbage heads.
You're thinking of Motel Hell, a cult classic from 1980. It was unintentionally campy and downright funny in parts, and is still aired around Halloween. I caught it again last year.
The lead actor in it was Rory Calhoun, who did a lot of Westerns in the 50's.
I think I was 6 or 7 and we watched it as a family in our basement TV room. The bathroom downstairs wasn't completed yet so you had to go upstairs. I had to pee terrible and mentioned as much. My oldest sister snuck up stairs and hid in the dark and when I came up there, already terrified, she jumped out roaring. l couldn't even scream. I just stood there and pissed my pants and left a puddle on the floor. Still haven't forgiven her completely for that.
The deer hunter does not notice the mountains
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve" - Isoroku Yamamoto
There sure are a lot of America haters that want to live here...
I saw The Exorcist when I was about 17. It's the only movie that ever scared me.
Funny thing,.... "Night of the Living Dead" was old enough when I was a young teen that it was occasionally being shown on TV.
Years ago there was a theater in Lexington that had midnight movies on Friday and Saturday nights. I guess I was about 21 at the time. One night they showed "Night of the Living Dead" and a big group of us went to see it with our girlfriends. I think it was my idea. I had never seen it on the big screen,....just TV
I had seen it several times and I never considered it particularly scary. I just thought it was fun to watch.
None of the women could stand to sit through it all,...they made their dates take them home.
I wouldn't leave. I stayed for it all and so did my date.
To her credit, she thought it was silly that the other girls were too scared to watch it all.
But The Exorcist was some scary schitt. All of that demonic posession, as it was portrayed in that movie, was something new for movies at the time.
My female cousin was visiting from Michigan when we were both about 19 or 20.
We went to see "American Werewolf in London".
She was staying with my grandparents about a mile from my house, so I dropped her off there after the movie. Everybody had gone to bed and the lights were off,...it was way out in the country,..and she made me wait there with the car lights on while she *ran* to the house.
I saw The Exorcist when I was about 17. It's the only movie that ever scared me.
Funny thing,.... "Night of the Living Dead" was old enough when I was a young teen that it was occasionally being shown on TV.
Years ago there was a theater in Lexington that had midnight movies on Friday and Saturday nights. I guess I was about 21 at the time. One night they showed "Night of the Living Dead" and a big group of us went to see it with our girlfriends. I think it was my idea. I had never seen it on the big screen,....just TV
I had seen it several times and I never considered it particularly scary. I just thought it was fun to watch.
None of the women could stand to sit through it all,...they made their dates take them home.
I wouldn't leave. I stayed for it all and so did my date.
To her credit, she thought it was silly that the other girls were too scared to watch it all.
But The Exorcist was some scary schitt. All of that demonic posession, as it was portrayed in that movie, was something new for movies at the time.
joken2 mentioned the Tingler, one of my favorites.
The Crawling Eye gave me a fear of passing into clouds or fog when I was a kid.
Mothra, kept me in irrational fear of moths for many years................kinda like some of you great big manly men that are afeared of spiders and snakes.
Geno
PS how can anyone forget "The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" ? I almost lost my love of gardening over that one.
The desert is a true treasure for him who seeks refuge from men and the evil of men. In it is contentment In it is death and all you seek (Quoted from "The Bleeding of the Stone" Ibrahim Al-Koni)
Exorcist and Jaws scared the ever loving crap out of me.
I feared a bathtub after Jaws.
I think best 'made' scary movie I can think of was Alien. I respect the film making ability to master the element of suspense and this had it in spades.
Another I loved was American Werewolf in London. humor and a realistic dialog made it believable and different than most 'horror' movies. The original "The Thing" had some of it and made for a cut above the schlock of that period.
Great thing about Werewolf and Alien is that they only allowed glimpses of what the monster might be and let the 'unknown' dwell in your mind for most of the movie.
Last edited by kenjs1; 02/28/20.
When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are something to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honors are something to be ashamed of . Confucius
One that made me cringe was jaws. The reason was ----- I saw it about 2 weeks before I went to Amphib Recon UDT training in Coronado Calif. BAAAAD timing on that movie!!!!!!
All the time I was in the water I was thinking about that shark. I would use logic to dismiss it as SUPER unlikely. But still................you'd think about it.
Back in the 70's we went to the drive-in, they were showing this movie The Hills Have Eyes. This is before computers, so, I had no idea what this movie was about. My date that night was my girlfriend who is now my wife. She got so freaked out, we had to leave the show. To this day she still says the movie is bad.
I think a lot of how scary a movie is your surrounding and age when watching it.
Most scared I've ever been in a movie was when I saw Candyman in the theater when I was 17 or so. I don't hear much about it when these lists come out, but boy it seemed like a LONG time sitting thu that one.
Girl with the dragon tattoo is pretty scary at the end too.
I think Jaws was one movie which scared the most folks at the time, but I was not one of them due to a very unique experience. About a year before it came out, my Dad and I flew from S FL to California to go visit his brother (my uncle), who at the time was working on the set and in the filming of the movie. I was about 6 or so years old and was completely fascinated by Bruce the shark and the way they were shooting the movie. My Dad has a pic of me somewhere sitting inside Bruce’s mouth while we were on the set watching them film. We were there for about a week, and instead of seeing anything else in California, I wanted to go watch them film that “shark movie,” and did...every day. Things were very laid back then, and no one really cared that me or my Dad hung around and watched them filming. Actually from what I remember of it, everyone was friendly and I got to meet all the lead actors, including my personal favorite in the movie, Capt. Quint (Robert Shaw).
When the movie came out that summer, I begged everyone in my family to take me to see it, but the newspapers touted it as the scariest movie ever made, and said it singlehandedly cleared all the beaches down here of people willing to go into the water. My Grandfather apparently took pity on me and took me to see it without asking permission from Mom and Dad, and made me swear not to say a word about it to anyone (which lasted about 10 seconds after the movie was finished). I was, by far, the only 7 year old in the theater, and clearly remember people walking out because they were afraid and couldn’t take any more. After being on the set of the movie, and actually being in the shark’s mouth, I had no fear of it or the movie. It also lit a fire in me and inspired a lifelong passion for all things shark that continues to this day.
One person’s fear is another’s lifelong fascination. After that, most movies people thought scary, were not at all scary to me.
Alien made me cross eyed. Truth. I had a brain tumor which was causing me trouble with forcing my eyes to stay in alignment. I walked out after the movie and lost the control and really went cross eyed. Obviously didn’t kill me, and surgery got the tumor.
The wife says she saw King Kong when she was 5 years old, and it scared her big time.
joken2 mentioned the Tingler, one of my favorites.
The Crawling Eye gave me a fear of passing into clouds or fog when I was a kid.
Mothra, kept me in irrational fear of moths for many years................kinda like some of you great big manly men that are afeared of spiders and snakes.
Geno
PS how can anyone forget "The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" ? I almost lost my love of gardening over that one.
When I was real little I remember the crawling eye being scary. I saw it on TV.
