What is that movie you saw at too young an age that still haunts you to this day?

A Serbian Film. Any age is too young

Literally the only movie I've ever regretted watching.
- I seldom just stop watching a film but I'm glad I did with this one. Afterword i looked up a summary of the rest and I'm glad I stopped.
- There's some others in the same genre too. Cannibal holocaust was one I think. Salo too, less intense but still pretty fucked up. The human centipede too.
  
  So if you want more regrets in your life ...

Growing up in the 80s meant that pretty much any kids movie was going to be traumatizing. Gremlins: horrifying. Neverending Story: emotional damage. The Land Before Time: can't think of dinosaurs without tearing up. It's like the whole movie industry was explicitly devoted to fucking us up.

You also have the Dark Crystal, Water Ship Down, The Last Unicorn, Watcher in the Woods (which was a Disney movie!) and the Secret of NIMH. Seriously, kids movies in the eighties were horrifying.
Hey, don't forget Transformers: The Movie, the one in which all your heroes just fuckin' died (so some greedy toy company execs could boost sales).
- I vividly remember watching that movie in the theater. My brother and I were so hyped we were standing on our seats for the opening song. Then they had Optimus Prime cuss and we absolutely couldn't believe it. When he died, I had never seen such bullshit. Optimus Prime can't die, he was the toughest robot ever.
Flight of the Navigator was awesome.as a kid. Kinda fucked up when I rewatched it a few years ago
- Really? I loved that as a kid. What was so bad about it?
  
  Oh yeah....didn't he come back to see decades had passed on Earth and his family thought he was dead?
- Pee-wee Herman did the voice of the ship’s computer
I suspect a bunch of animators wanted their work to be taken seriously as art, but were stuck making kids movies, so they made kids movies that were shockingly dark to try to persuade people that animation was a versatile medium.
can't think of dinosaurs without tearing up

It may be of solace to know that dinosaurs have survived that mass-extinction event in the lineage of birds.
- Unfortunately, the trauma of Littlefoot's mom dying isn't lessened by the knowledge that pigeons are shitting on my roof thanks to her sacrifice.

We'll it doesn't haunt me but looking back it was RoboCop. That movie is a bit much for a 6 year old to watch.

If I caught my kids watching that, I would say "bitches, leave."
- Clarence Boddicker you are coming with me!
I kept scrolling to see if someone else posted this. I don't remember it bothering me much at the time (my memory isn't great). However, I watched it later as an adult and thought, holy shit that's intense.

Also, Ren and Stimpy. A very messed up show.
I have a vivid memory of my first time watching it (at about 8 years old, on good ol' VHS), and running away to peek from behind the door during >!Murphy's execution!<. It's still fucked up every time it comes on. Horrific
greatest movie though

Watership Down

My parents thought it was a nice cartoon about rabbits I guess. Weirdly, My nightmares where mostly about the intro with the special art style, mostly…

Oh it's a nice cartoon about rabbits, very child-friendly! The fact that the Wikipedia article has a section called "Effects on children and BBFC classification" that opens with

Watership Down has developed a reputation as a distressing children's text, with Ed Power of The Independent describing the film in a 40th anniversary retrospective as a "classic" but which "arguably traumatised an entire generation".

sums it up pretty well!
They showed us that in primary school, i loved the book as a kid but that cartoon was gory.

Akira. My father rented it for my brother and me because "animated movie is for kids". I was 4, and my brother was 3.

i'm so sorry
- I don't remember much of it clearly, thankfully. I know Akira is a classic but it turned me off of anything body horror forever.

Event Horizon.

I know it gets a bad rap, but it is a cult classic in my book. The most perfect symmetry of science fiction and body horror since Alien(s). Add on top of that a fantastic cast, a mildly campy vibe, and it somehow manages to hold up well even today in my opinion. Even though it scared the fuck out of me as a kid, I have a weird nostalgia for it now.

All of the issues with Event Horizon are because of the studio screwing up the story. And the footage of the good version of the movie was lost on the cutting room floor, so we'll never see it.

Its such a good premise and so well executed that its still good despite its story & pacing issues. One of the best moments of my life was showing it to my Warhammer 40k loving friend for the first time. It blew his mind.

Event Horizon is an awesome movie.
- There was so much I never knew about the production of the movie until the guys at Red Letter Media did a Re:View about it. I was kinda bummed that Mike and Jay didn't like the movie, but it was cool to learn the history, warts and all.
  
  I keep holding out hope that someday it might be remade or perhaps there could be a sequel from a competent team that enjoyed the first movie. I am generally against remake or reboot culture, but Event Horizon just always seemed like a perfect candidate for it to me.
Knew this one would be on the list. Factor in watching solo in the middle of the night and you have the recipe for staying up until morning.
- Watching it solo in the middle of the night thinking it was just a regular sci-fi movie is what fucked me up. I was like "cool! spaceships! warp drives!" and then had my world fucking rocked.
Missed it as a kid, but our local cinema put it on the big screen a few months back. Can absolutely see why it’s a cult classic!

Oh oh oh I know this one!

Glory! The civil war film! There's a scene where a union soldier takes a cannon ball to the head and it explodes in a gory mess. It was during a tour to Gettysburg, and I threw up on the bus after seeing it. Then they brilliantly played the Mel Gibson Patriot movie where a revolutionary also takes a cannon ball to the head, only this time it removes the head in slow motion and more detaches it than blows it to head smoothie

I remember watching the first one in school. That image of the cannon ball to the head was very shocking and it's practically all I remember about the film.
- I was going to ask you what school you went to where they were allowed to show that, but then I remembered my private christian middle school took us all to see the Passion of the Christ at the movie theater for a fucking field trip 😂
- same!

When I was about 5-6 I had fever and couldn’t sleep. I lived in a apartment complex and my mom had the neighbour from the next apartment over for coffee so I was sitting in the neighbours apartment while they had the doors open into the hall. Well, there I was, sitting alone in the dark, watching some sappy teens have a heart to heart while suddenly the earth opens under one of them and it gets brutally eaten the fuck alive while the other one screams in panic and tries to rescue it. Had some unforgettable nightmares that night.

Fucking Tremors man.

This movie for me too. The scene I most remember was a dude talking to another dude through a window. The camera is facing out the window. Then the outside dudes face changes and the camera switches to outside and his whole lower half had been eaten

Was scared of sleeping on the ground for years incase I got swallowed

American History X. I wasn't ready for the curb scene.

As an adult I wasn’t ready for the curb scene! Poop, now I’m thinking about it.
- It's just so intense and realistic. I've learned to cope with splatter, but this is personal and cruel.
same! but i was not really a kid

Stand By Me - The scene with the leaches. As a kid in a small country town with nothing to do on weekends but run around and swim in the local creek, I was so scared to ever do that again.

For me the movie was fine until the lingering shot on Ray Brower's face.
- Hmm I guess I've only seen the edited-for-TV version of that movie, they don't show the body. Which reminds me, that's the original name of that story, based on a Stephen King novel called The Body.
same!!

The movie that actually fucked me up for a bit as a kid was some black and white movie about spiders that took over a small town. I don't remember a single thing about the movie, other than crates/the town absolutely covered in webs and people getting wrapped up like bugs.

I'm pretty sure you mean Arachnophobia, which is the film I came here to mention.

Someone put it on at a slumber party before I could see what it was (definitely wouldn't have stuck around if I knew what was coming). It kept me up for months and months, and intensified an already existing phobia. It's like 30 years later and I'll still occasionally wake up in horror from seeing huge spiders in my dreams..
- I've seen arachnophobia, but I'm pretty sure that's not it. I just rewatched the trailer and I definitely don't see anything that looks like what i see in my head from the flick im thinking of.
- That one put me in fear every time I walked into a room in my house for weeks. I would always be looking above the door and to the sides, just in case a spider was on the wall ready to pounce. ugh!
Was it one big spider? If so there are several.

If it wasn't in black and white there's a few other options
- I don't recall if there was a massive spider, but I checked out that trailer and it didn't look super familiar. Pretty sure it was in black and white, but I could be wrong. I just have a vivid memory of the crates covered in spiders/webs, and it may have been the crate that brought the spider there. Also people wrapped up in cocoons ready to be eaten/already drained.
"Tarantula" and "Earth vs the Spider" come to mind, but it's been a while since I've seen them. Both have the small-town thing going for them, if I'm remembering correctly!

Both of mine I later learned are comedy/satire:

Starship Troopers and Mars Attacks.

The sheer gore from Starship Troopers made me ill.

The Martian design was freaky and I wasn't a fan of the instant death lasers. It had me thinking aliens could come down one day and we'd have no chance against them.

Ack! Ack ack ack! Ack?
- /r/Ack
  
  Yeah, yeah. I know.

The ring

Yeah, I saw the western version age... 12? Intrusive thoughts for weeks. Dude electrocuting himself in a bathtub was what did it for me for some reason
- The Ring, age 8 or 9, did me in as well. The bathtub scene is also the one that messed with my head the most.
- Western is like 1/20th of quality. Japanese is so so so much more on point. It's relentless and keeps on coming. It's not treating you as if you are watching a movie. American version has flashbacks, switching shots to different characters only for them to react. It's made like a movie. Japanese version is made like you are going to die in 7 days.

My cousin and I used to spend the night at my grandma's house fairly regularly. Between my grandpa and my two uncles who lived there, the house had its fair share of old blank VHS tapes containing recordings of various horror films among comedy classics like Revenge of the Nerds. As far as horror goes, Return of the Living Dead scared the absolute shit out of us at age 8, as did Tremors and Gargoyles (1972).

And since you're no doubt wondering, I don't remember coming across any porn on those old VHS tapes, but my uncles did keep a few magazines stashed away in their closets that my cousin always knew exactly where to find.

EDIT: God damn, this really opened up a well of (positive) memories over an entire family that has since deceased. Cancer and poor health eventually took every last person in that house. Doesn't help that nearly everyone smoked and drinked to the day they died. They were all such good people, though. Rest in peace.

it.

I still dislike clowns to this day.

This movie was on network television at primetime! Like every kid in America was traumatized that day.
Add another one of us to the list of, fuck clowns because of this movie.
I read the book when I was ..12? Learned that reading a book can be much scarier than watching a movie.
- I was around the same age, and even back then I knew the child orgy scene was really fucked up

The Shining.

I remember asking dad "what's wrong with that man (Jack Nicholson)?" and he told me that he had spiders in his brain. That was also really weird.

This one is mine too. Specifically the lady in the tub scene.

Bambi (seriously)

Bambi fucked everyone up at that age.

the exorcist. At age 8

My Catholic church going up bringing has made possession into a genuine fair even though I'm atheist now.

Permanently Deleted

My friend and I went snooping and found her parents' hard-core sex tape. Should not have watched that at 10 years old.

Got a good quick lesson in anatomy, though.

Killer Clowns from Outer Space. That was one creepy fucking movie.

My wife's cousin has been terrified of clowns since he was 5 because of this movie.

I actually love it, it's pretty great :)
I knew someone else was traumatized by KCFOS.

Saving this whole thread for movie recommendations.

I already mentioned one movie in a reply (Arachnophobia), but another that really sticks out, and which I watched at an even younger age is The NeverEnding Story.

I remember being around 5 or 6 at a friends' house, parents just left all the toddlers in the playroom in front of the movie and had their social gathering, meanwhile I'm terrified and hysterically crying my eyes out (I'm sure at least a couple of the other kids were too, but I can't remember)..
Artax in the swamp destroyed me completely, and the Darkness and the Sphynx statues, and even Morla scared the living shit out of me (yes, they left us there to watch the entire movie).

I still can't bare to watch the swamp scene.

at a friend's* house

Twister. Living and visiting the Midwest USA surely didn't help. I used to get extremely anxious when it would get even mildly windy and still have a bit of a panic attack when a tornado warning/watch go off.

Event horizon fucked me up for a while

This was mine. The scene where he is holding his own eyes is still stuck in my head. I think my sister was watching it, she was into her horror style films. I didnt know what it was. I must have been somewhere between 9 and 10. The film came out in 1997 and i was born 9 years earlier but this was rented from a video shop so it was way after cinema release.

Edit: just looked it up and it was released on video 2 days after my 10th birthday, so i will have been 10. Yuck.

Not the scariest movie but Pitch Black. I was 7 and definitely didn't help my fear of darkness very much. Pretty neat movie as an adult but definitely get flashbacks when I see it. Also the movie Signs. Was scared of it as a kid but as an adult I find that movie absolutely hilarious.

But the worst is not a movie but a video game. I watched my brother play Resident Evil 2 when I was around the same age. I was absolutely terrified of zombies after that. Because of a few specific scenes in the game I refused to have my bed close any windows. Even at friends houses I'd rather sleep on the floor if the couch was too close to a window. That lasted until I was like 13. As an adult I still can't bring myself to play that game. I love Resident Evil and horror games in general, but as soon as I hear the music for the main lobby of the police station in Resident Evil 2 I get so terrified I have to turn the game off. Maybe I'll be able to play the remake...

Event Horizon. I couldn't sleep for days as an 11 year old! Love it now, but man, way too scary.

Sam Neillalmost seemed apologetic about how it turned out after editing in an interview.

Blow Out at about age 8. I was worried for ages that someone would strangle me and mutilate me in a public toilet.

Watership Down was worse though. Why anyone thought that was okay to show to children, I will never know.

Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. I was looking under my bed for pods for weeks!

Hah, yep. This one got me too.

Jaws when I was six. Even swimming pools make me uncomfortable.

Event horizon, it still terrifies me to this day

Same, creepy as fuck and so enjoyable every decade or so
- It's one of my guilty pleasure movies whenever I get in the rare mood for a scary movie. Most scary movies these days are just jump scares but event horizon is genuinely scary to me
Same. Brutal at a young age.
Same. Shit freaked me out.

Not a movie but The X-Files series.
When my little sister and me were at our dads for the week we used to take our covers and pillows and lay down between the TV and the sofa, which our dad slept on. He had the TV on basically 24/7 so we'd watch something together and he'd fall asleep and then me and my sister would move to our beds after a while but often falling asleep ourselves right there on the floor. We had been doing this for years and then they started airing The X-Files late at night on the channel we mostly had on. I almost always fell asleep last, so I ended up being awake for a couple of episodes and they really traumatised me. I remember being the only one awake and being so scared I didn't dare to even move my head or even breathe fully. I did tell my dad about it but he'd always fall asleep pretty early and I'd forget to change the channel.

Years later both my sister and me had gotten too tall to fit laying down between the sofa and the TV so we had stopped that tradition but my dad still always fell asleep with the TV on. They started doing reruns of the series and that damn intro music was so scary for me that I would have a battle with myself of just riding it out or getting up and walking down the dark hallway to change the channel. Both options were bad in their own ways. I still get shivers down my spine from the theme music.

I'm so glad to find someone with the same experience. Whenever I stayed at my dad's, we slept in my aunt's room because she had the extra beds. She loved the x files and always watched it after we went to bed. I love science fiction now, don't get me wrong, and I think if I discovered it as an adult I'd probably be super into it, but I am way too freaked out by it to watch it now.
Yep, the X-Files screwed with my head massively as well. I love the series now, but definitely shouldn't have seen it then.

Four Rooms. I was 14 but very sheltered and that shit was nuts.

Did they... misbehave?

It doesn't really haunt me, but when I was a kid I was up early in the morning and had nothing to do so I turned the TV on. And a black and white movie was showing. And I knew that those are funny. Like Charlie Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy. So I laughed my ass off as Miss Marple was horrified watching a woman being choked to death in the next train over.

Not a movie but when I was 9, my grade 4 teacher decided to put on one of those ghost shows about a haunted Scottish castle and the story went that you could hear the bumping of a murdered body being dragged up the stairs in that castle. I told my dad and he spoke to the teacher and she told the whole class it was my fault we couldn't watch tv shows anymore so I got doubly traumatized. But fuck that, I had to run up the stairs in my house for literal years after that fucking show because I was afraid I would hear the murdered body.

Man I hate that fucking woman.

It doesn't haunt me, but Full Metal Jacket. My dad rented it for family movie night when I was 10 or 11, and needless to say my mom is STILL mad at him for watching that with me in the room for the first hour. Worst part is my dad didn't know about it, he only knew R Lee Ermy from a show he did on the history channel called Mail Call that he watched with my sister growing up. So he never expected Ermy to shout that stuff.

Get some, get some!

A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was about 8 at a sleepover birthday party. All of us had nightmares after that and he's still my go to boogeyman.

I think I was at that birthday party.

Interview with the Vampire. I was waaaay too young to be watching that, and the scene where the light comes out and burns that one to a crisp scared the hell out of me. I remember having trouble falling asleep for a couple nights after that.

That scene was absolutely horrifying to watch the first time I saw the movie and I must have been in my mid-late teens at that point..

Blair witch project. Friend and I were suppose to go watch some other movie but didn't realize we went to watch this one. At the time I lived outside of city and had to walk home some distance through woods without street lights. Boy did shadows move that evening. I totally didn't expect it, even though I find horror movies not as entertaining today, back then that one experience left quite an impression.

I had to walk home with a friend in the middle a small city...and still shit my socks. Didn't sleep right for a week.

Having to walk through the woods after watching THAT movie? No chance...
- It was also first snow of the year, so everything was eerily quiet. I didn't really walk into to the woods. Road was going through it, I just followed the road. However sound of trees and silence snow makes didn't make it any easier. I was a 16 year old teenager then and very susceptible to all kinds of beliefs. Doubt any horror would give me the same feeling today, but these days existence itself is horror with constant dark thoughts, so no problem there.

Signs and twister were pretty terrible for a kid when you grow up surrounded by corn fields.

Anaconda. It's not that it was a particularly impressive movie but for some reason it intensified my ophidiophobia.

James Bond - The spy who loved me.

The scene I remember is that car diving into the sea and turning into a submarine. And when it came out again, all the people staring with their mouths open. Now all my life I want to have such a car!

:-)

Starship troopers. Still have the mental Image of the bug drilling a hole in a dudes head.

Also robo cop. All I can remember is him (only head and torso) being hooked up to cables and medical computers and one of the scientists says "what a weird kind of pain he's having" or something like that

The Sound of Music.

I was not ready to see Mars Attacks. What is worse is knowing it is campy and ridiculous but I still can't make myself watch it again as an adult.

Kids can't really recognize satire until the age of 12 or so.

In 5th grade Catholic middle school they show us an anti drug movie hosted by Rosey Grier. There's clips of people going through withdrawal, photos of people who smuggled drugs under incisions in their skin, all kinds of horrible stuff. It was similar to the real life gore movies they used to show during driver's ed classes. They did apologize after realizing they messed up. It's no wonder I didn't try weed until I was 18. I haven't been able to find this on the internet

This is going to be a departure from the rest of this thread.

I saw Emmanuelle when I was 10 or so, and man did that movie change me. Some scenes still pop into my head, clear as when I first saw them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuelle_(1974_film)

The Fly

The Exorcist

Killer clowns from outer space, that clown thing that comes up from the toilet messed me up.

Somewhat related, I have a funny story related to Killer Klowns.

My local movie theatre had a live screening of it several years ago that I went to with a friend. I had never seen it before, I barely ate that day and had just gotten off of a 13 hour shift, and of COURSE I had to get one of those terrible canned cocktails. So there I am, shit faced in the back row, my friend sitting next to me, I’m whispering my reactions to him to whole time, when at the end of the movie it’s revealed that the other guy sitting next to me was one of the brothers who worked on the movie.

I don’t remember a lot of that night but my friend said he recognized him immediately but didn’t say anything. Apparently the guy looked happy to sit next to someone drunkenly reacting to his movie for the first time in their lives.

The exorcist.

I was probably 8 years old, this thing gave me nightmares for years

New version or sequel if you want to call it like that is pure comedy as original director is trying too hard to make it feel "based on real events".
Me too! It was on network TV in the mid 70s. They censored it so she said, “Your mother sews socks in hell!” LOL! The one time I ever cowered under a blanket during a scary part.

Mars Attacks. Hilarious now but it absolutely traumatised me when I was younger.

Terminator 2

I was way too young, grandmaw had to go to a matinee. Boy, she did love Arnold.
dun dun dun dun dun waaaah waaaaaaaaaaaaah waaaah waaaaaah waaaaaah wuuuuhh waaaah waaaaaaaaaaaaah WAAAAAAH

When I was younger, I watched this movie where a terrifying creature, vaguely resembling a human and driven only by thoughts of death, escaped from a parallel dimension to hunt down a girl at her middle school, and there was this Wayland-Yutani type company who tried to cover up the escape by having their security force capture the creature and send it back to its own dimension, but then, the creature took the girl and her mother with it to its hell dimension, with the company security force in pursuit.

And then a bunch of guys who are way too into horses got in a big fight that turned into a dance number, and then creature went to the gynecologist for some reason.

I was brought to tears by the existential dread that still haunts me to this day that I decided to take a break from movies. But whatever that movie was, it should have won an Oscar this year.

Are you trying to promote your own movie without us noticing?
- No idea what you are talking about.
  
  Now if I only remember the name of this haunting movie or how to watch it...

Aliens.

That movie scared the shit out of me. It’s been more than 35 years and I still don’t like that movie.

So you saw Alien first and liked it?
- My parents actually did take me to that movie, but I was an infant so I don’t remember. Apparently, it was my first movie. I guess they thought Aliens would be ok after my dad took me to see Rambo: First Blood Part II. Movie ratings didn’t even reach the level of loose guidelines during my childhood. Lol

It's silly, but as a kid I once turned on the TV to Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life", and in particular, the scene where an enormous man is fed so much that he explodes. Still haunts me to this day.

Not exactly too young, but I shouldn't have watched Human Centipede

Grave of the Fireflies.

Literally impossible to see that at an age where it won't scar you for life.

That is a beautiful, wonderful movie, but I haven't been in a positive enough mental state to watch it for almost 8 years.

No I'm not depressed, I'm very lucky and usually quite content if not very happy, it's just so dark and sad you really have to be waaaaay over to the happy side of the spectrum of you don't want to come out a hairs distance from suicidal.
- Same with me. I know it's awesome and great but I am never ready to be that level of sad willingly.
I watched it and there must be something wrong with me because I literally cry at every movie or tv show but that one did not get to me. I don't even remember most of it.

Watership Down.

Like, after I saw that movie as a kid, horrible things in other movies didn't really have an impact. Well... That, and I understood movies were all make-belief. I used to love watching making-of features for movies.

I came looking for this. It seemed like this movie came out at that time when adults assumed all animated movies (or cartoons as I was told) are for kids, and so this was shown in our after-school group. There were several kids crying by the end of it, and I may have been one of them.

Nothing but Trouble

it's like some horrible fever dream

Fire in the Sky... I am 40 and was maybe 10/11 when I watched it. I now have a legit fear of being abducted by aliens that makes it hard to sleep alone. I can't watch any movie that deals with alien abductions.

Evil Dead (1 & 2)

Everything claymation reanimated just scarred me lol. Years later in high school I remember watching Sam Raimi's Spiderman with the Doc Oc surgery scene, and that camera work took me right back to being too young for Evil Dead.

Sam Raimi has very distinct style

that scooby doo movie with zombies, spooky shit

For some reason, I have always found The Brave Little Toaster deeply unsettling, but I can’t really explain why.

Bonus round suggestion: was there a book you read when you were too young?

Mine was Pillars of the Earth. I was, like… 5? I think?

Doesn't a vacuum commit suicide in that movie? That can probably explain why.
- I remember the vacuum having a seizure and swallowing his cord... Also, the entire junkyard scene can fuck right off
Same here, I thought I was the only one. That movie is so creepy! Gave me nightmares as a kid. I still remember the wall radiator overheating and dying and the junkyard scene freaked me right out.
It is unsettling, it's not just you.
I read horror books often. The latest I read was The Institute by Stephen King.

It’s pretty disturbing. Didn’t give me nightmares, but I still think about it.

Tbh I don't think anyone is old enough to watch Mars Attacks. The visual design is too much. The movie itself isn't that bad, but the fucking martians. Fuck me.

ACK ACK!
- ACK ACK TO YOU TOO!

The Seventh Sign.

To this day I can’t watch biblical horror in particular without nightmares. I’m not even Christian.

Why did my parents think it was a good idea to take me to see The Excorcist

The Clan of the Cave Bear

Not a film, but I read Cormac McCarthys The Road at 25, and it threw me into a deep depression from which I never fully recovered.

My father has insisted I read this multiple times.

I saw Nightmare on Elm Street at age 4... my sister was "babysitting" I had nightmares for years.. still remember them decades later.

This is definitely up there for me. Iirc there’s a seen where Johnny Depp gets sucked into a bed. That ended waterbeds for me.
- Aw man! I had waterbeds too! gahh!
Same, but I was older. I think between 10 or 13-ish. I couldn't sleep for a week and had night terrors when I did.

Ghost Ship. Every now and then the wire scene and the scene where they eat maggots comes back to me in my thoughts, and i hate it lol.

The Fly

The very end, where Goldblum finishes his transformation, and Davis has to deal with it, traumatized my 9 year old mind.
- Reading that gave me the chills again!

Probably mall rats just because after seeing Joey Lauren Adams tits I would spend the rest of my life searching for that high.

Edit: more honest honest answer is probably Ernest Scared Stupid. If that movie scared you, you were probably too young.

The Thing. I think I was 6 or so when I saw it. I had nightmares for years.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

I was about 6 when it was running in free TV here, as a major blockbuster and everyone talked about it, so I begged my dad to let me watch it.

Was good fun in the beginning, but when they ripped the slave's heart out, I nearly shat myself.

The movie was goofy, gross, then suddenly horrific. Indy goes Hardcore.

Cats.

I was so confused by all the singing cat people.

Because jellicles are and jellicles do
Well, cats isn't supposed to make sense. It's supposed to be a "horny spectacle," according to Webber.

Jaws

I was around 6 or 7 when I saw it on television, before R rating was even a thing and almost 40 years later I am still terrified of sharks.

The Blair witch project when I was 8. Watched it by myself.

Alien is pretty high up on the list. The chest-buster scene was a bit much for this 8yr old. Next up would be the faces melting scene in Raiders.

Gremlins. Still freaks me out.

same.

Fire In The Sky. I haven’t rewatched it ever since.

I was 11, and the movie was the sixth sense. The girl vomiting scared me, and also when the mom leaves the kitchen and returns a few seconds later and all the cupboard doors and drawers are open…

I was watching this with my family at home and during the movie my older brother used his cell phone to call our home phone which was located on the other side of the house in the kitchen. I hadn’t realized it was him calling the home phone and I jumped at the opportunity to leave the scary move to go answer the phone. All the lights were off as I entered the kitchen. I flipped the lights on and boom… all of the doors and drawers are wide open. My brother lured me into the kitchen with that phone call just to scare me.

It’s not that scary of a movie but to this day I refuse to watch it. Also, I stopped speaking with my brother years ago.

Goldeneye - the squeezing scene

Anaconda - regurgitated people

Congo - when they throw his brain

Mercury Rising - "Mother, Simon is home"

Peewee Herman - Large Marge

The truly harrowing experience I had as a kid was the Alien Encounter ride at Disney Orlando. I was 8 and it was a field trip so the peer pressure was high. Nightmares for weeks after that. I still remember it breathing on me in the pitch dark.

Jaws. The first one. In a theater. To this day I won’t swim in water where I can’t see the bottom.

Same here!

Apparently my parents were extremely good about not exposing us to stuff too early. Except for blazing saddles. My brother picked up some new vocabulary from that film at the age of 2.

The Omen at seven. I wasn't allowed to watch the "scary parts" so I only heard them. Turns out the audio design was way better than my parents gave them credit for. The sounds of the dog attack, falling shingles, and zombie nanny were burned into my brain for years.

Then I watched the movie properly as an adult and... it kind of sucked. The reality couldn't compare to what my imagination conjured up from the sounds alone.

Argh. I feel this.

Arachnophobia. That movie is the reason I’m scared of spiders. I loved spiders prior and had a book of spiders that I’d read while pooping (grass spiders are so fckn cool) and would even play with them, but after that movie I couldn’t anymore. I’ve gone back and watched it as an adult and it’s so campy and cheesy. If only I’d watched it when I was older I could have enjoyed it.

that movie was scary as shit at the time

I saw a bit of Ghoulies by happenstance at a very young age back in the 80s. While it doesn't haunt me, I do remember it making me very irrationally uneasy any time I remembered the incident later. Not even uneasy in the context of the clip, which was the stupid puppet monster popping up out of a toilet lol

The Big Boss, there is a scene where some killed guys are frozen in a ice factory and their bodies cut into smaller pieces. I was watching it through the door which was opened just a little bit instead of sleeping, while my dad and uncle where watching it.

The Gate

Sybil

Eight Legged Freaks fucked me up with the cat scene at the beginning. I’m a big softie for animals in films.

A guy being shot to the head until it turns into mushy red pulp from 4chan. Might have been the reason for all my psyche problems ngl.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Aliens. I was terrified of facehuggers being under my bed for a decade. Not so much anymore.

Independence Day: The dissection scene

They: The whole damned movie

It's never an entire movie, it's a scene here and there.
Like in The Exorcist, when they showed it on network television back in the late-70s it must have been, the CBS Saturday Night Movie or something like that, "viewer discretion is advised".
Anyway... clicking channels, I stumbled upon a moment during the ritual itself, with the girl in silhouette on her knees, arms towards the ceiling, the demon Pazuzu behind her. That screwed up many a night afterwards.

As a young adult, another scene that fucked with my head for many a night was the grainy dream transmission, with the faint audio covered in static noise, from John Carpenter's "Prince Of Darkness".

Now I'm gonna flip the concept on its' head and tell you what film cured my fears of the dark at the time. Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation Of Christ".

It was The Exorcist on Network television for too many of us Gen X'ers.

When I was a kid, my friend and I went to blockbuster and pulled a copy of Poltergeist from the store shelf. There must be a different movie that is also called Poltergeist, besides the most popular movie with that name. Anyway, we returned to my house, put the VHS in the tape player, and began watching it. Without giving too much away, it had some awkward scene between two of the adult characters in the film. It was so awkward, that my friend actually screamed, “this is not Poltergeist!” She had seen the popular film, before that day, and I had not. To this day. I have still not seen Poltergeist because I have this fear of finding, and playing, that awful movie by mistake.

Lol, it seems like there was a whole category of films made to ride the coat tails of better, more famous films by sitting beside them on the shelf at Blockbuster, waiting to be picked up by clueless parents.

My sisters still give my dad a hard time about all the knock-off movies he brought home when we were kids. To this day, a Gordy is family short-hand for a disappointing knock-off: "Hey, wait, this isn't brie, this is 'cheese product'...you got the Gordy cheese!"
- Hahaha! Yeah, Gordy was no Babe. It’s funny that Babe was released the following year. It reminds me of the knock off Aladdin cartoon that was released before Aladdin was actually released. Walmart put it on the shelves at just the right height for little kids to see, while everyone was hyped about the new Disney movie being released later, in 1992. I don’t even think they included Apu in it!

8mm

Alien. Saw it when I was under 10 years old. I wouldn't say it haunts me but close enough.

Dad was watching and i was 3 at the time I have no fear of that movie love watching it...... But critters... When there's the one in the toilet and the guy rushes in and sits on it. Well lots of teeth in a toilet only has one outcome and it scared my away from the toilet for a long time. I was like 6 at the time
Watching Alien at any age is a borderline traumatic event.

Final destination 2. I was of driving age.

Dominion (2018 film), I was a mear 40 something & way not ready to see that shit!!

Brain Damage. I definitely should not have seen that movie at whatever age I was.

Kentucky fried movie

The Thing messed me up as a 14 year old.

The Crying Game.

Ghostbusters 2 - that painting and the pink goo gave me nightmares for weeks.

And Dan Aykroyd getting sucked off by a ghost.

Pet Cemetery, kid getting hit by the semi

Nah, it's Zelda. That creepy bitch haunted me for years.

"raaaaaaaachellllllll..."

Fuck that.
- Didn't help that my mom said I looked like him when I was that little lol
- Dude! Zelda was my biggest fear for a good couple years after that movie.

killer klowns from outer space

Those cotton candy sacks did not indeed contain anything remotely appetizing.

Mine would have to be Hollow man (2000) it was on TV at the time and for some reason as a kid watching the shifting both the animal and the human scene where they turn invisible where the skin disappeared then his muscles and veins, was absolutely terrifying, I don't remember well but my parents said I wouldn't let them sleep for weeks.

A Nightmare on Elm Street. I think I was ten? That was not a good night's rest.

The Blob (80s version), The Thing, and House. The first two still hold up really well but the third one I rewatched as an adult and it was so stupid I was embarrassed I had been so terrified of it as a little kid.

The Silver Bullet. That Werewolf scared me soooo much as a kid.

Khilona bana khalnayak. Tatya bichchhu. Om bhatt swaha!

Plague Dogs

...it's a cartoon

I watched that movie in my 20s on a dare basically. So brutal.

Casino.

That scene at the end with the bats... Still haunts me to this day.

I was a late teenager when it came out, but I got incredibly horrified once I saw the poster for My Little Pony: Equestria Girls. Seriously, who knew turning ponies into humanoids could end up looking so uncanny?

As usual, porn artists do it better.
- Well there's an industry I'm never laying my eyes upon.

The first Friday the thirteenth when i was 15 or so. My parents didn't even allow me to watch the news or any movies aside from a few cartoons, so i was shocked.

This song describes a similar experience

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qG8iAtpavK4

There were a couple for me:

I was young when Alien came out, but my grandfather had it on VHS soon after. Ermagherd. Still one of my favourites films.

Xtro.

But there's one I'll never forget. A woman on a boat, with a metal bucket tied to her belly, with a heat source underneath it, that contained a rat. The rat would do anything to escape the heat... and the film showed the process. I was probably 10 at the time, and it's an image/predicament I'll never forget. No idea what the film was called.

2 fast 2 furious.

Also GoT

Brain Dead was plenty disturbing to me when I was a kid. Still one of my favourite movies and now I understand that it's a hilarious comedy, not just a gross out fest although there is plenty of that too lol

Saving Private ryan. I was 11 or 12. The slow knife scene hasn't left my mind till this day.

Candyman.

Holy fucking shit, saw it when I was maybe ten years old. I didn’t go into a bathroom for weeks after that, I peed outside against a wall. There was absolutely no way I was going in any room with a mirror.

Felidae

Or whatever the animated movie featuring a gory cat detective story was called.

Exactly the same! I saw it when I was 8. Also the original Resident Evil movie.

Hannah Montana-specifically an Halloween episode referencing murderous puppets

Not a movie but a series... The highway men or something like that. Sort of a mad max inspired series about guys in a truck and one of the trucks could become a helicopter or something? I think it failed after one season.

Anyway, there was an episode where a UFO crashed, the guy had to transport the pilot alien in his trailer and he had a camera in there and the alien, covered by plastic, sat upright.

Didn't sleep for weeks, still haunts me 40 years later

gremlins and thriller.

Ugh Gremlins got me for sure. So did Ernest Scared Stupid, oddly enough. That fuckin troll…

But Gremlins for sure. Jesus.

The Horror Show. That's when I decided it wasn't a good idea to watch unlabled VHS tapes from the basement.

Hereditary. I’m old and I still insist I am too young to watch it.

From dusk till dawn

If you love this planet.

A short documentary about nuclear war. Saw it when I was about 12, images that last a life time.

Deliverance.

I joined my older brother when we was watching the zero boys on VHS.

I would have been around seven at the time and some scenes were a little too much.

spoiler

The suffocation scene is the one that stands out.

Gigi. I loved back when I was a little girl (“leeetle girrrrl”), but rewatching as an adult I was HORRIFIED.

The Icecream Man. I had never watched a proper horror movie before, I was scared of the icecream van coming around for ages.

The Screaming Woman when I was 7. About a woman buried alive.

Got the same for CSI DVD i got from the library.
It just doesnt haunt me though
But I remembered as soon as you mentioned it.

Return to Oz.

DoooooorrrRRRRRRRRTHHYYYYY GAAAAAALLLEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

There is a fair bit of mental illness in the family, the early asylum scenes hit a bit too close to home for 5 year old me.

Edward scissorhands

This, not too long ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight_Mommy

The hills have eyes. That movie was so messed up.

Permanently Deleted

Nothing probably haunts me to this day but there were some horror anthology series that were pretty harsh when I was little. I also vaguely remember a movie about some creepy doll. I don't think it's Child's Play, but just about any creepy doll would do, though.

amityville 2.

fucking movie was wrong on so many levels.