I used to be scared of the rat at chuck e. cheese. Childhood brithday parties were terrible. According to my parents the rat tapped my shoulder once and it scared me. For the next two years I would cry anytime we went there. I was never scared of movies, my parents would let me watch horror movies all the time when I was a kid. Freddy Kruger was like a babysitter. When my parents wanted to do it for a few hours they would put him on. I never really got scared by anything in film. Oddly enough, they wouldnt let me watch any movies with sex scenes. Maybe I was scared of those?
I'm going to go with the obvious because it hasn't been mentioned yet. The moment when Michael Jackson and crew turn into werewolves/zombies in Thriller sent my 5 year old ass running out of the room screaming every single time (the Vincent Price monologue thingy didn't help any either). My sisters knew this fact and would trick me into watching it for their own sick amusement because they are awful, awful people. Edit: Oh yeah I don't really remember the specifics of the movie but I know that Babes In Toyland creeped me the fuck out for whatever reason.
That giant fucking monster that would pop up every now and again and eat people on the show Dinosaurs. I was convinced he lived in my basement. I couldn't find a picture of it anywhere, so imagine if this thing was green: Spoiler
The made for tv movie IT freaked me the fuck out. I have no idea why my parents let me watch it. I think I was four, but I might have been five. Either way, if I hadn't been sharing a room with my brother at the time I never would have got to sleep. It was also a great decision to read the book a few years later. I watched the movie and read the book again about a year ago. The book - still awesome. The movie, not so much.
Comedy or not, the library ghost "boo" scare at the beginning of Ghostbusters was as unexpected as it gets and scared the PISS out of me as a kid. I'm sure I wasn't the only one, make no mistake: Also, you know it and you wet 'em: For Disgustipated, it also shellshocked me:
I spent an hour and a half this morning before work trying to find the scene, but failed. It was a scene in Sleeping Beauty or Snow White (some Disney cartoon) where goblins were making there way out of a dungeon or some shit. I offhandedly saw it one night at a friends house (their kid was watching it) and I got creeped out even then. I wasn't sheltered when it came to more mature content as a kid, but Disney made me a little bitch.
Oh yeah. I was also exposed to "Tommy" the rock opera when I was young, and I still remember going to see Superman at the Drive-In, and they were showing Phantasm on the other screen: Yeah, that will fuck up a 5 year old kids dreams for a long, long time. I've never seen that movie, but I still remember that fucking floating spike ball thing.
Unfortunately, I can only find the digital remake of this scene from E.T., and the little bastard looks like a looney tune. The original version was much more terrifying, and prefer not to watch E.T. at all thanks to this scene.
For my 10th birthday I went to see Poltergeist at the theater with my best friend. She'd given me a white miniskirt as a gift, and it got ruined after I spilled coke all over it during the pool scene. There was also the time I saw the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (cartoon version) and cried for days after seeing the scene where they shave Aslan's mane.
Actually, that part didn't bother me as much. I think it's similar to how I react now to movies. I could watch a million people die, but as soon as a pet gets killed I get so upset and all I can think is WHAT SICK BASTARD DECIDED TO MAKE THIS MOVIE? God, I couldn't bring myself to watch that clip when I posted it, but the squeaking and the look in the shoe's eyes is still ingrained in my memory and makes me sad just thinking about it. Waah.
The first movie I ever went to see was at the Drive-In, showing Raiders of the Lost Ark and Stripes. I did not see Stripes, because as a quivering 5 year old I was petrified with fear on the floor of the back seat because I watched the entire duration of this unforgettable climax:
My parents were very much opposed to having me spend any time in front of a screen, when I was allowed, it was for documentaries or the news. Consequently, when I was very young (< 6), I didn't suspend my disbelief, I didn't have any. I was like those aliens in Galaxy Quest; if it was on the screen, it was happening in real time, making this: Spoiler a bit fucking much for my four year old self to handle. Living next to a graveyard probably didn't help. Whatever, you wouldn't watch it on acid.
Neither of my parents like scary movies, so I was allowed to watch some pretty violent/adult stuff quite young (Rambo? Mad Max 3? Robocop? James Bond? All fine. Gremlins? Not cool.) - but never anything with a horror theme. I forget how old I was, but it was somewhere under 12 when I saw Child's Play and Arachnaphobia the same night at some scouts thing. I didn't sleep for a fucking week afterward. These days I watch much scarier porn - but I was fucking traumatized at the time.
Holy crap. I think I watched Chucky with my older cousins when I was 6 or 7 and to this day I still think dolls are kind of creepy. It used to scare the shit out of me at night when I was young, to the point that that fear is one of the few things I remember from that age. I agree with the repercussions. At this point in life I think I'm far and away the most immune to horror among anyone I know. Everything I see now I just kind of shrug, and not in a good way.
I guess everyone deals with childhood trauma in a different way. To this day, the one type of film that I never enjoy is a horror film. I didn't connect the two until this thread. Thanks TiB!
The eye removal scene from Demolition Man left quite an impression on 5-year old Pato. I can watch pretty much anything now though. Except animals getting hurt, that still gets to me. Couldn't find it so I'll leave you with this.
As a (very) young child, these guys freaked me the fuck out. Aliens sneaking around outside your house, peering in though the windows.
The whole move Fantasia really freaked me out when I was little. I'm not sure if it was the music or the creepy characters...probably a combination of both.