I was such a scaredy cat as a child that I had nightmares for days after watching the 1998 Godzilla movie. I used to watch the dub of King Kong vs Godzilla on repeat, so it definitely wasn’t the concept. I don’t remember Jurassic Park scaring me that much, either, and it has some similarly suspenseful scenes.

Cats Eye

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.

I too was a weaker constitution child and had to leave Beetlejuice and Jurassic Park.

I also ended up scared of Leprechaun in a hotel room when I was like 6.

One that sticks out that I’ve never been able to place, though. I was in another hotel room with my dad and woke up to it. All I remember was a gargoyle or something was killing people and at the end they managed to trap its spirit in a chair and then burned the chair in a fire. I had nightmares about that movie for years after but have never been able to figure out what it was.

Oh wow, yeah Event Horizon is not a good movie to see in your youth haha. That’s intense!

For me, I didn’t get to see the whole movie, but I walked into the living room while my parents were watching Hostel and I saw the achilles tendon scene. That imagery still haunts me to this day. Grew up to love horror, though!

Blair witch project. I really thought it was real founded footage

A Watership Down. Fucking trauma for years.

Stephen King’s IT. Technically a mini-series. But it messed me up for awhile, especially the blood on the shower wall scene.

Mars Attacks when I was 6. My parents had the brilliant idea to take me to see it at a drive-in, so larger than life screen, and it was the second film, so I think they probably figured I’d fall asleep and they could stay and watch. Nope. Pretty sure I didn’t sleep for weeks.

Human Centipede and its sequel.

House of wax (1953). Invasion of the body snatchers (1956 and 1978).

Raiders of the Lost Ark. 12 year old me had a great time with that movie until people startet to melt…

John Carpenter’s The Thing. I wouldn’t go down to the basement by myself for like three months.

Still one of my favorite movies.

My cousins made me watch John Carpenter’s The Thing when I was eight years old. Assholes.

The movie Saturday the 14th also messed me up for a while, what with the Creature from the Black Lagoon getting into someone’s bathtub through the drain pipes. It may be silly dreck, but it was a bit much for a five year old.

Artax in the Swamp of Sadness