Horror Roundtable - Week Twenty
Name a movie that terrified you when you were younger that wouldn’t scare you now.
The Invisible Ray starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Absolutely horrified me as a kid - people couldn’t touch me for days as I was afraid of dying.
Today I admire it for its design…
The made for tv movie “V” spooked the shit out of me. Lizards pretending to
be humans freaked the shit out of me.
The Howling. Still to this day no movie has ever scared me more than this film. I’ve thought of watching it again, but the memory of how terrified I was is in an odd way special to me. I know if I watched it again I would see the special effects and probably laugh. It’s like when I recently watched old episodes of the Thundercats and I couldn’t believe how bad the animation actually was, but my recollections of it were filled with some of the greatest animations I remembered as a kid. Thundercats is still one of those defining TV shows as a kid for me, but now it’s just a teensy bit unpolished now, and I don’t want that to ever happen to a movie that was as scary to me as the Howling. I actually tried to scream when i watched it, and no sound would come out of my mouth.
Mark - Exclamation Mark’s SciFi/Horror Review
I thought 1963’s The Crawling Hand was the scariest movie ever. Now I watch it primarily for laughs. The Wizard of Oz also scared me a lot. Come to think of it, it still kind of creeps me out.
A movie that wouldn’t scare me now… I’d have to say The Video Dead. Growing up, zombie movies were the only ones that consistently gave me nightmares (which I’ve grown out of now, of course), and from what I remember of this one, it wasn’t really as good as some of the others out there. A second choice would be a short film that I saw when I was 2 years old called The Tape, about an old reel-to-reel tape that moved around by itself and ate people. Strictly low budget stuff, but it scared the heck out of me (which is weird, because right before it, I saw the mutant bear horror movie Prophecy, which didn’t phase me a bit).
Hmm… The one movie I lost sleep over when I was young (and it terrified the shit out of me) was THE EXORCIST. Unfortunately, it STILL bothers me, so that won’t count for this roundtable. I guess the other one that really stuck with me as a youngin’ was THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE. It really got to me as a kid but, now, it’s pretty tame for my tastes (although I still love to watch it).
I was talking to my mother about this the other day, and she was saying she refused to let me watch scary movies when I was a kid, so remembering anything of this sort was hard to come by. But I do remember sneaking some of the original Amityville Horror on TV one time, and there’s that cheesy shot of “eyes” looking through the window that, now having seen again I can tell are basically a pair of glowing red Christmas bulbs, but those “eyes” were seared into my subconscious for years.
I think probably the “V” TV movie and subsequent series. I can’t really even remember that much of it, but I know it had my nerves really frayed. The lizard aliens are coming!
Also, “Night of the Demons”, from which I mostly remember the lipstick scene, although that was more of interest because of the nudity, I think. Oh, and the loose Lovecraft adaptation (of course, I didn’t even know who Lovecraft was back then) “The Curse”, aka “The Farm”, really terrified me, to the point where I could hardly watch it, but I watched it twice anyway.
I need to thank my mother for this some time. She was a horror fan, both in literature and film, and let me watch a great deal of movies that I probably shouldn’t have. Thanks, Edel!
I grew up in a rural community. My childhood home backed onto a corn field. It should come as no surprise that I was terrified of Children of the Corn. I saw this when I was about 10 years old and it scared the hell out of me. As a kid the thought of those freaky kids hiding out in the corn field really creeped me out. I’ve seen the film since and while I still enjoy it, it’s definitely not scary.
Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat
When I was a wee lad, the scene in which that lady got thrown into the supercomputer in Superman III and her face got all freaky and shit scared me so badly I can barely even tell you. Not only did I run screaming and crying from the television, I was afraid to go back in the room itself, on the off chance that the TV would turn itself on and show that scene again. These days I think the scariest thing about that movie would be how it started the Superman franchise down a road that would lead otherwise intelligent grownups to believe that the remedy was a Superman movie in which the Man of Steel dealt with his daddy issues, didn’t throw a single punch, and had a climactic battle against a land mass.
David Z. - Tomb It May Concern
JAWS 2. Yep, I was terrified during this film as a kid. Now I’m a shark movie fan that can even love a Bruno Mattei Jaws rip off that features a dude that looks like Hulk Hogan minus the workouts and “vitamins!” Maybe I’m still hunting that scary thrill…
I could remember the first horror flick to truly terrify me was HELLRAISER. The very idea of Hell opening up with these sadistic freaks who were intent on causing you eternal pain was just goddamn scary to me. It still is, in fact.
More responses than usual for this one. I guess we’re all still a little scarred. If you have any childhood favourites that have lost their power to frighten you, please share in the comments below.
November 10th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Dracula, with Bela Lugosi. Watched it late one night, with the lights off.
November 10th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
I was kind of scred when Edward Scissorhands cut that bush into a devil to scare the organ lady. Well, I was really scared cause there was a tall bush that grew up to my seccond floor bedroom window.
I was disturbed by that scene in Robocop when the big robot blows away the executive in the corporate meeting, bloodiest thing I had seen.
November 10th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
[…] This week’s horror roundtable over at The Horror Blog features me again, as well as a lot of other people, talking about movies that scared us when we were kids, but don’t anymore. […]
November 11th, 2006 at 7:20 am
I tried so hard to think of something that scared me as a kid, but having Steve as an older brother drained all fear. That Unsolved Mysteries show scared the stinky sausages outta me though. That music along with the fact that everything on the show was REAL. Movies don’t kill, but those black and white ghosts that peek around the corners will.
November 12th, 2006 at 3:25 am
Well for me it was the Blob, and the reason why was based on fairly advanced childhood logic. Vampires are really easy to foil (at least the old school lugosi versions), Frankenstein’s monster and werewolves you just need a really, really good door. Godzilla’s a problem but at least you had plenty of early warning to panic. But the blob, ah now we have a problem. Garlic didn’t bother the blob, it goes under doors, and has the habit of sneaking. Nope the blob was definite check under the bed material for me as a young laddie.
Have fun all,
Michael Wolff
http://strangenity.blogspot.com/
November 13th, 2006 at 3:07 am
“I tried so hard to think of something that scared me as a kid, but having Steve as an older brother drained all fear.”
Man, was I really that mean an older brother?
November 14th, 2006 at 5:07 am
No way!
What I mean is you strengthened me so that I may become the Root of all Evil!!!
November 14th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Salem’s Lot used to give me nightmares when I was six or seven. The little kid scritching and scratching outside his brother’s window was too terrible for words. I rented it a few years ago and was terribly bored. We accidentally started with the 2nd tape and so ended up watching it semi-backwards. It didn’t seem to matter, though, as it was lame either way.
November 14th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
The Kevin Bacon drill scene in Friday the 13th killed me. I slept for many years as a youngster with my hands near my neck so I’d know if that bitch was trying to drill me.
My wife says that my hands still take up that position (she calls it “vampirish”) to this day.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:36 am
Gary, I thought you were just born that way. I am proud to have been instrumental in your development.
John, I had the exact same experience, and was tempted to write about that scene for the recent Vampire blog-a-thon. I recently picked up the Salem’s Lot dvd, and now you have me worried that I’ve made a mistake.
Platyjoe, though it isn’t from Friday the 13th I often tuck the sheets into the crook of my neck, or even hoist the neck of my shirt up to my chin, because my neck feels real vunerable.