Name your very first horror movie memory.

Mark - Exclamation Mark’s SciFi/Horror Review

Ahhh, this is an easy one! As a child I stayed up late one night and caught a glimpse of It Came from Outer Space on television. I was fascinated, even then, by how the movie took on the aliens’ point of view (as if you were actually looking through the alien’s one big eye). For years I remembered those monsters’ point of view shots but could not remember the film they were featured in. It would be impossible to relate the joy I felt when I came across the film as an adult. It is still one of my all-time favorite sci-fi/horror flicks!

Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

I’m almost positive it’s watching King Kong vs. Godzilla on one of channel 11 WPIX’s Saturday monster-movie matinees. “My corns always hurt when they’re near a monster.”

Eric - Bloody Good Horror

It was with my brother and some girls he had brought home. He was probably 14 at the time and I was 10. He brought home some nubile young teenage girls, rented Friday the 13th, and I hung out with them and watched. All I remember is that at one point I was sitting on one of their laps… funny thing how I always loved horror from that moment on. The next summer I had my mom rent me “Halloween 2″ from the video store. Michael Myers scared the shit out of me so badly that I couldn’t sleep for the entire summer. I was literally looking over my shoulder for him every second. I couldn’t get enough. In many ways I feel that horror fans all have a similar experience when they were really young that has left a large impression on them.

Billy

When I was a kid, my dad always worked midnights or afternoons so I never got to see him. I was pretty much raised by my mom, and we had our little routine every week. Once a week we would go to the Blue Star and share a roast beef sandwhich with mashed potatoes and peas. And every night we would watch Wonder Woman and eat spaghetti because it was all we could afford. But every friday night was the one I looked forward to the most, because it was horror night on Buffalo 19. The earliest one I remember watching was with my mom and it was entitled SSSSSSSSSS (forgive the incorrect spelling, I’m sure I’m missing some S’s). In it, a scientist was trying to figure out how to regrow people’s lost limbs by injecting them with this concoction he made from snake blood, but in the process he ended up turning his test subjects into snakes instead!

Dave - Rue Morgue’s The Abbatoir

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what was first, but my earliest horror movie memories are of Disney’s Watcher in the Woods (rented in a giant white clamshell case from the local Consumer’s Distributing outlet), which scared the crap out of me, and a double-feature of Universal’s Frankenstein and Dracula, which my parents recorded on our gargantuan, 1970s-model VCR. I watched ‘em every weekend for quite some time.

Curt - Beyond The Groovy Age of Horror

Not being allowed to see them!! When I was very young, we lived near Columbus, Ohio, and as I recall the newspaper typically featured at least a full two-page spread of nothing but movie ads–the kind that Scary Monsters magazine does such a wonderful job of reprinting. Anyway, I wasn’t even allowed to look at those. Unless I’m very much mistaken, I was staring wide-eyed at an ad for Young Frankenstein the first time the “movie pages” were ripped from my hands and the taboo was laid down for me in no uncertain terms. Look at me now! Ah parents, when will they ever learn?

JA - My New Plaid Pants

This is actually something that’s driven me crazy for years and years and I don’t think I’ll ever have the answer to it. When I was maybe six or seven years old, I sneaked into the room where my parents were watching a werewolf movie, and it totally traumatized me - had to sleep with the light on for years afterwards - but I’ve never figured out what movie it was. At this point I can’t even offer enough of what I do remember to go on, just some camera-angles and lighting stuff that’s hardly specific but I’d know it if I saw it again. For a long time I thought it was Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves, guessing from the cover-art of that snout-erupting mouth which seemed familiar, but then I saw TCoW and it wasn’t right at all. It has to be from the same time period, or a little earlier. Agh, I’ll never know!

Kimberly - Cinebeats

Watching one of the Hammer Dracula films with my dad on TV when I was only around 7 years old. I believe it was Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, but naturally I can’t remember much of the details at all except Christopher Lee’s scary fang-filled grimace. I was totally terrified of Christoper Lee and I spent most of the movie hiding my face in my dad’s armpit. Lee gave me my first movie scares and he’ll always hold a special place in my horror loving heart for that.

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

Seeing TOURIST TRAP for the first time on some sort of CREATURE FEATURE late night program. Even to this day those images of the mannequins still freak me out.

David Z. - Tomb It May Concern

I remember hanging down a flight of stairs using my feet as anchors to sneak a viewing of Howard Hawks’ The Thing on UHF while my parents were blissfully unaware that the carrot monster was warping me forever. I’m sure there were previous exposures to horror, but that was the one I remember best.

Nathan - MicroHorror

Aw, hell. I was an over-sensitive coward when I was a kid. A friend put on the ‘78 version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” at a sleepover party and I had to go hide. Seeing “Beetlejuice” in the theater scared the crap out of me. Even “Young Frankenstein” was too much in parts.

It’s a good thing I’m so much better adjusted now, right?

Louis - Damaged 2.0

The first film I ever saw in my life, that I fully remember, was when I was three, and it was AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. My dad was a cop in Houston when I a little kid, and he’d get home about nine or so and my mom would have dinner for him and, we’d just gotten cable, so they’d watch a movie before going to bed. Normally, they’d let me stay up because I’d end up falling asleep, but the first movie I ever watched the whole thing of was the aforementioned AMERICAN WEREWOLF, and it can easily be said that it set me on a certain path. I wasn’t scared (no, the first film that truly freaked me the fuck out would come a few months later, in the form of POLTERGEIST), and my dad explained to me that it was all fantasy, latex make-up and what-not.

Funny enough, the third film I ever watched all of was A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, in that same month. Maybe my parents thought I wouldn’t remember all that? Joke’s on them!

Rony

My very first horror movie memory was when I a kid, I was able to see the drive-in screen from my bedroom window. I was able to watch the first Child’s Play movie. I couldn’t sleep that night but who cares, the movie was awesome!

Awww. I bet you were all cute little tykes, like the Little Rascals or Devil Times Five. Thanks once again to the Horror Roundtable crew, and welcome back Exclamation Mark! If you’re willing, please leave your own early horror memories in the comments below.

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