Rebekah recently wrote about Punky Brewster (she thoughtfully predicts a channel of all 80s reruns, but that’s not the subject of this post). That reminded me of the “Indian Cave” episode of Punky Brewster, in which Punky and her friends explore a haunted cave that is inhabited by demons and a giant spider monster. Eventually, she defeats the monsters with love (?), but not before the crack-smoking show’s producers traumatized millions of North American children. I was old enough to find it more a curiousity than really fearsome, but the Web is sprinkled with reports of its impact on today’s adults. Search for “cave” in this page for some examples. You can find a shot of the spider and Punky on this page. Scroll down to the bottom to see another example of how all child star paths lead to Maxim.
That got me thinking about other TV shows and movies that terrified me as a child. In particular, I was always troubled by notions and visions of hell. Was I raised Catholic? Quite the opposite, actually. I had a secular upbrining, which was probably worse. At least the Christian kids knew what hell was and where they stood–I had no such structure. Like pets, children respond well to rituals, even if they’re morally-bankrupt ones.
The Black Hole freaked me out. This hellish image of Maximillian at the end of the film was burned on my retinas for years. If you check out the last few stills on this page, you’ll see why too many kids went to Disney’s first PG-rated movie. Along similar lines, I simply couldn’t hack The Devil and Max Devlin. Mind you, that may have been Bill Cosby’s acting.
I was talking to a friend about this subject, and she said that both The Dark Crystal and The Last Unicorn scared the bejeesus out of her. Again, I was just old enough to hack The Dark Crystal, and I don’t think I saw The Last Unicorn. If I did, I’ve repressed it.
What TV shows and movies scared the hell out of you growing up?
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Not so much tv shows and movies (although my younger brothers delayed my viewing of Harry and the Hendersons for a few hours, having freaked out at the beginning of the movie, making me wait to watch until they went to bed) but all the older kids in the neighbourhood knew a surefire way to get rid of me. All they had to do was play the song “Thriller” – as soon as the maniacal laughing voice track came on, I’d run home like a frightened rabbit.
Dr. Who
just the sound of the theme starting would make me run from the room. it still gives me the shivers.
i also have a vague memory of running out of the theatre as fast as i could during the tornado scene in the wizard of oz. when the wicked witch flies past her window. i’m assuming they re-released it to theatres when i was about three, and my mother felt i HAD to see it then, even if i was a bit young.
I was terrified of anything with the KKK or Hitler in it. My mother pointed out that I was Caucasian, but I deduced that the organizations were opportunistic and could change their orientation to target me.
My brother, on the other hand, was scared to death by ET.
The evil witch in Sleeping Beauty was pretty horrifying.
And for my first real-film-in-the-theatre experience, I remember being freaked out in E.T. when the scientists invaded Elliot’s home.
The movie Creepshow, and the Amazing Stories series. My uncle used to babysit me when I was a wee little thing, and would play horror movies to pass the time. Don’t ever do that to six-year-olds!
Oddly Pete’s Dragon–that Disney movie–scared me too.
okay, I think I just figured out why I’m so damned aracnaphobic. Geez.
Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. The Oompa-Doompahs really freaked me out…
The Dark Crystal used to scare the hell out of me.
Labyrinth scared me (who isn’t scared by David Bowie in tights?), and I watched Silence of the Lambs when I was 10, which was pretty creepy. Then again, I was reading Stephen King novels by that age. None of it was ever enough to traumatize me.
Jaws.
Ask nearly anyone who was between the ages of 5-13 when it came out and you’ll find a common theme of fear of deep water, or sometimes any water. I distinctly recall going into hysterics when my mother (who loved to waterski) would drift too far from the boat. Explanations that sharks only lived in the ocean and not in freshwater lakes did nothing to quell the utter panic that I felt. Interestingly, as an adult I have swum in the ocean without fear but deep lakes still induce a completely non-rational queasiness.
The flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz. I had nightmares the first time I saw that movie.
Also, Indiana Jones were pretty traumatizing to me, even though they’ve become my favorites now. In Raiders of the Lost Ark when the snake goes through the skulls mouth… freaky, also when everyone’s face melts or explodes when the ark is opened. Very freaky (I was 12 or so when I watched it, but it still scared the crap out of me. I still get shivers in with the shot of the snake and the skull). In Temple of Doom, the heart stealing/fire scene. Just plain scarey. In The Last Crusade, the instant aging of the nazi scientist was also a good scare. So, the Indiana Jones movies aren’t particularly childrens movies, but they did scare me a great deal when I was growing up.
I echo a previous reader’s comments, Dr. Who used to give me the hide behind the couch willies, especially the daleks.
The 1950’s (1960’s?) film of War of The Worlds definitely primed me to be terrified of all things alien culinating in Alien (the first movie) itself.
Alien was so cathartic that practically ever other space creature since then has seemed like a cuddly domestic pet in comparison.
Jaws is way up there, but being 13 and watching Return of the Living Dead Part II on Hallowe’en night scared the bejeezus out of me.
Jaws for me, definitely, I never swam at night after that. The only other scary movie for me was the first half of The Changeling.
The Indian cave didn’t bother me much – it was the fridge episode that really freaked me out. Punky and her friends were playing hide-and-seek and one of them (don’t remember which one) climbed into a fridge and got stuck.
I saw the Dark Crystal as an adult, but The Last Unicorn was one of my favourite movies as a child. There are some pretty scary scenes in it – the villain is a fiery red bull that herds innocent unicorns into the sea, and the hero has to pass a drunk skeleton with glowing red eyes to get to the bull … there’s also a wacky scene in which the hero finds himself tied to a tree, and tries to cast a spell to release himself. The tree becomes humanoid, the magician is still trapped, only now his face is wedged between two enormous breasts, and the tree refuses to let him go because it’s lonely.
The only movie I can remember that freaked me out so much as a child that I had to leave the room was Indiana Jones … I think it was the one with the pit of snakes, but I don’t really remember. My sister and I turned it off and watched The Cat From Outer Space instead.
Can’t remember the name of the TV show, but it came out around 72′ or 73′ and was about a reporter who hunted monsters, vampires, warewolfs, and the like.
Also, I recall the pilot for ‘Fantacy Island’ scaring me, watched the show for a couple of years hoping to be scared again.
The made for TV movie ‘Saloms Lot’ scared the crap out of me, I was 12 or 13 at the time. Renting the movie years later, in my late 20s, I found myself asking why did it scare me?
Also reading H.P. Lovecraft in my later teen years (16 to 18) gave me a number of sleepless nights.
E.T. Specifically, the scene with ET blending in the closet with all the stuffed animals. I remember being scared that night, wondering in the dark if ET was going to come out of the closet.
My babysitter used to watch the TV Series “V” and I remember it scaring the crap out of me. I don’t even know why.
There was an episode of Space:1999 with this unkillable spider thing that would suck people under it and microwave them to death. It scared me so much I literally was hiding in a corner of the room and had to turn off the TV. Never did find out how they killed the damn thing.
The Death Probe episodes of Six Million Dollar Man always freaked me out. Indestructible Russian probe accidently lands on Earth (but thinks it’s on Venus). It’s programmed to destroy anything in its path and it’s headed towards a small town in Wyoming.
That damn probe scared me to no end.
I was 8 years old when they smashed up Johnny 5 in Short Circuit 2. The fact that they were able to make the robot express pain disturbed me for years.
“The Manitou” – a woman had a large growth on her neck, which turned out to be a native Indian warlock. It was around that time that I’d developed a thumb-sized cyst on my shoulder that’d appared like overnight (it went away just as fast in 1 or 2 days). No wonder I was freaked out!
“The entity” was even more frightening, probably because it was (supposidly) based on a true story about a woman raped repeatedly for many years by unseen evil demons. How does one fight that?
My son told me he was freaked out by the movie “Candy man”. He couldn’t have been that scared, for he’d actually face the mirror and say “Candy man, Candy man, Candy man” all 3 times – then he’d run! LOL
Salem’s Lot was the first i can remember.
Alien was a close second. I saw it on tv somehow in 1980 when I was 6…..that was too much, I think my dad did it on purpose. the part when the android pukes spaghetti still freaks me out.
id agree with most all of these….
anybody get the heebeejeebees from “Return to Oz”? the wheelers and the lady with the hall of heads that she could change at will?