I was 10 when a neighbor took us to see the original Friday the 13th film. I was way too young. The theatre was packed and I had to sit on my neighbor's lap. I watched the movie through my hands. My twin and I had bunk beds and because of the Kevin Bacon scene I didn't sleep in my bed for six months.

A few years later, I was at my aunt's house and she was watching Motel Hell on cable. I started watching it but after the first reveal I lost it and screamed. I spent the rest of the afternoon under a blanket.

I'm not a big fan of horror movies.

Trilogy of Terror, right?

That's it! I was spacing on the name.

Night Gallery used to get almost that extreme (I'm thinking of the earwhig episode). 70s TV used to get away with some crazy shit. Elizabeth Montgomery playing Lizzie Borden comes to mind, as well.

Elizabeth Montgomery playing Lizzie Borden comes to mind, as well.

I remember watching that TV movie while I was babysitting. She was really excellent in the role.

I think Eraserhead, while not technically a horror movie, was the one that freaked me out the most. It was days afterwards before I got a good night's sleep.

70s TV used to get away with some crazy shit.

George Peppard also played Dr. Sam Sheppard in a TV mini-series around '75 or so. Gave me a sleepless night or two.

And while I didn't see movies, I'd like to mention that I read both Jaws and Helter Skelter around that time. Jaws gave me a moment or two, nothing major, but I've never gotten up the courage or whatever to see the movie. Helter Skelter gave me nightmares all winter.

My mom wouldn't let me see Helter Skelter when it was first broadcast on tv, but I did read the book about that time (5-6th grade, IIRC), and the photos in the book of the crime scenes really did stick with me. I think that was the first true-crime book I read.

I watched old horror films with my dad from about the age of 2 on and I loved them. I had a Dracula doll ("Jack Leeler!").

At about 6 or 7, I was watching TV (unsupervised) and started watching Sssssssss (I think that was what it was called - about a doctor who was injecting people with something that slowly turned them into snakes). Lifelong fear of snakes started right there. I had snake nightmares for years after and always worried about someone throwing a snake in when I was showering. :::shudder:::

Saw Poltergeist at around 11 or 12 and was all freaked out. I remember ET came out after and I was scared to see it as I thought it would be like Poltergeist.

Rediscovered love of horror in early teens with Nightmare on Elm Street. Had a huge love for that movie. Now, as an adult, I love a good suspenseful scare, but hate gore. So I don't see too many horror films.

The End

LOVE horror movies.

I think I was about twelve when I caught Carpenter's remake of The Thing on cable. It was gory, freaky and seriously effed up. But I could deal with all of that, because it's a movie, and the good guy wins at the end, right? Right?

What do you mean Kurt Russell and David Keith just sit in the flaming wreckage and freeze to death, and we don't know for sure if one of them has been infected, to be found and woken up by whoever comes to investigate?

Yeah, that movie messed me up for a while, and started a life-long love of scary, effed up movies.

"Jack Leeler!"

LOVE!

For freaky childhood trauma, nothing quite beats the trip on the S.S. Wonkatina in Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka movie.

I think I was about twelve when I caught Carpenter's remake of The Thing on cable. It was gory, freaky and seriously effed up. But I could deal with all of that, because it's a movie, and the good guy wins at the end, right? Right?

The freakiest thing on seeing this now is realizing the last incarnation of the thing is Wilfred Brimley.

For freaky childhood trauma, nothing quite beats the trip on the S.S. Wonkatina in Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka movie.

Someone was on acid while they were planning the visuals for that sequence...