Films / TV that have scared you

[Wolveryeti]

Watched Jaws when I was 8 - for about a decade after could not even go in a chlorinated pool without imagining great white sharks swimming up from the depths to bite me in two.

At around the same time: The Boogieman episodes of The Real Ghostbusters - basic plot he can transfer realms and gets more powerful the more scared you are of him. I got para he had transferred to my realm and got stuck in mind loops thinking he was coming to get me.

I also found this X Files scary as fuck - basically an insectoid monster that turns people into zombie drones and that hides in the light.

"The X Files" Folie a Deux (TV Episode 1998) ⭐ 8.5 | Adventure, Crime, Drama

45m | 12

m.imdb.com

 

[Orang Utan]

Depends what you mean by scared. Lots of things, like Jaws, are scary in the moment, but that fear evaporates instantly after watching it.
But really there’s only Threads & When The Wind Blows that profoundly scared me - that fear altered me permanently and never went away

 

[krtek a houby]

I used to hides behind the sofa when Doctor Who was on in the 70s. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Orang Utan]

I used to hides behind the sofa when Doctor Who was on in the 70s. Has anyone else experienced this?

No, never watched it. Can’t recall if we weren’t allowed or we just weren’t interested. But probably like many other kids, I was more scared by stuff I found weird, confusing or tense, than anything overtly spooky or scary. I did not like anything suspenseful as I just could not handle uncertainty. The story segment of Playschool stands out most - it began with an eerie harp strumming while we were invited to speculate on which shaped window we’d go through to begin the story. Apparently I would scream at this unacceptable vagueness about what was to come.
Another show I was told would upset me to tears was Lassie - kids would get themselves into a precarious situation and would have to rely on a stupid dog who couldn’t talk to save the day. I can only remember an episode in which a kid or two were trapped in a slowly-filling grain silo with Lassie racing against time to fetch help from someone with opposable thumbs and machinery. I remember the terror I felt quite clearly.

 

[Orang Utan]

Don’t be sad, krtek a houby ! I got over it!

 

[Mrs Miggins]

The only thing I’ve watched that has genuinely scared me was The Blair Witch Project. I think it just tapped into a real, deep-seated fear I have of “something out there in the dark that is going to get you and it’s just a matter of time”.

I saw it at the cinema when it came out and was actually breathing heavily, heart racing, towards the end. I had a couple of disturbed nights sleep afterwards.

 

[ruffneck23]

Wolf Creek (The film)

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I used to hides behind the sofa when Doctor Who was on in the 70s. Has anyone else experienced this?

I couldn't get behind my sofa, but there were for sure a couple of difficult moments in tge 70s.

 

[Orang Utan]

I couldn't get behind my sofa, but there were for sure a couple of difficult moments in tge 70s.

Always thought that was a curious expression as sofas are usually placed against the wall, aren’t they? Unless you have an enormous living room

 

[Silas Loom]

The Mummy’s Shroud, a 1966 Hammer Horror which does not score highly among aficionados of the genre, scared the shit out of me when I was ten.

 

[Humberto]

The famous/infamous Ghostwatch halloween mockumentary.

 

[Elpenor]

Don’t Look Now watching it alone and at night around 20 years ago

 

[Silas Loom]

Always thought that was a curious expression as sofas are usually placed against the wall, aren’t they? Unless you have an enormous living room

I think the hiding place is in the triangle formed when the sofa seat doesn’t go back as far as the top of the backrest.

 

[Petcha]

Wolf Creek (The film)

I've watched that with a few girlfriends over the years. When they were thinking about going backpacking.

They're now ex-girlfriends. Not a date movie for young English ladies.

the real life guy

Backpacker murders - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Skinny Ethel]

Be very careful going behind a sofa. When a mad axemans braying your door down being behind a sofa is a hindrance.

 

[DotCommunist]

Red Riding '74

 

[rubbershoes]

 

[Bus Honeygun]

Yeah, I also hid behind the sofa for Dr Who in the 70s, specifically for the Daleks and (less so) Cybermen.

I also used to hide behind the sofa when the video for Bohemian Rhapsody appeared on TOTP. I found the whole song a bit creepy when I was a kid. I also found Freddie Mercury's teeth and hair a bit alarming. It all came to a head in the section where their faces appear lit from below. "Argh! The creepy song with the creepy man has got to the creepiest bit!"

Threads also scared the pants off me.

There was also a really unsettling episode of Tales of the Unexpected that haunted me for years where a husband murders his wife. I can't remember the exact detail now (deliberately blotted it out perhaps), but I found it really upsetting partly because there was a kind of sexual overtone that totally confused and massively disturbed me. I seem to recall someone on here also got freaked out by the same episode as a kid.

 

[tonysingh]

When I was maybe 10 or so, there was a (I think) bbc drama miniseries thingy called Chimera, about a monkey/human hybrid.

That scared the crap out of me.

 

[MickiQ]

The only film which has made me jump was the ending of The Ring other than that no. I'm not really into horror movies especially not the slasher type that the Yanks churn out. I'm not sure how someone being gruesomely killed or tortured can be classed as entertainment.
I've seen Threads it didn't scare me though I found it depressing, but it hasn't worried me about the future though.
I think I am fundamentally a glass half full kind of guy.

 

[tonysingh]

I made it a few scenes into one of the Saw films before it got a bit too real for me and I had to stop. It was really bothering me and I've not watched a torture porn type film since.

 

[MickiQ]

When I was maybe 10 or so, there was a (I think) bbc drama miniseries thingy called Chimera, about a monkey/human hybrid.

That scared the crap out of me.

Aren't you thinking about First Born starring Charles Dance?
I didn't rate that all that much, I was hoping that the Human/Gorilla hybrid would look a bit more Gorilla and less Human. BBC budget constraints strike again.

 

[tonysingh]

Aren't you thinking about First Born starring Charles Dance?
I didn't rate that all that much, I was hoping that the Human/Gorilla hybrid would look a bit more Gorilla and less Human. BBC budget constraints strike again.

Turns out it was ITV and I was 12. Thought it was earlier than that.

Scary monkey boy

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

The famous/infamous Ghostwatch halloween mockumentary.

Didn’t get to see the whole thing as my brother made me turn the Telly off as it was too scary. It was all anyone talked about at school the next day.
Terra hawks scared the shit out of 4 year old me. Zelda.

 

[Griff]

Old school: Dr.Who back in Jon Pertwee times and the Sea Devils.

The Exorcist. Back around 1980/81 a bunch of us 14 year old kids used to go to the Ace Cinema in Green Street, East Ham to see all the 'X' films like Scanners, The Exterminator, Quadrophenia, Scum, Breaking Glass, Dawn of the Dead etc.

Then one time there was a double bill of Friday 13th and The Exorcist. First film up and we were all cockily laughing at the blood and gore eating our popcorn sitting in our usual seats at the back.

Then The Exorcist came on. Quite dull for half of the film then it just morphed into the most terrifying thing ever. I remember us all running for the bus to get home and keeping my bedroom door open that night.
Watched it years later and am convinced what they released on video etc.is different to those 70s cinema releases. I've spoken to people who think the same.

Don't really get scared by anything these days, but watched the Stephen King series The Outsider a few years back and it genuinely made me feel jumpy and uneasy, especially when there were foxes rustling around in the garden making sounds while I was watching it.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

Afaik, the Exorcist was heavily edited due to its extreme content.

 

[a_chap]

Eraserhead genuinely disturbed me for decades after I saw it at the cinema in 1982

Eraserhead - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Sweet FA]

Afaik, the Exorcist was heavily edited due to its extreme content.

I think there were only a couple of scenes left out - the spider walk down the stairs and the ending?

 

[Orang Utan]

When I was maybe 10 or so, there was a (I think) bbc drama miniseries thingy called Chimera, about a monkey/human hybrid.

That scared the crap out of me.

I think I remember that.
I also remember a tv miniseries called The Mad Death, about a rabies outbreak in Britain. There was a scene with a victim in a hospital bed foaming at the mouth that left an impression on me

 

[Santino]

Chimera was a three-part series, and the first part ended with every character you'd been introduced to over the last hour being killed in a massacre.