Potent Fear, Child-sized

[nummy muffin]

Remember watching something when you were little that informed all your nightmares thereafter?  What kids' films messed ya up and why?  Man, I've got a list:

The Secret of Nimh - rodent torture
The Dark Crystal - puppet torture
The Princess Bride - pirate torture
Watership Down - bunny torture
The Little Mermaid - sea witch impalement
Darby O'Gill and the Little People - banshees
Return to Oz - Fairuza Balk

[jewishcarpenter]

Willow - trolls and Val Kilmer
Watcher in the Woods - little dead French girls

[mrbasehart]

I think the scene in Willow where they're all transformed into pigs freaked me out the most.

For me, there are a few little scenes that stick out in my memory from childhood:

Total Recall: When Arnie gets sucked out onto the Martian landscape and starts to decompress.  The whole eyes-popping-out thing....

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 (I think): Where the guy riding the motorcycle starts blending into the machine, while Freddy starts to laugh.  There's also a similar bit in Superman III where the woman gets turned into a machine by the computer.

Poltergeist: Crawling meat!!!

[Courtney]

Nevending Story.  Horse + drowning in a swamp= future fucked up adult.  *waves* Hi.

The Land Before Time also really messed me up.  The beginning where Little Foot's mom died had me in convulsive sobs and led to ten years of recurring nightmares about my mom dying.  I'm still to this day completely psycho paranoid whenever my mom's on a plane or driving in bad conditions.  (she's flying to Hawaii right now.   )

[TeamRAD]

A year before my father passed away, he showed me A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was 9. He had it all planned as he made sure my mother was all but gone for the evening and having me promise I wouldn't tell her what I was about to watch. After it was all said and done, I didn't sleep a wink that night and went to school the next morning a changed boy. It didn't mess me up whatsoever. It  prepared me for everything that was about to come my way.

I had never been more scared shitless in my entire life than that Wednesday evening with my dad and kept my promise to him.

[Nick]

The most terryfying movie of our lifetimes...ET!

Yes, ET scared me shitless when I was a youngin. The scene where Elliot is walking through the cornfield and happens upon ET frightned my soul. For years I would have nightmares of ET swallowing me whole. But ET somehow remains one of my favorite movies. Funny how that works out.

[nummy muffin]

The most terryfying movie of our lifetimes...ET!

Yes, ET scared me shitless when I was a youngin. The scene where Elliot is walking through the cornfield and happens upon ET frightned my soul. For years I would have nightmares of ET swallowing me whole. But ET somehow remains one of my favorite movies. Funny how that works out.

I once knew a guy, a 21 yr old mind you, who shared your ET phobia.  We spooked him one night with an ET doll and he started screaming.  Ah, the sweet pain of others.

[Fortis]

Pinnochio, that island where they all turn into donkeys scared me crapless.

[Nick]

I once knew a guy, a 21 yr old mind you, who shared your ET phobia.  We spooked him one night with an ET doll and he started screaming.  Ah, the sweet pain of others.

Your a monster!

I jest of course, I'm not too frightened of him nowadays. Perhaps I can come out of the house now without fear of ET.

[SmilinJackRoss]

The Michael jackson Thriller video.  Especially the beginning when he turns into a werewolf.....I think I was only5 or 6 years old, and me, my sisters, and my dad were all watching it, not having seen it before and having no idea what we were in for.  Didn't sleep a wink that night.

Also, my dad let me watch Predator at a very young age, and it has provided me with miles of nightmares through the years.  I adore the film, I've seen it dozens of times, but to this day i still have Predator nightmares, had one just a few months ago if I recall.  And I'm 30 years old for chrissakes.

[acoletterose]

Arachnophobia scared the pants off me. I had dreams where I was covered in spiders, so then I had to cover my bed with white sheets so that I would be able to see the spiders.

Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory scared me too. I was afraid of the oompa loompas. I stand by that fear.

[ebeth]

1.  Watcher in the Woods.
2. Jaws
3. I spit on your grave
4. The color Purple

[Rude]

...

"Awesome, my parents are out of town and i have the whole house to myself!"

"I'm gonna' watch Hellraiser 2 alone at night... sweet!"

"This is a totally awesome idea!"



"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck... Holy shit, oh fuck, oh fuck!"

"What was that noise?! Oh fuck... I need a kitchen knife."

"Oh fuck. I better turn all the lights in the house on... Wait. Can't go upstairs, someone is definitely waiting up there to jump out and kill me."

"Alright. I'm sleeping in the living room with a kitchen knife."

-Rude

[nummy muffin]

1.  Watcher in the Woods.
2. Jaws
3. I spit on your grave
4. The color Purple

My parents fed me a constant diet of Disney, and rented Watcher in the Woods numerous times.  I'm happily surprised to learn other kids were similarly fucked up by it's fucked-up-ness.  Disney's stab at Really Scaring Children worked, I guess.

[RoninFox]

Put me on the list of kids freaked out by Never Ending Story.  For me though it was Gmork, the werewolf.  The scene where he confronts Atreu really freaked me out for some reason and I had several nightmares of monsters that resembled that dang wolf.