@Suck_on_my_Presence There was a German kid’s TV show, an episode in which to the protagonist the following happened: he woke up from a strange dream of a swamp, middle of the night, room half dark and all, and he found himself half-eaten by the nightmare’s crocodile that had leapt onto his bed. Out of his dream. Very scary!

The crocodile could be talked to, though, but his legs were already fully inside the thing so he could not move much at all. Talking was all that was possible, eliciting answers and conversation, and some reasoning about “let me go” and “why even ask” was done. In the end, that saved him, literally the talking himself out of it, the croc let go and disappeared. I had replays of that scene for months after.

The Mummy. It wasn’t the titular character. It was the scarabs.

Return to Oz

Childhood trauma all over the place…

1. Signs - the aliens terrified me and I was scared walking to school for a long time
2. The scarabs from The Mummy - I thought they would come out from under the sink and the closets to eat me alive

To be clear, it still terrifies me.

I enjoy the rest of the movie but this is one of the greatest horror sequences ever. A remake that truly surpasses the original.

EDIT: I have to give a shoutout to the movie that had the most real world effect on me. That would be Arachnophobia. I couldn’t function normally for months. Sitting on the toilet. Putting my shoes on. Sticking my hand in a bag of chips. I was a wreck.

Volcano (1997) terrified young me. How could anyone sleep peacefully when lava could just appear out of nowhere?

Needless to say I never lived even remotely close to any kind of geologically active area, let alone a volcano.

Darkness falls.

It’s a movie about the tooth fairy but the tooth fairy is actually an old woman who used to collect the teeth of the children in her village until the townspeople burnt her alive and then she became a spirit who was essentially the tooth fairy but if you ever saw her she’d kill you.

It’s cheesy as hell but it was terrifying when I was younger

When I was young, but not that young, there was a show called Duckman or something like that. I didn’t get the channel at home, but I was sleeping over at a friend’s house, and he got this channel, so it was on late at night.

In the episode the main character breaks up with a woman, and she’s like stalking him for revenge or something, I don’t remember the plot. But in one short scene he’s taking a bath to relax after the stress she’s been causing him, and she pokes her head up out of the bath water with crazy eyes and then pulls him under.

There was something about that I very much didn’t like. That was the only episode of the show I ever saw, but I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be a burnout comedy ala Beavis and Butthead or something, and I don’t even think this particular moment was meant to be scary. It was probably meant to be exaggerated and silly. But the crazy lady coming out of the water where she shouldn’t be able to be? Nope.

That fucked me up, on and off, for years. I’d just be laying in bed, and then the image or even the concept would come to me, and I’d feel uneasy. Despite not being in a bath at the time! Ugh.

@Suck_on_my_Presence Jaws did, I lived near a lake. Took me a while to realize the lake was really much too small for sharks, but the movie gave me vivid dreams.

Alien terrified me, as the house I lived in had long dark hallways where those beasts or eggs could hide. Saw the film when video2000 and Betamax were still competing. I never found xenomorphs in my house and terror faded, but the franchise stayed with me including Disneyfication.

What actually scared me more was Poltergeist. What a terrifying world, house, family, setting, glow from behind closed doors and the TV sucked you in to the other side.

The air conditioner in The Brave Little Toaster

I think it was from one of the Creep Show movies, Tales from the Crypt, or a similar collection, but a short about teens on a raft on a lake being picked off by some kind of black slime/algae thing. Never been comfortable swimming in lakes since

The Day After 1983

I was around 10-11 years old. the whole fuckin movie terrified me.

It wasn’t a movie per se. I thought it was when I was a kid, though. It’s an episode of “Friday the 13th: The Series” called “The Executioner”.

I was like maybe 6 or 7 at the time.

It starts with this guy in prison you see them take him to the electric chair and attempt to execute him. They botch it and the warden or whoever pretty much goes “oops, well by law we did technically carry out your sentence so you’re a free man now”

He then goes on to become a dentist and uses a “cursed electric chair” as his dentist chair to take revenge on the world.

This gave me a real fear of going to the dentist on top of just being a kid and being scared to go. Still hate going to the dentist (who doesn’t I guess)

I used to play Myst at the time and that even made me feel uncomfortable in the Time Machine room with the dentist chair at the first island.

edit: I watched it again as an adult and it was corny as hell

Unfun fact, the creators of Return to Oz researched the top psychological fears of children and carefully built their movie around them.

Saw it on TV in the basement alone on a Saturday, and it is one of the most unsettling things I’ve seen to this day.

I don’t remember my age, but Spirited Away absolutely fucked me up for a little while. I felt like I was in that world and was terrified of No-Face eating me up. Legitimately had nightmares… It doesn’t seem that bad rewatching it but it was not good for my younger mind.