What scared you?

[zzzippper]

the Peter Gunn thread got me thinking about old TV. I remember being terrified of the opening to The Outer Limits and the actual show didn't make it any better.

The movie The Haunting also froze me, especially the scene where the girl is in bed and it turns out that a ghost was holding (hurting) her hand and no her roommate. Also the scene where they are locked up in the library and spirits are pounding on the walls and door.

Later, reading The Amityville Horror the dog in the book reacts to unseen spirits. I was laying on my bed with our dog at the foot of the bed. The was Easter Sunday and my parents and sister had gone to relatives, the house was stone quiet. The dog could see down the hallway from where she was but I couldn't. Suddenly the dog lifted her head and picked her ears up! I waited long enough to proved to myself that I wasn't chicken and then decided I needed to take a walk outside in the sunshine.

A few calendars later and married, I was up late reading The Shining. I finished the chapter about Tony barely escaping from the dead woman in the bathtub and I went to bed. I could see into our hallway to the bathroom door. I thought, "If someone comes out of that bathroom I'm going to scream!" Our bathroom window faced the bathroom window of the next door apartment building. Just then they turned on their light which shined through our bathroom as if someone had turned on OUR light. Lordy, lordy, I like to have pissed my drawers at that one!

 

[wheelgunguy]

Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte, The Shining, and The Blair Witch Project all gave me the heebie jeebies.

The nightly news now scares the dickens out of me more than these three put together.

 

[billwill]

Those stupid monkeys in the Wizard of Oz

 

[MasterTech1960]

The " Birds" . We lived at the back side of a farm. The fields would get covered with black birds after the corn was harvested. I was little and it freaked me out when they would take to flight. A few years later I grew out of it when I learned to shoot a shot gun.

 

[JayCeeNC]

When Sissy Spacek's hand popped out of the grave in "Carrie" I screamed like a little girl.

 

[fdw]

Blair Witch Project probably got me as bad as anything.


just creepy...

 

[3dots]

Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds, got me pretty good when I was a kid. Also, there was a movie, can't remember the name, but it was about a disembodied hand from an accident in space or something like that that was alive and creeping around...scared the hell outta me.

 

[USAF385]

Back in the early to mid '90s when I was 7 to 10ish there were a lot of Alien / UFO shows on TV that my dad used to watch. I'd watch them too because my dad was, and I did think they were kind of interesting........ but I'd end up walking down the hall to my bedroom with my eyes closed and jump under my covers fearing a grey would pop out of somewhere or poke their head through my window...

 

[zzzippper]

Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds, got me pretty good when I was a kid. Also, there was a movie, can't remember the name, but it was about a disembodied hand from an accident in space or something like that that was alive and creeping around...scared the hell outta me.

The was The Hand with Michael Caine. He was an artist or cartoonist I think. He lost his hand in a car accident and it started crawling around do nasties.

 

[S42N8]

Blair Witch Project... but mostly 'cause the handheld video kept making my eyes hurt, and then the creepy set in.

John Carpenter's The Thing is still disturbing at times. And then there's my ex... but I digress.

 

[dougb1946]

A little book-Ammie, Come Home. Read it with the lights on, nobody in a rocking chair. Movie wasn't as good.

 

[ejeli]

Women!!!!!
e.

 

[Rpg]

Walked into the theatre with my Uncle as The Pit And The Pendulum scene of the pendulum swinging back and forth over someone's torso.

Turned right around and left the theatre alone.

I was 9 or 10.

 

[BearBio]

"The Innocents" with Deborah Kerr.
"The Haunting" (The black and white one==NOT the comedic one with Catherine Zeta Jones and Liam Neeson)
"The Shining" with Jack Nicholson.

BTW: All three books were scarier than the movies!

My wife is a member of the local writing club and much of our social life rotates around the members and their husbands/boyfriends (We all play together well). I turn 65 in 3 months and challenged each of them (The 5 we know the best) to write me a Gothic story as a birthday present. At least 3 of these are published authors==One writes historical fiction, one writes Star Trek novels (I know, I know) and one writes Sci Fi. The wife writes poetry. I've received a few hints that this should be really interesting.

 

[Bastogne71]

The Fly - the 1958 original movie gave me nightmares at 11 years old. Decided I didn't need to spend money to be frightened. High places and spiders do that quite well for free.

 

[chaparrito]

The Omen, just the first one. Spinoffs were BS.

 

[Doug627]

The original movie The Fly where the two men are discussing the wife's psychological problems causing her to believe her husband was a fly and then they hear the tiny voice screaming for help. They see the fly in a spider's web and then watch as the spider bites the fly. They had plenty of time to help but they just stood there and watched!

 

[Triathloncoach]

I was about 15 when I went to the theater to see the original Aliens. I didn't know what to expect. It was disturbing.

Growing up in Ocean Township New Jersey, Jaws didn't exactly give me the warm and fuzzies either. Oceans are really big. And dark.

Ditto on the above comment regarding the Omen.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Cancer and women who weigh more than me.

 

[zzzippper]

Cancer and women who weigh more than me.

I decided early on that I needed a woman that I could beat in a fair fight.

 

[GaryS]

The Outer Limits, especially the opening.

"Wait Until Dark" The scene when an almost dead Alan Arkin leaps out of the shadows at Audrey Hepburn.

http://youtu.be/fO8Z0F_CQ_o

 

[LedFowl]

The original Invaders From Mars. Creeped me out as a kid.

 

[ralph7]

"Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte when Bette Davis sees the dead guy at the top of the stairs, and
"The Exorcist" when the furniture moves by itself to block the door.

 

[kozmic]

I first got an idea of how powerful your imagination can be was during a radio broadcast of the War of the Worlds on WKBW in Buffalo. I was riveted to the radio. I didn't need no stinkin' tv to scare the bejeebers outta me.

Most of the movies that scared the posters above gave me goosebumgs too.

 

[kenv1950]

The only movie that creeped me out--(THE EXORCIST)

 

[A10]

When I was a kid there was this old movie on about how radioactivity had mutated crabs so they grew huge, ate people, then could telepathically call other folks out so the crabs could snack on them. Don't remember the name of it.......

Also, the Outer Limits where some guy had eyes like fried eggs....freaked me out.

 

[307-Niner]

I'm not admitting anything...

 

[deadin]

The Thing (original 1951 with James Arness as the "Thing")
I was 10 years old and spent a good portion of it hiding under my coat....)

 

[msinc]

I am really not into ghosts and such. As far as movies go, when I was 13 years old in the late summer of 75 I went and saw "Jaws". Growing up on the Chesapeake Bay I was worried about getting in a small boat for a right good while. I wont say scared because I always went, but I wasn't totally happy about it either.
Now for absolute, outright, sheer, wet down both legs terror...lightning!!!! When I was 10 our house got hit by a horrendously huge horrifically loud extremely bright blinding flash of 3 foot in diameter fire. It blew right through the ceiling and blew out right through the foundation getting to ground. Caught the house on fire and where it was burning blocked the door. The storm was so violent we {older sister and me} were scared to go outside because we thought we would get hit. It might not have been so scary had I not been 10 and it hit like 6 feet away from where I was standing. I remember being frozen with fear at the mere sight of dark clouds until I was like 16 or so.

 

[Usmc5811]

When I was 6 or 7 my mom let me watch the original Night Of The Living Dead. Scared me to death, but have been hooked on zombie flicks eversince.