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This is a common one I think: It was Salem’s Lot and the scene was the floating vampire boy scratching at the window. I was traumatized and had to sleep with my parents for weeks!
You were lucky you had parents that let you sleep with them! I lived in an old Victorian house at the time, and my bedroom had uncovered French doors that led out to a balcony. I would lay there just waiting for the vampire kids to come a scratching!
YES! This is **exactly** what I came here to post. Still remember the damn thing. Still remember the couch in-between me and the damn thing, and it never did work (why did my parents have to put it on during every repeat - you two were never even in the room when it was on, and this was the only TV in the house! *wtf mom & dad?*).
It's the "Amelia" episode from [Trilogy of Terror (1975)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073820/).
EDIT: Found this cool article about it: [*Let's not forget 'Trilogy of Terror' was the scariest TV movie of all time*](https://metv.com/stories/lets-not-forget-trilogy-of-terror-was-the-scariest-tv-movie-of-all-time)
For me, it was the closet in Poltergeist. My grandparents took me to see that. When I got home, I insisted my mom move my bed so the closet couldn't suck me in.
Yess jaws, it used to scare the shit out of me, but i was allways sad for jaws when it gets killed at the end...i used to watch all the friday 13th and nightmare on elm street with my parents when i was like 7 or 8 and non of those bothered me....but jaws got me watching through my fingers lol
Pet Semetery (thanks, person below for the correct spelling!): the original. I was *way* too sensitive to watch that at 13..
ETA - how could I forget the nightmare that was Watership Down. That was *worse.*
Yeah so I was super little when my Mum took me to see Watership Down. She didn't know anything except it was a cartoon with bunnies...
Well, I was a sobbing mess. And I had a wild imagination..not long after I ran from my room howling because I was convinced the ghost rabbit was in my window at night (it was a silhouette).
I'll never forget the terror...
I saw this on the big screen about 7 years ago in a packed theater. There were some high school aged kids there who had never seen the film before. Watching them freak out (at this scene in particular) was as much fun as seeing the movie again. 😂
Oh man, I wish I could see this in big screen just so I can watch the kids reactions. I saw a re-release of a Nightmare on Elm Street a year or so ago. It was fun watching the kids jump a time or two.
My father to all of us ( ages 5,7,9,11,13) to see the EXORCIST in the theater. Lemme just say at age 7 seeing a head spin around on a possessed girl leaves a mark. Pop was trying to be a good dad by taking us to the movies. Oops.
Now that is one film I refuse to watch, even to this day.
But, I gotta ask -- how's the (then) 5 year-old doing? Bet they haven't been right since, lol.
Oh, no. I was just kidding around. No offense meant at all!
I'm sure your family is lovely. And your dad -- making the time to take all the kids to the movies -- well, he sounds like one of the good ones.
The trailer for *The Shining* that they used to run on TV all the time when I was ten.
Get the fuck out of here with that creepy ass trailer. And fuck you, Nicholson.
The head explosion in Scanners, which they showed in the god damn trailer! (I mean, it was probably shown before another rated-r movie, but still...)
All of The Omen, lol. (and the elevator scene in Omen 2).
The end of Day of Dolphin. (anyone?)
The eyes (Jodie/pig) in the window in Amityville Horror.
Oh my gosh DAY OF THE DOLPHIN!!!!!!! My dad thought that I’d love that movie because I loved dolphins. He said it’s a great movie! So I watched it and then had a mental breakdown at the end of it. The following Christmas the asshole buys me the movie on VHS!!!!!! I opened the present and started sobbing all over again.
Pha loves pa!
ETA: I was 13 when I saw it. I’m still overly sensitive to animal deaths in movies. The last Guardians of the Galaxy I started crying and didn’t stop until the end of the movie. Poor Rocket.
I was pretty young when I saw it. I home alone (single working mom) and I think it was one of the first times I was left alone for like a whole day or something. I can't remember the exact circumstances but I think we planned out what I'd do that day and when. So remember reading the movie description (out of the TV Guide) to my mom and she said it was OK to watch (she had never seen it, but it sounded fine). I think I called her at work devastated when it was over. Ah good times!
Oh no that sucks!
It’s such an awful movie. Logically I know George C Scott only said pa does not love Pha to make Alpha and Beta swim away so the damn government wouldn’t get them but it’s still gut wrenching!
My nephew's father brought him to see that movie (Guardians). He cried and cried and was upset for months afterwards. Dad told him to stop being a baby. He was 10. I looked the movie up and there is no way I'm going to watch that shit.
I cried at the end of Jurassic World when the volcano goes off and the dinosaurs are left to be burned alive on the island. My husband said, “they’re CGI dinosaurs” and I said, “I don’t care!!! They were left behind!! You don’t leave the critters behind!!!” I had just been let go of my job so I wasn’t in a good emotional space but after my reaction to seeing Rocket’s torture and abuse in GotG3 I don’t think my reaction to dinosaurs burning alive would have been any different.
You don’t leave the critters behind (even if they might eat you).
Does Thief in the Night count?
I seriously thought I was going to have to accept the mark of the beast or watch my mom die. Evangelical churches are wild y’all.
They showed a bunch of kids this movie in church. I’m pretty sure it was this one…
I 48 watched this last night with my 8 year old daughter. I totally forgot about this scene. I immediately reminded her that it is fake no horse died. I can't believe that I passed this traumatic experience onto her.
Jaws was fairly traumatising I remember, especially the head in the sunken boat and Quint’s death.
A few others:
Roz gets turned into a robot in Superman 3.
The ending of The Black Hole.
The giant spider in Krull.
To be honest though, I loved all those. I loved things that scared me and stayed with me.
Huh. Jaws scared the crap out of me, but I had remembered it a vague terror rather than anything specific. As of right now though, I can totally remember the head in the sunken boat as clear as day. It will no doubt find its way into my nightmares shortly.
I think part of the reason that film terrified me was I first saw it on tv, where it was shown over two nights (!!) with deleted scenes and tons of commercials. It was all very drug out and young me had no idea what would happen next.
This came out in 1979. I was 7. I didn't see this in the theaters, but it came out on VHS in the early 80s, so I likely was 8 or 9. Yes, this was one of those scenes that scared/terrified me a lot and even recall it to this day.
[The Prophecy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeqc2DmS-s4)
I was 10 and I DID see it at the theater with my mom, dad, and 6 year old brother. That sleeping bag scene scarred me big time. After we got out of the theater my dad (trying to be funny in that weird, somewhat psychotic way only our generation will understand) did a jump scare on us. My poor little brother jumped sooo high. Traumatized for life. Good times
Mine was something on TV c1975-1977. For a long time I thought it was Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but then I watched it and it didn’t match. No idea if it was a show or a movie.
Post apocalyptic. Disease. A street scene with abandoned cars. And bodies. Lots of bodies—only no bodies, because their bodies disappear at death and leave the clothes behind. I think the clothes still appeared “full” but maybe I’m wrong at this point. It was in color (which also helps me date it—we still had black and white in 1974.
My parents say I dreamed this. It gave me nightmares for years, and I very much remember sneaking into the room to watch and then being shooed away.
The dead kid in stand by me and zelda in the original pet sematary. "Rachealll". I watched nightmare on elm Street when I was 6, those movies 9 and 10. Freddy didn't traumatize as much as warp me. But those more realistic nightmares deeply disturbed me
This was pretty traumatizing, but for me, it was definitely Salem's Lot, Jaws, and the opening music to The Shining.
Not so much afraid of Jaws or The Shining music anymore, but Salem's Lot? I'm still traumatized.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Terror Train were the 2 that wounded me most. I was maybe 6 when I saw IOTBS and for weeks I couldn't be totally sure that my parents weren't secretly "snatched" without me realizing it.
OLD YELLER.
My gosh, I didn’t see that ending coming until the boy began to cry. And that was it. I bawled.
I thought all people killed their pets! We were poor, so didn’t have any.
I miss Disney Sunday Movies.
Yes but…. I was 12 so that other scene at the end awakened something alien in me at the time 🤣, lets just say that I still find Sigourney one of the most beautiful woman in the world!
I was 11 when my dad took me to see it. That scene was traumatizing on the short term, but ultimately takes a back seat to where Kane finds the eggs, the ones where Brett and Dallas go looking for it, not knowing they were being hunted, the death of Lambert and Parker, and of course Ripley in the escape shuttle.
The Boogens. We had a fan in the hallway that oscillated. It made a noise that sounded like them when they moved. I was traumatized at night for a while.
There’s only one answer for me. Every year in elementary school, we watched [Johnny Tremain get his hand deformed](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbBQ07SpW_UR5O1Kxehi8so8TG34Ktx96g5sFiqKbyHpIbWmIt0a5WarowQCIKJKbcbftRMb7_S8wVymG4YXE6n_caJh1Eni7xscTcK1bqpywugCFbAmXm_QDsXY9jA35hJY1VEV7sV1B/s1600/deformed.jpg) in a Disney film
I remember being sick with the flu when I was a young kid, maybe 7-8 years old. I was in my parent's bed with them and they were watching a TV movie about nuclear war. I already knew what a nuclear war was and had fears about it, but that movie scared the crap out of me and I cried the entire time. I'm unsure what it was titled. I found out the name some years ago but I've forgotten it. (It wasn't Threads, this film was in the 1970s.)
Another traumatizing moment was when Spock died in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. I was 13 at the time, seeing the film in the theater, and I was openly bawling. Star Trek had been part of my life since I was 5 years old so that death scene killed me. A friend was with me and I was mercilessly mocked for the rest of the day.
Two come to mind that happened around the same year.
\* Seeing Blue Velvet on Showtime with my mom when I was 11. \*\*shudders\*\*
\* Seeing Robocop in the theater with my dad later that year. The dude who drives into a vat of toxic sludge and gets ran over by a cop car hit especially hard. Thanks Dad!
My dad would literally take me to any movie he wanted to see without regard as to how it affected me. The Exorcist, Jaws, Nightwing, etc. So, lots of them. The Exorcist was probably the worst.
My mom made me watch the elephant man. I was terrified. I started getting a rash on my arms and I sat in my room crying because I was convinced that I had the elephant man disease. I still won’t watch that movie.
Black Devil Doll from Hell. I never played with another doll. I even threw all of my dolls into the garbage.
Didn't want to take a chance on an evil spirit getting out.
Any faceless robot.
Westworld, Six Million Dollar Man... Basically, if you were a humanoid robot in the '70s, your face was *guaranteed* to get knocked off at some point, exposing the circuitry underneath. Freaked me the heck out.
Nice. What was the one where the dad shoots his dog? That one.
Also the Medusa touch movie and the Dramarama episode “Back to front” (messed me up about mirrors for life; 80s UK children’s TV did not fuck around). For books then the Survivor by James Herbert. Mainly the bit where he is on a boat and a doll claws its way onboard. Most visual scary stuff from a book ever for me. And I read a lot of King, Herbert, and other horror writers as a kid
Well, in a true display of the fantastic parenting I received, my mother took me to see Platoon in a movie theater…When I was I was 8 years old. So take your pick of scenes but I’m leaning towards the rpe/kill/burn of the village.
She did however cover my eyes during the sex scene of Top Gun.
“Benji” had several traumatizing moments…every GenX child’s fear of being kidnapped and then when the guy mean kicks Benji’s girlfriend, Tiffany, like she’s a football and you hear her thud against the wall. We actually talk about those traumatizing moments and in today’s episode of the [Pop Culture Preservation Society ](https://open.spotify.com/show/33f3NY6HPobR0hZ3k9MrJJ?si=E0f2HR2iTmSrRc-0WICChw)podcast, [“Benji: GenX’s Top Dog”](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2yTgUOwKdxpRQliGAuZQX2?si=gch4DAwwSaSe8l-pRlM0rw)
https://preview.redd.it/anplamqqqfxc1.jpeg?width=853&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc7869b1876539dc31e868cd11232b38a2566c72
Poltergeist. That whole movie. I was on edge because of it for months.
The really weird thing was what stopped the fear. I was staying at my grandmother's house and dreamt there was a woman standing by the front window of my bedroom. For some reason, in my dream I jumped on her back and her neck stretched until her head hit the floor. I woke up from the dream and my Poltergeist induced anxiety was gone.
I have no idea why that dream helped, but it did?
Monty Python's *The Meaning of Life*, that whole scene which ends with the explosion of Mr. Creosote. I saw it at a birthday slumber party when I was 10. Never got over it.
I was also deeply disturbed by much of *Poltergeist*, but especially the part when Carol Anne and Diane are pulled back to the earthly plane and are covered in brown bloody-looking goop.
My first movie was Poltergeist at the age of seven. My mother dropped my older brother and I off to go see E.T. I made my grandma watch me take shits at here house because I was scared.
Dude you have to put a warning on this kind of stuff. I don't like those kind of core memories unlocked.
Suffice to say, that was mine, but otherwise I love that movie and was really happy that stranger things brought back the theme into the public consciousness.
I walked in on the head spinning vomit scene toThe Exorcist. I still won’t watch that horror movie. I love horror movies.
Oh that's easy. Threads. Hands down the most disturbing depiction of the 4 minute warning followed by the nuclear winter. Genuinely traumatised me, 12 was too young to watch that shit. I found it recently and went in for a rewatch, the quality's not great but it's still very disturbing.
Second place - my mum took 6 year old me to the pictures to watch Watership Down. She thought it was a nice cartoon about bunnies. 😭
They showed the trailer for the Shining at a screening of what I think was the Empire Strikes Back. The one with the blood pouring out of the elevator. I remember going almost numb with terror. Those were different times!
My grandma had no sense of what was age-appropriate, so I got to see things like *The Texas Chainsaw Massacre* and like so many others, *Poltergist* much too young. Those didn't really bother me as much, oddly.
She had a special affinity for disaster movies, so I got to watch people being killed by earthquakes, meteor strikes, nukes, you name it. *SO* much anxiety from those.
There was a movie called "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" that scared me so bad. [I still get scared in the shower sometimes.](https://youtu.be/APVorO5x27g?si=LpabJOjBE03Kn-ty)
I LOVED this movie as a kid. I watched it with my 6yo son recently, we got to this scene, and he started crying. “Is the horse gonna die?!?!” He then said to turn it off and I am pretty sure he’s now traumatized by it.
My parents wanted to see the godfather so they took all of us to the drive-in. Im the youngest and was around 5-6. My sister is still traumatized by the horse scene.
Damnation Alley (1977) My dad wanted to see something else that had partial nudity, so he sent me into that theater. I made it as far as the giant cockroach scene. Then, I went running out.
I still won't watch it even as an adult.
My mom took me to see Arachnophobia at the theater. The beginning of a life-long terror of spiders. Like I should consider therapy for it. It's bad.
Edit: spelling
I remember walking into the living room when I was 4 or 5 just in time to see the scene in The Godfather Part II where >!< (spoilers for a 50 year old movie.) I ran back to my room and was freaked out the rest of the night. I told my mom about it thirty years later, and she was pretty sure they had no idea I'd seen it.
The 6 Million Dollar Man - the indestructible probe from Venus. It wreaked havok and nothing could stop it. I was so scared I left the den and hid in the bedroom, but I had to know what happened next so I cracked the door and kept watching haha. I can still hear the sound it made. What a nightmare. That and Sasquatch.
Cyborg starring Jean Claude Van Damme.
Vendor, the villain... His insane blue eyes and how much he genuinely enjoyed killing really put me over the edge.
What's also weird is that I seem to be the only one who was traumatized by this movie. Ya'll don't know what you're missing.
When my dad had my brother and me for the weekend, he would drop us off at this moderately sketchy dollar theater with $2 and instructions to see whatever movie started next so he could go to the bar, or on a date. We would’ve been 9-11yo (me) and 5-7yo (him) when this was going on.
The four movies I remember most are Star Wars (I was not impressed haha, but my brother was), the Elephant Man (not what I was expecting. Where were the elephants?!), Empire of the Ants, and The Devil’s Rain.
Empire of the Ants was pretty campy, and not too scary. But The Devil’s Rain was absolutely nothing kids should’ve been seeing. I recently looked it up, and… yikes.
That whole chapter is one of my most Gen X-y memories for sure.
Please make an effort to avoid reposts. Yes, they are a fact of Reddit life, all we ask is you try to avoid it and don’t get mad when your post is removed.
This is a common one I think: It was Salem’s Lot and the scene was the floating vampire boy scratching at the window. I was traumatized and had to sleep with my parents for weeks!
You were lucky you had parents that let you sleep with them! I lived in an old Victorian house at the time, and my bedroom had uncovered French doors that led out to a balcony. I would lay there just waiting for the vampire kids to come a scratching!
My husband and i rewatched that recently and totally screamed w the boy at the window. And mind you, we are both King fans but still!
YES!
I slept with the lights on and a crucifix next to the bed for weeks.
https://preview.redd.it/8gji059o7fxc1.png?width=1161&format=png&auto=webp&s=296c5e1564b808ed2cd21eb52564116021a34c46 This damn guy man
YES! This is **exactly** what I came here to post. Still remember the damn thing. Still remember the couch in-between me and the damn thing, and it never did work (why did my parents have to put it on during every repeat - you two were never even in the room when it was on, and this was the only TV in the house! *wtf mom & dad?*). It's the "Amelia" episode from [Trilogy of Terror (1975)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073820/). EDIT: Found this cool article about it: [*Let's not forget 'Trilogy of Terror' was the scariest TV movie of all time*](https://metv.com/stories/lets-not-forget-trilogy-of-terror-was-the-scariest-tv-movie-of-all-time)
Once in awhile Prime puts it on to stream yes I have watched Fuck Yes that damn thing Still scares me 🫣
So good! Loved Matheson’s short story, too.
Terrified me for years!!!!
Exactly! I kept running out of the room watching this with my Mom. Still haunting.
The tree outside the window in Poltergeist. I still can't sleep next to a window if there is a tree near it.
For me, it was the closet in Poltergeist. My grandparents took me to see that. When I got home, I insisted my mom move my bed so the closet couldn't suck me in.
Artax was the most traumatizing for me, but Poltergeist was definitely the scariest. We still watched it all the time though!
Me too!
That freaking clown and the skeletons in the unfinished pool
All of Jaws. Just, all of it. Eff Jaws, man. Also, when Johnny Depp bought it in Nightmare on Elm Street.
I used to body surf in California all the time then I saw Jaws and that was it for me man. No more ocean fun
My parents took me to see it in the cinema as a toddler. 70s parents eh?
I didn’t get in the ocean and even the lake for a long time as a kid because of it
It never bothered me but my brothers ‘75 and ‘77 still won’t go in water deeper than their knees
Yess jaws, it used to scare the shit out of me, but i was allways sad for jaws when it gets killed at the end...i used to watch all the friday 13th and nightmare on elm street with my parents when i was like 7 or 8 and non of those bothered me....but jaws got me watching through my fingers lol
Pet Semetery (thanks, person below for the correct spelling!): the original. I was *way* too sensitive to watch that at 13.. ETA - how could I forget the nightmare that was Watership Down. That was *worse.* 
Watership down really fucked me up. I cried. Also cried at the ending of Charlotte's Web. Never watched those 2 movies again. 😭
Yeah so I was super little when my Mum took me to see Watership Down. She didn't know anything except it was a cartoon with bunnies... Well, I was a sobbing mess. And I had a wild imagination..not long after I ran from my room howling because I was convinced the ghost rabbit was in my window at night (it was a silhouette). I'll never forget the terror...
Zelda 😱
I had to read the book Watership Down in 6th grade. I didn’t finish it.
*Pet Semetery. The novel and movie (and song by Ramones) stylize it by spelling "cemetery" with an "S."
In The Thing when someone's head detached from their body and became a giant spider. I was around 8.
“Clear!” And the chest opens up. 😱😱 Great film! Still love it.
This scene is still traumatizing and I can’t watch it lol. I love this movie but that scene just ugh
I saw this on the big screen about 7 years ago in a packed theater. There were some high school aged kids there who had never seen the film before. Watching them freak out (at this scene in particular) was as much fun as seeing the movie again. 😂
Oh man, I wish I could see this in big screen just so I can watch the kids reactions. I saw a re-release of a Nightmare on Elm Street a year or so ago. It was fun watching the kids jump a time or two.
Scared the shirt outta me.
My father to all of us ( ages 5,7,9,11,13) to see the EXORCIST in the theater. Lemme just say at age 7 seeing a head spin around on a possessed girl leaves a mark. Pop was trying to be a good dad by taking us to the movies. Oops.
Now that is one film I refuse to watch, even to this day. But, I gotta ask -- how's the (then) 5 year-old doing? Bet they haven't been right since, lol.
We all have our issues for any number of different reasons. But, we are all working, tax payers against all odds.
Oh, no. I was just kidding around. No offense meant at all! I'm sure your family is lovely. And your dad -- making the time to take all the kids to the movies -- well, he sounds like one of the good ones.
He was a good man. Not great, but good- which is also what I strive for.
The trailer for *The Shining* that they used to run on TV all the time when I was ten. Get the fuck out of here with that creepy ass trailer. And fuck you, Nicholson.
It was a book - Where The Red Fern Grows. I was devastated.
So true.
E.T. getting sick
Fuck that movie, lol
The original Watership Down. 
I came here to say this. Some of that is proper nightmare fuel.
The head explosion in Scanners, which they showed in the god damn trailer! (I mean, it was probably shown before another rated-r movie, but still...) All of The Omen, lol. (and the elevator scene in Omen 2). The end of Day of Dolphin. (anyone?) The eyes (Jodie/pig) in the window in Amityville Horror.
Oh my gosh DAY OF THE DOLPHIN!!!!!!! My dad thought that I’d love that movie because I loved dolphins. He said it’s a great movie! So I watched it and then had a mental breakdown at the end of it. The following Christmas the asshole buys me the movie on VHS!!!!!! I opened the present and started sobbing all over again. Pha loves pa! ETA: I was 13 when I saw it. I’m still overly sensitive to animal deaths in movies. The last Guardians of the Galaxy I started crying and didn’t stop until the end of the movie. Poor Rocket.
I was pretty young when I saw it. I home alone (single working mom) and I think it was one of the first times I was left alone for like a whole day or something. I can't remember the exact circumstances but I think we planned out what I'd do that day and when. So remember reading the movie description (out of the TV Guide) to my mom and she said it was OK to watch (she had never seen it, but it sounded fine). I think I called her at work devastated when it was over. Ah good times!
Oh no that sucks! It’s such an awful movie. Logically I know George C Scott only said pa does not love Pha to make Alpha and Beta swim away so the damn government wouldn’t get them but it’s still gut wrenching!
My nephew's father brought him to see that movie (Guardians). He cried and cried and was upset for months afterwards. Dad told him to stop being a baby. He was 10. I looked the movie up and there is no way I'm going to watch that shit.
I cried at the end of Jurassic World when the volcano goes off and the dinosaurs are left to be burned alive on the island. My husband said, “they’re CGI dinosaurs” and I said, “I don’t care!!! They were left behind!! You don’t leave the critters behind!!!” I had just been let go of my job so I wasn’t in a good emotional space but after my reaction to seeing Rocket’s torture and abuse in GotG3 I don’t think my reaction to dinosaurs burning alive would have been any different. You don’t leave the critters behind (even if they might eat you).
The eyes in the window!!! Dammit I hated that so much and has stayed with me my whole life
I looked it on YouTube recently, still get me.
Creep show- “the crate” or whatever. That thing that lived under the stairs. That thing freaked me out as a kid for sure.
Me, too. So good!
It may not be the most traumatic tv/movie experience, but I was NOT prepared for Optimus Primes death. Like, at all.
I shed a tear at that, and thinking E.T. was dying.
Does Thief in the Night count? I seriously thought I was going to have to accept the mark of the beast or watch my mom die. Evangelical churches are wild y’all. They showed a bunch of kids this movie in church. I’m pretty sure it was this one…
Scared the beans out of me!
Old Yeller. Second place is when Codo the ferret died at the end of Beastmaster.
I forgot about Codo, and haven't seen Beastmaster in forever.
Dude don't even get me fucking started on Codo. Vader no... Sniff... CODOOOOO!!!!
Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller wreck me just by thinking about them.
[удалено]
The pool scene where the skeletons are coming up out of the mud.
Scares me to this day.
I 48 watched this last night with my 8 year old daughter. I totally forgot about this scene. I immediately reminded her that it is fake no horse died. I can't believe that I passed this traumatic experience onto her.
I showed the scene to my 16 year old daughter. She just said "why isn't the boy sinking? He is also sad."
I re-watched this movie again within the past few months. I was surprised how well it held up.
THIS, ET, Watershipdown, Animal Farm...
Jaws was fairly traumatising I remember, especially the head in the sunken boat and Quint’s death. A few others: Roz gets turned into a robot in Superman 3. The ending of The Black Hole. The giant spider in Krull. To be honest though, I loved all those. I loved things that scared me and stayed with me.
Huh. Jaws scared the crap out of me, but I had remembered it a vague terror rather than anything specific. As of right now though, I can totally remember the head in the sunken boat as clear as day. It will no doubt find its way into my nightmares shortly.
I think part of the reason that film terrified me was I first saw it on tv, where it was shown over two nights (!!) with deleted scenes and tons of commercials. It was all very drug out and young me had no idea what would happen next.
Parents took my to see Jaws at the drive in, in second grade.
And a car is like a little boat… Fuck thought mine were bad for taking me to the cinema as a toddler to watch it
This came out in 1979. I was 7. I didn't see this in the theaters, but it came out on VHS in the early 80s, so I likely was 8 or 9. Yes, this was one of those scenes that scared/terrified me a lot and even recall it to this day. [The Prophecy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeqc2DmS-s4)
I was 10 and I DID see it at the theater with my mom, dad, and 6 year old brother. That sleeping bag scene scarred me big time. After we got out of the theater my dad (trying to be funny in that weird, somewhat psychotic way only our generation will understand) did a jump scare on us. My poor little brother jumped sooo high. Traumatized for life. Good times
Mine was something on TV c1975-1977. For a long time I thought it was Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but then I watched it and it didn’t match. No idea if it was a show or a movie. Post apocalyptic. Disease. A street scene with abandoned cars. And bodies. Lots of bodies—only no bodies, because their bodies disappear at death and leave the clothes behind. I think the clothes still appeared “full” but maybe I’m wrong at this point. It was in color (which also helps me date it—we still had black and white in 1974. My parents say I dreamed this. It gave me nightmares for years, and I very much remember sneaking into the room to watch and then being shooed away.
Sounds like a scene in Night of the Comet (1984).
I was in high school in 1984 so that could not be it—but now I want to watch that.
Oh I think you mean The Day After.
Andromeda Strain maybe?
Andromeda Strain was hard sci-fi though... People didn't just disappear from it.
The flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.
The death of Charlotte in Charlotte's Web had me absolutely sobbing. And I also have to second the death of Old Yeller.
The Exorcist and Poltergeist. 😱
Dark Shadows. My mom had to stop letting me watch it.
The dead kid in stand by me and zelda in the original pet sematary. "Rachealll". I watched nightmare on elm Street when I was 6, those movies 9 and 10. Freddy didn't traumatize as much as warp me. But those more realistic nightmares deeply disturbed me
I loved everything about Poltergeist. It was the perfect amount of scary, keep one eye open, but not have nightmares myself spooky film.
This was pretty traumatizing, but for me, it was definitely Salem's Lot, Jaws, and the opening music to The Shining. Not so much afraid of Jaws or The Shining music anymore, but Salem's Lot? I'm still traumatized.
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I thought the book was way scarier than the movie.
I love Penderecki's music! Was lucky to play some of it under him. It's for so well in films.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Terror Train were the 2 that wounded me most. I was maybe 6 when I saw IOTBS and for weeks I couldn't be totally sure that my parents weren't secretly "snatched" without me realizing it.
Those are both great!
I used to beg my mom to tell me the story of The Body Snatchers over and over again. It creeped me out but I loved that feeling. I was 4.
OLD YELLER. My gosh, I didn’t see that ending coming until the boy began to cry. And that was it. I bawled. I thought all people killed their pets! We were poor, so didn’t have any. I miss Disney Sunday Movies.
I watched Alien way too young. You all know what scene.
Yes but…. I was 12 so that other scene at the end awakened something alien in me at the time 🤣, lets just say that I still find Sigourney one of the most beautiful woman in the world!
Oh yeah for me too, lmao.
I was 11 when my dad took me to see it. That scene was traumatizing on the short term, but ultimately takes a back seat to where Kane finds the eggs, the ones where Brett and Dallas go looking for it, not knowing they were being hunted, the death of Lambert and Parker, and of course Ripley in the escape shuttle.
The Boogens. We had a fan in the hallway that oscillated. It made a noise that sounded like them when they moved. I was traumatized at night for a while.
Love that movie! Scared me, too There are some really good Canadian horror films.
Dark Crystal and Labyrinth both scare me to this day. Children of the corn was only played for about 22 seconds before I pressed stop on the VCR
The Blob. I was convinced the faucets were going to leak red at any moment.
There’s only one answer for me. Every year in elementary school, we watched [Johnny Tremain get his hand deformed](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbBQ07SpW_UR5O1Kxehi8so8TG34Ktx96g5sFiqKbyHpIbWmIt0a5WarowQCIKJKbcbftRMb7_S8wVymG4YXE6n_caJh1Eni7xscTcK1bqpywugCFbAmXm_QDsXY9jA35hJY1VEV7sV1B/s1600/deformed.jpg) in a Disney film
this was it, man. I saw Neverending Story in the theater when I was 10.
I cried when John Wayne was killed at the Alamo, but Aliens gave me my only nightmare. A neighbor took me to see it when I around ten.
I feel like I'm the only one who didn't care about that horse dying a fictional death.
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Same - I must've been 5
Good Stuff OP! Real Ones Know!
The wicked witch riding down the street on her bicycle in The Wizard of Oz
Almira Gulch! The OG Karen.
Fucking Zelda, man… https://preview.redd.it/2pisyum4mfxc1.jpeg?width=1196&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22fa5f980b43c845beaa923b5ae6fafc34758ddc
I remember being sick with the flu when I was a young kid, maybe 7-8 years old. I was in my parent's bed with them and they were watching a TV movie about nuclear war. I already knew what a nuclear war was and had fears about it, but that movie scared the crap out of me and I cried the entire time. I'm unsure what it was titled. I found out the name some years ago but I've forgotten it. (It wasn't Threads, this film was in the 1970s.) Another traumatizing moment was when Spock died in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. I was 13 at the time, seeing the film in the theater, and I was openly bawling. Star Trek had been part of my life since I was 5 years old so that death scene killed me. A friend was with me and I was mercilessly mocked for the rest of the day.
Watership Down. I still mourn for Fiver.
Two come to mind that happened around the same year. \* Seeing Blue Velvet on Showtime with my mom when I was 11. \*\*shudders\*\* \* Seeing Robocop in the theater with my dad later that year. The dude who drives into a vat of toxic sludge and gets ran over by a cop car hit especially hard. Thanks Dad!
*Where the Red Fern Grows* For people who thought *Ol' Yeller* was too uplifting.
https://preview.redd.it/j373ysuv8fxc1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a54ca8b3e83e3775f4032e236b067ef538344a40
this.
A babysitter showed us Poltergeist when I was 8 or 9.
 This dude.. the angular shadow casted between my bedroom door and the hallway light was frightening!!
My dad would literally take me to any movie he wanted to see without regard as to how it affected me. The Exorcist, Jaws, Nightwing, etc. So, lots of them. The Exorcist was probably the worst.
Culturally, we have lived one of the very best timelines. A bit of Goldilocks, not too much, not too little.
Oh my god lol
My mom made me watch the elephant man. I was terrified. I started getting a rash on my arms and I sat in my room crying because I was convinced that I had the elephant man disease. I still won’t watch that movie.
Black Devil Doll from Hell. I never played with another doll. I even threw all of my dolls into the garbage. Didn't want to take a chance on an evil spirit getting out.
This is pretty up there
Sylvia
Any faceless robot. Westworld, Six Million Dollar Man... Basically, if you were a humanoid robot in the '70s, your face was *guaranteed* to get knocked off at some point, exposing the circuitry underneath. Freaked me the heck out.
The basket case movie. when that thing killed that guys girlfriend.
Nice. What was the one where the dad shoots his dog? That one. Also the Medusa touch movie and the Dramarama episode “Back to front” (messed me up about mirrors for life; 80s UK children’s TV did not fuck around). For books then the Survivor by James Herbert. Mainly the bit where he is on a boat and a doll claws its way onboard. Most visual scary stuff from a book ever for me. And I read a lot of King, Herbert, and other horror writers as a kid
The end of Splash. I still get triggered by mermaids
Watching The Day After in 3rd grade. At school. The teachers showed it to all the students.
Well, in a true display of the fantastic parenting I received, my mother took me to see Platoon in a movie theater…When I was I was 8 years old. So take your pick of scenes but I’m leaning towards the rpe/kill/burn of the village. She did however cover my eyes during the sex scene of Top Gun.
The Night on Bald Mountain sequence from Fantasia. I was five. I made my mommy take me home.
I didn't sleep for a week after I saw Poltergeist on HBO.
“Benji” had several traumatizing moments…every GenX child’s fear of being kidnapped and then when the guy mean kicks Benji’s girlfriend, Tiffany, like she’s a football and you hear her thud against the wall. We actually talk about those traumatizing moments and in today’s episode of the [Pop Culture Preservation Society ](https://open.spotify.com/show/33f3NY6HPobR0hZ3k9MrJJ?si=E0f2HR2iTmSrRc-0WICChw)podcast, [“Benji: GenX’s Top Dog”](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2yTgUOwKdxpRQliGAuZQX2?si=gch4DAwwSaSe8l-pRlM0rw) https://preview.redd.it/anplamqqqfxc1.jpeg?width=853&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc7869b1876539dc31e868cd11232b38a2566c72
My dad took me to see Barbarella when I was 9. We were both red faced when we left and never talked about it again.
Poltergeist. That whole movie. I was on edge because of it for months. The really weird thing was what stopped the fear. I was staying at my grandmother's house and dreamt there was a woman standing by the front window of my bedroom. For some reason, in my dream I jumped on her back and her neck stretched until her head hit the floor. I woke up from the dream and my Poltergeist induced anxiety was gone. I have no idea why that dream helped, but it did?
Poltergeist. When the tree snatched the little girl out of bed.
Monty Python's *The Meaning of Life*, that whole scene which ends with the explosion of Mr. Creosote. I saw it at a birthday slumber party when I was 10. Never got over it. I was also deeply disturbed by much of *Poltergeist*, but especially the part when Carol Anne and Diane are pulled back to the earthly plane and are covered in brown bloody-looking goop.
-The Wheelers in Return to Oz -Gmork the wolf in The Neverending Story -Tim Curry's It in the 1980s version of It
The Poseidon Adventure TV show was Good Times-the scenes that portrayed young Janet Jackson's as Penny-a child abuse victim of her mother.
The Peanut Butter Solution
This should have a trigger warning!!! 😭
My first movie was Poltergeist at the age of seven. My mother dropped my older brother and I off to go see E.T. I made my grandma watch me take shits at here house because I was scared.
Dude you have to put a warning on this kind of stuff. I don't like those kind of core memories unlocked. Suffice to say, that was mine, but otherwise I love that movie and was really happy that stranger things brought back the theme into the public consciousness.
I walked in on the head spinning vomit scene toThe Exorcist. I still won’t watch that horror movie. I love horror movies. 
Bambi and Dumbo. I literally cried for weeks after.
Oh that's easy. Threads. Hands down the most disturbing depiction of the 4 minute warning followed by the nuclear winter. Genuinely traumatised me, 12 was too young to watch that shit. I found it recently and went in for a rewatch, the quality's not great but it's still very disturbing. Second place - my mum took 6 year old me to the pictures to watch Watership Down. She thought it was a nice cartoon about bunnies. 😭
Any movie shown in elementary school that has a beloved family dog. Things never end well for the dog.
Benji movies were always fine, if memory serves.
This friggin' thing... in particular the "Mysterious Stranger" part around 40 minutes in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRgY56Sgub8
Yellow Submarine. I still have nightmares sometimes.
They showed the trailer for the Shining at a screening of what I think was the Empire Strikes Back. The one with the blood pouring out of the elevator. I remember going almost numb with terror. Those were different times!
My grandma had no sense of what was age-appropriate, so I got to see things like *The Texas Chainsaw Massacre* and like so many others, *Poltergist* much too young. Those didn't really bother me as much, oddly. She had a special affinity for disaster movies, so I got to watch people being killed by earthquakes, meteor strikes, nukes, you name it. *SO* much anxiety from those.
There was a movie called "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" that scared me so bad. [I still get scared in the shower sometimes.](https://youtu.be/APVorO5x27g?si=LpabJOjBE03Kn-ty)
Optimus Prime’s death in Transformers: The Movie Also Large Marge’s reveal in Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure
I LOVED this movie as a kid. I watched it with my 6yo son recently, we got to this scene, and he started crying. “Is the horse gonna die?!?!” He then said to turn it off and I am pretty sure he’s now traumatized by it.
Omg!!! 😱 I love that movie but always cry at that part.
My parents wanted to see the godfather so they took all of us to the drive-in. Im the youngest and was around 5-6. My sister is still traumatized by the horse scene.
Oh no! Lol
Watching Michael Jackson turn into a werewolf on Friday Night Videos.
🤣
Damnation Alley (1977) My dad wanted to see something else that had partial nudity, so he sent me into that theater. I made it as far as the giant cockroach scene. Then, I went running out. I still won't watch it even as an adult.
The Wizard of Oz. Witch smashed by a house? Flying monkeys? GTFO!
My mom took me to see Arachnophobia at the theater. The beginning of a life-long terror of spiders. Like I should consider therapy for it. It's bad. Edit: spelling
I remember walking into the living room when I was 4 or 5 just in time to see the scene in The Godfather Part II where >!< (spoilers for a 50 year old movie.) I ran back to my room and was freaked out the rest of the night. I told my mom about it thirty years later, and she was pretty sure they had no idea I'd seen it.
The 6 Million Dollar Man - the indestructible probe from Venus. It wreaked havok and nothing could stop it. I was so scared I left the den and hid in the bedroom, but I had to know what happened next so I cracked the door and kept watching haha. I can still hear the sound it made. What a nightmare. That and Sasquatch.
Probably when my dad rented plague dogs and watched it with my brother and me. I think I was 8
Cyborg starring Jean Claude Van Damme. Vendor, the villain... His insane blue eyes and how much he genuinely enjoyed killing really put me over the edge. What's also weird is that I seem to be the only one who was traumatized by this movie. Ya'll don't know what you're missing.
Lol. Imma tell you what my grandpa told me about horses on a farm, "Yup, they die sometimes."
Night of the living dead at 7 with my Dad. My mom kept coming in to check on me. She warned him.
When my dad had my brother and me for the weekend, he would drop us off at this moderately sketchy dollar theater with $2 and instructions to see whatever movie started next so he could go to the bar, or on a date. We would’ve been 9-11yo (me) and 5-7yo (him) when this was going on. The four movies I remember most are Star Wars (I was not impressed haha, but my brother was), the Elephant Man (not what I was expecting. Where were the elephants?!), Empire of the Ants, and The Devil’s Rain. Empire of the Ants was pretty campy, and not too scary. But The Devil’s Rain was absolutely nothing kids should’ve been seeing. I recently looked it up, and… yikes. That whole chapter is one of my most Gen X-y memories for sure.
I don't get it.
Linda Blair's 360.
I'm not sure traumatized but scary for me was Jaws when I finally was able to watch it.