Childhood Films that Scarred You For Life

[Drizzle]

I loved A Clockwork Orange which I first saw when I was 5 and Caligula, which I saw a couple of months later.

Okay, I have sooooo many questions that I don't even know where to begin.

 

[Neno_Kos]

there are no such movies





but I was bit scared of those when I was the kid

The Shining (1980)
The Birds (1963)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)

 

[Donner]

Event Horizon I saw when I was 8 or so. It took a lot time to get over that movie.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

Okay, I have sooooo many questions that I don't even know where to begin.

why?

 

[Drizzle]

why?

A Clockwork Orange and Caligula are intense movies for a 5 year old.

 

[Xrated48]

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom- heart removing scene scared the **** out of me as a kid. I still love the movie it's one of my favorites.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

A Clockwork Orange and Caligula are intense movies for a 5 year old.

it depends on the 5 year old, I guess

 

[lime]

Labyrinth

Akira

 

[Zarex]

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Child Catcher.

 

[scarlet-witch]

A Clockwork Orange and Caligula are intense movies for a 5 year old.

I watched A Clockwork Orange with my sister when I was younger and she made me leave the room a few times. When I was older and watched again I realized she was making me leave during rape scenes. That was a bit of a surprise.

 

[Doctor Jones]

Darkman. When Liam Neeson killed Ted Raimi.

Jesus ****ing Christ. I was five. That's what happens when my mom leaves the tv on and goes to get the pizza.

 

[scarlet-witch]

Candyman gave me a permanent fear of restrooms in parks.

 

[Batmannerism]

Struggling to come up with one that scarred me, but I can think of a so-called "Children's film" that will probably deeply upset your kids if you let them watch it without some introduction first.

The Bridge to Terabithia.

What I intensely disliked is that it was marketed as a children's fantasy film, without any kind of warning that the content might upset kids (because it deals with a real life issue very directly. So I ended up taking my sister's kids to see it - not having read the book, my mistake really.

I don't want to ruin it for anyone but

Spoiler

when the main character dies very suddenly off-screen, after having been built up for half the film as a truly amazing person who the audience grows to care about ( owing in part to a superb performance by Anna Sophia Robb) ....well, lets say that the cinema was full of sobs. Even I was upset.

Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing story (great book - based on a true story) and a good film - and worth seeing with kids, but maybe they need to be prepared first.

Another one, "Mr Pip" not a film to take your kids to, and definitely don't let them read the book without some parental guidance an input - the horrors of war aren't concealed at all in the book, and while some of the worst violence is off-screen in the film, it's pretty damn disturbing - about as dark as human nature gets.



Trying to think of particularly graphic or disturbing films I saw as a kid.

A lot of those mentioned, The Exorcist, Caligula, Clockwork Orange, I find disturbing and aren't on my regular watch-list - but they certainly are a viewing experience. Luckily I didn't see any of those until I was in my teens.

I remember that the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark freaked me out a bit - saw it when I was 10, and the face-melting bit was damn scary ! I wouldn't say it scarred me for life though.

 

[Thundarr]

The first one was a musical too. Or at least, there were a couple songs in it, like the one with the big lippedalligator.

The movie that spawned the term "Big Lipped Aligator Moment" (when a movie does something odd completely out of the blue, which makes no sense, does not advance the plot, and is then never even brought up again for the rest of the movie).

 

[Thundarr]

I think the first horror films I ever saw as a kid were Psycho and Psycho 2. I don't remember how old I was, maybe 8? Psycho didn't bother me that much, maybe because it was in black & white. Psycho 2 kept me up at night for weeks.

I think the scene that freaked me out the most was when Marion Crane's mom was trying to drive Norman Bates crazy again by dressing up like his mom and stalking him with a knife. Then when taking her disguise out of its hiding place in Norman's basement, Norman sneaks up behind her (dressed as his mother of course) and when she turns around he stabs her through the mouth and out the back of her head as she screamed. That image stayed with me for a long time.

 

[sueb1863]

It didn't scar me, but it might have scarred kids: the 1979 animated version of 'The Lord of the Rings' done by Ralph Bakshi. Very dark and violent, with orcs spewing blood as they fall towards the camera and stuff like that. Not a kid's movie despite it being a cartoon. The facts that the animation was fairly dull and he only got through half of the story didn't help.

 

[Vapor]

It didn't scar me but I remember not liking the Firey Gang in the Labyrinth when I was quite young.

I re-watched it several years later and it's a great film!

 

[scarlet-witch]

Watership Down, that film is, uh....interesting when you're not expecting it to be about a graphic bunny massacre.

 

[Spider-Fan83]

I actually can't remember the name of this one (if anyone else knows) but all I really remember is the ending

a girl comes home, goes to bed, she lays down on the bed with one of her arms hanging over the edge and feels her dog licking her hand ... but then she looks up and sees a message write on the mirror, something like "people can lick too"

and there's a guy under her bed licking her hand

 

[Thundarr]

I actually can't remember the name of this one (if anyone else knows) but all I really remember is the ending

a girl comes home, goes to bed, she lays down on the bed with one of her arms hanging over the edge and feels her dog licking her hand ... but then she looks up and sees a message write on the mirror, something like "people can lick too"

and there's a guy under her bed licking her hand

Was that in in movie? It's actually an old urban legend. Some legends have made their way into the movies though.

Like the one about the babysitter getting creepy phone calls. Then when she calls the police and they trace the next call, they find its coming from within the house. There are a few different endings to the story. One where the intruder kills the babysitter and the kids. One where the babysitter grabs the kids and runs out of the house. And one where the intruder killed the kids but the police get there just in time to rescue the babysitter. The third version was used in the original When A Stranger Calls (another very creepy movie that I watched on TV with my sisters when I was a kid).

As for the movie you mentioned, maybe the movie Urban Legend? Or one of its sequels? I don't remember that scene being in the first movie, but it has been years since I've seen it.

 

[sueb1863]

There was a movie that came out in the early 1970s called 'Those Mysterious Monsters', about stuff like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness MOnster. It had some reproduced Bigfoot sightings scenes that I found pretty scary (they're actually pretty cheesy but I was just a kid!). It didn't help that there was a woods behind my house, and for a while I was convinced that Bigfoot lived there and might come after us! Not sure how many Bigfoot sightings there are in northern Ohio though...

 

[Spider-Fan83]

Was that in in movie? ...

I distinctly remember seeing it on TV rather it was a movie or a show I couldn't tell you

 

[GothamAlleys]

I wont be very original here since Im gonna name some iconic movies, but the earliest I remember was actually the first Terminator. It terrified me so much I was afraid to look at the cover because I had a feeling like people in horror films when they look at a painting and the painting looks back at them. For me terminator was a machine like a microwave or an engine, completely devoid of conscience and feelings, and thats what made it scary - a machine that creeps out at night and murders. In my homecountry the title was translated to 'Electronic Murderer', and it was very fitting

Even today if you try to distance yourself from who Arnold is, his movies, him as a person and comedian, from the making of videos etc, its still a very chilling horror. I was listening to the soundtrack from it in the car the other day and it nearly gave me a heart attack in two places, its a brilliant, pure horror music

The other would be Alien 3 which I saw right after it came out on VHS. Scared me for nights, I would stay away from dark basements and corridors. Interestingly enough, it gives me a perspective for today in how Alien 3 works , or doesnt, as an entry to the series. For example, alien's lifecycle was very confusing and unexplained if youd go just by Alien 3. Aliens covered that problem by Ripley recalling what happened to Kane to the marines, but in A3 you wouldnt know how really one gets infected. Still love the movie tho, despite its flaws

Another one would be Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 78, with Sutherland. Oh boy, was I afraid to go near moisturized grass and weeds after seeing that movie

 

[Thundarr]

I distinctly remember seeing it on TV. Whether it was a movie or a show I couldn't tell you

Could have been a TV show ABOUT urban legends. I remember there being a series that explored the origins of various urban legends and determined whether or not they had any basis in fact. The one you mentioned was debunked as a myth, created when women began going away to college and university to get degrees and enter the workforce (possibly as a means of scaring them into staying home and becoming housewives). The one about the babysitter and the phone calls was started by the 1974 horror movie Black Christmas, which had a very similar premise.

There have been some real life crimes which have happened since and are eerily similar to the urban legends mentioned above. Possibly even inspired by the stories. I think they were on a Top Ten list by Watchmojo on Youtube. In one case a young woman came home exhausted after working working a 12 hour shift. She intended to just go straight to bed. But when she entered her bedroom, she noticed something moving underneath her bed. So she says out loud "Damn! I forgot to lock up my bike." Then she went outside and called the police. They arrived to find a man hiding under her bed with rope, duct tape, and condoms. He was a convicted rapist recently let out on parole.

Then there was the story of a young female college student who was house sitting. She kept hearing a strange thumping sound coming from the basement. Concerned, she phoned the police and asked them to come over and investigate but told them to take their time as she figured that she was probably over reacting. The police arrived on the scene about two minutes later. They went down into the basement and then there were the sounds of a struggle. The police came back up with a male intruder in handcuffs. He had apparently broken into the house earlier in the day and was sitting on the washing machine, banging it with a machete in an attempt to lure her into the basement so that he could kill her. When the girl asked the police why they had responded so quickly, they told her that that the 9-1-1 operator had heard a second click after she had hung up the phone. The intruder had been listening in on the conversation on the downstairs phone.

 

[Heretic]

When I was a kid, my mom had a date with some married dude...and dropped me off at the movies to see a new movie called Misunderstood. It starred the kid from ET, so she assumed that it was a great movie for children. She was wrong.