What book or movie scared the bejezus out of you, either recently or when you were a kid?
... that two people were instrumental in my joining Twitter. First, Isha . She sent out an article on it when the application was still brand new. (And I remember thinking, "Screw that noise. Like I need more online commitments.) Second was Rebecca . She joined up just a short while ago, claiming she hadn't met a bandwidth she didn't like . (And then she disappeared entirely from the internets .) It looked nice and pretty over there on her sidebar, and then I got a little jealous. The rest: history. And for those unobservant among you ( Jorge ), the Twitter feed is right there on my sidebar, replacing the old Radio 3 player that I loved, but that I think scared the bejezus out of a lot of people. Also, everyone should join Twitter. I'm needing some diversions , people.
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The movie that scared me the most was - don't laugh - Jurassic Park. I tell ya, I had nightmares about velociraptors for days afterwards. More recently, Donnie Darko was pretty freaky.
Embarassingly, I got a bit freaked out by Scream (sad, I know), but I think this was because I watched it in my film class at night at Mac and then had to take the bus home and, as all the other passengers one by one got off the bus before my stop, I was convinced that the bus driver was going to turn around once the bus was empty of everyone but me and he'd have the Scream mask on and he'd kill me. It was in Hamilton, so it was totally possible.
Holy crap the first 2 minutes of that are freaky as hell.
Three things scared me...
1) The first Alien movie. There were all kinds of segmented hoses and pipses sticking out of the ceiling (which was unfinished). I had unwisely decided to move to my new room before it was actually completed. In the middle of the night, when the light from the street lamps poured through the window, some of the pipes and such looked a lot like alien parts.
I slept outside my parents room, and then quietly snuck back to my own when the sun came out.
2) Cujo. In the book there is a part about the kid seeing a pair of glowing red eyes in his closet. If I looked down from where I lay in bed, I could see my unfinished closet. A plastic vapour barrier was up, waiting to have insulation stuffed in between.
The furnace was behind that wall, and there was a humidifier unit there as well. This unit had a red power light. There was a mirror placed against the wall next to the furnace, and it reflected that red light towards me.
The space between the light and it's reflection was not very much, and so the effect was that of two glowing red eyes (the sharpness of the light was obscured by the translucent vapour barrier).
3) The Exorcist. I read this, in one night, when I lived in my new basement room. Not smart.
1. Arachnaphobia (the movie) - I never sit on a toilet without checking it.
2. Jeeper's Creepers - scared the shit out of me for no apparent reason.
(I hate scary movies. Just so you know.)
Videodrome - when a slit opens up on James Woods' stomach and a videocassette is inserted
Creepshow 2 - The Raft: swimming in Pen Lake this summer during our Algonquin trip brought all that tarry-black-scary-blob goodness come rushing back!
The Fly (the very end of the original Vincent Price version, and the entire Cronenberg one)
It (TV miniseries) - Clowns are creepy
Short stories by Stephen King - in particular the collections "Night Shift" and "Skeleton Crew". One of those books had an eye embedded in a hand on the cover, and I could never leave that book lying around cover-side-up, it just freaked me out too much.
As an adult:
Eraserhead...don't look in the cradle. Similar to Rubber Johnny.
The Omen
The Ring - If you think about it, it's a dumb, dumb premise for a movie. But, I was afraid to turn on my TV for weeks afterwards!
The Shining - "Come play with us. Forever. And ever. And ever.
Donnie Darko - The trailer more than the actual movie.
Rubber Johnny - Obvious reasons.
The Raft - When our purvy hero is getting to second base and discovers that the tar is on the girl's face. Jesus. H.
The Fly - Corrosive Brundlefly vomit.
The Ring - When the mom finds her daughter's dead body in the closet (which NO ONE but me seems to even remember).
Dr. Who - The deafening theme song, which I think police now use to break up riots.
Agreed. Stephen King's It was also frightening, especially for a made for TV movie.
Ugh, clowns.
As a kid, it was the whole ghost/haunted house thing. When I got older and wiser, it became apparent that a man housing and holding young boy’s captive for their hair is far more scarier then any ghost/haunted house thing.
Ever since I saw the move listed below, I always make sure my cats have food and water...
http://www.kgordonmurray.com/h19.html
However, it was one particularly haunting episode of Highway to Heaven starring the magnanimous Michael Landon that chilled me most as a child. The guys are called to a lady's home where they find - eep! - a snake curled up in her toilet! To this day, if I forget to check the bowl before sitting, my imagination can quickly run away on me. I have had to cut short many a midnight pee for this very reason.
They still make the baby Jesus cry.