Back in 1980, I was maybe 5 or 6. I used to sneak watch TV when my mother was asleep. One night I bumped into Star Trek 2. It was my first exposure to Star Trek. While I made it through the movie, there’s that one scene where Khan places the Ceti Eel larvae (small maggot looking creatures) into Chekov and Terrell’s helmets. The creatures drop onto their faces, crawl up their cheeks and chew holes in their ears.

That scene scared the absolute hell out of me. The sound effects probably helped a little. I did not get much sleep that night and probably didn’t catch firefly’s for a few days. Jump scare’s beside, it’s one of the few movies that ever frightened me.

Ironically, I had already watched both Alien and Phantasm, with either being decisively much worse than Star Trek could be. I had no real issues with either of them. I don’t even recall ever being scared of them. In fact, I was ultra-fascinated by the spheres in Phantasm. That was just so cool to me.

I honestly believe that if you take the Phantasm movie and remove all the blood, sinew, weapons, violence, foul language and nudity, you pretty much have H.R. Pufnstuf, which was somehow totally acceptable even promoted.