For me it was Event Horizon, that was scary as hell when I was a kid, I had nightmares for months.
Superman III
ghost ship and the cube!
Yes! The opening scene from Ghost Ship fucked me up for a while.
if cartoons count, the “return the slab” episode on Courage the cowerdly dog, scared the hell out of me and I couldn’t be in the dark for months after.
Pan’s Lanyrinth. The Pale Man haunted 12yo -me’s nightmares for a long time.
For me it was Poltergeist 2. That really scared the shit out of 9yo me 😂
The Exorcist, specifically the part where she runs down the stairs upside down on all 4s and screams. Me and my brother cried forever that night lol
Species from 1995. Parents and their friends were watching it and told us to not come in because it was too scary.
I thought they were bullshitting young me…I was wrong. Lol. Had wonderful nightmares for a while.
two movies came to me pretty vividly,
Spirited Away (2001), no-face is pretty scary even now, but the scene that disturbs me is at the beginning when Chihiro came back and find her parents have turned into pigs…
MirrorMask (2005), fittingly I watched this when I was sick with high fever and for so long I thought this movie was a fever dream, it haunted me for days until my fever subsides. I don’t remember anything about the plot, just that the atmosphere and aesthetic are nauseating
When I was a child, Pet Sematary scared the living hell out of me.
The ring.
The Blair Witch Project. My cousin told me it was actual found footage, which was a terrifying thought for 10 year old me.
This movie felt real. I’m still scared by it…
That was the whole point. They even made the actors stay out of public view for a year, handing out flyers at Sundance that they were “missing, presumed dead”. There were fake police interviews on the film’s website and everything. This was the first time anything like this had been done so I can imagine people were really invested in this movie and thought it was real.
They also “leaked” copies of the film for months before it came out. I saw a leaked copy in the dorms in college. Never heard of it, my friends told me it was real footage that had been found in the woods from a group that had been lost. For the first… probably half of the movie, I was convinced it was real.
Very enjoyable experience. I feel bad for all the people who saw it after the hype and were too cool to let themselves be scared by it.
Whoa TIL! I thought my cousin was just messing with me, but the chance that all this time she may have also been sold on the idea makes me feel better.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Totally. Seems so dumb now, but as a kid those masks were so scary. Also, clowns.
Legend (1985). Tim Curry is a brilliant villain.
The first Resident Evil movie. Not because of the zombies, it was the laser scene that got to me. I was convinced that lasers would come out of any reflective surface to get me. I didn’t like how they seemed to react to the guy avoiding them, making it impossible for him to escape, like they were intelligent and trying to kill him.
When I was quite a bit younger, The Mask freaked me right out. On top of the Goosebumps episode about a mask overtaking you, I straight up refused to put any on for the longest time. Still don’t love them.
The start of the Goofy Movie, during Max’s dream…those dark vibes hit me hard. Would wait in the bathroom until it was done.
The Ring was a big one because my “friend” called and did the whole “seven days…” thing. Before we had caller IDs. The same friend made me watch Darkness Falls, and I think I repressed it all because I remember nothing about it other than hating the whole experience.
Not much of a scary movie fan to this day. Go figure.
