MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I saw the Exorcist when I was 10 years old and it gave me nightmares for a week. Last night was the first time I was brave enough to watch it again (30 years later).
What gave you “the fear” when you were small?
Snufflupagous on Sesame Street
Daleks...
Oh, and Basil Brush for some reason...
With you there Harry - it freaked me as a kid and I saw a bit of it last night but decided against watching it all just in case it scared me again (now 42).
When I was very young that weird stick thing off Rupert the Bear terrified me.
I mean - WTF!!! (It still disturbs me a little even now)
[b]Raggety back then...[/b]
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These days they have toned it down somewhat...
[b]Raggety for the 21st Century...[/b]
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Noseybonk - wtf was that all about?!?!?
Sapphire and Steel! Proper hiding behind the sofa stuff!!
Was convinced Captain Black from the Mysterons was in my cupboard when I was going to sleep. Wasn't scared of much else as a kid.
And these days this little fella can still creep me out (great animations though - worth watching).
[img] http://www.rhythmism.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=52117&stc=1&d=1236103624 [/img]
The IRA
masks - I was terrified of people wearing masks, or evan masks hanging up in shops
didn't really like halloween as a result - and used to hide under the kitchen table when trick or treaters came round (although that wasn't that often in those days)
still remember that hot feeling of terror when I saw one, and my heart racing - shivers
Maggie Thatcher scared me, as did the impending nuclear armageddon that always seemed just around the corner. Oh and American Werewolf in London gave me serious sleeping problems dspite having watched it since realising it's a comedy!
Cybermen, werewolves, yetis, and the Incredible Hulk.
Them films they used to show in school warning of the dangers of playing on the railways. There was also one warning of the dangers of playing by water, that had a monk who said in a ghostly voice..."I'll be back".
A lad we knew climbed over a bridge onto a 25k volt line, didn't see it happen but we were close-by & I'll never forget the smell or seeing the lad's charred body on the tracks below.
Also nearly drowning in a local reservoir...I remember struggling like mad but still sinking & the water getting darker & colder. Managed to get back up but really freaked me out as it was a fair old distance from the edge.
Maggie Thatcher? I thought she was just an urban legend that parents scared their children with to stop them misbehaving.
+1 with the American Warewolf in London
Sea Devils off Dr Who.
The big lad down the next street who threatened to duff me up. I can't remember his name, now.
Like takisawa2 says, I remember a 20-30 min program shown on a Sunday lunchtime (c 1980) that illustrated the dangers or hanging out on a farm. Showed a bunch of kids dying it all sorts of ways, e.g. drinking chemicals from left around bottles, being mangled by machinery, falling into sh1t/swill of some kind, etc. Kind of scary at the time. And where did I grow up? 1/4 mile from a farm! Needless to say that's where I spent a lot of happy times, thankfully without dying painfully.
as did the impending nuclear armageddon that always seemed just around the corner
On the day of the 1983 general election I was terrified that Labour might win. I was only 5, but a bigger boy at school had told me that if Labour won they would get rid of all Britain's nuclear weapons, and if that happened then Russia would fire a nuclear bomb that would go round the whole world and destroy it.
And for years I was scared of wolves. I used to dare myself to stick my foot out from under the duvet to see if one was under my bed.
an orange space hopper around 1976. it stayed under the staircase and i freaked the first time i saw it.i always knew it was there and kept away from the door. i never believed my mother when she said it couldnt bite.
The fear that my frisbee might end up in a substation and then when I climbed up to reach it, my bell bottom jeans would get fried to hell 🙁
Freddie Kruger
[url= http://www.thechestnut.com/rupert/rupert-2.htm ] Not for the faint hearted[/url]
Rupert Bear! The Horror!
Raggerty... Mr Grimnasty...The ****er with the flames coming out of his head... WTF were they thinking?
The paedo that stayed down the road
Zelda off of Terrahawks.
falkirk - was he a paedo OR a Stranger?
When I was a kid there were no paedos just 'strangers'
Lifts, after seeing a lift stuck about 5 foot from the floor and someone climbing out. Was a bout 4 or 5.
Refused to go in a lift for the next 10 years, still not to keen especially when theres loads of people jammed in with you
father christmas
jaws
Dylan8
He had his c0*k hanging out the window when he asked three of us to come inside his flat. Funnily enough we said no. I was about 10 at the time ,but my brother delivered papers in that close for years so he was probably bricking it every time he went in there.The other guy that was with us said we should have went in as the old guy might have needed a hand with summit (he always was a gullible ****t)
Shop dummies- I was scarred they'd suddenly move.
Grotbags off Pink Windmill/Emu whatever it was called.
Christ on a bike!
That raggetty thing scared the bejeezus out me when i was a nipper, looking at that link brought it all back! Is it me or were kids TV shows a lot more scary & weird back then?
A kids tv show called 'Children of the Dogstar', that I've just found on youtube
It's still unsettling me now 😀
What scared me as a kid? Nothing. I did however make sure that my smallest sister was terrified of the killer vacuum-cleaner (previous ate and killed Santa Claus) though 😆
The old man who lived round the corner.
He had white hair, a very big white beard and wore bobble hats. He murdered children, ate them and buried the remains in his garden. I remember being dared to knock on his door. I was too chicken though.
Being grown up now, I suspect he was probably a very nice man. However, it could be true.
Worst of all was the recurring nightmares I had of this strange cross between Zippy & Kermit driving a milkfloat across a lake!
Lifts
Shop dummies- I was scarred they'd suddenly move.
My kid brother once went up to one outside a store, was messing around and shook 'his' hand.
The thing was, it was actually a real man stood waiting for someone and naturally moved when this 4 yr old started shaking his hand. To say it freaked my brother out is an understatement - he screamed for what seemed hours afterwards. We still rib him about it now 🙂
Ena Sharples
Wtf was up with her hat?
Riding my bike through the woods and seeing men taking 'riding their bikes through the woods' far too seriously in all aspects. 😐
The Singing Ringing Tree
ARGH!
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growing up! AAAAAARRRRGHHHHHH
Someone else remembers the Singing Ringing Tree, I recall it as very scary and weird
Getting up really early on a summer's day as a small child (say 3 years old), leaving the house while my parents were asleep and running up to the end of the field. I ventured into the undergrowth at top of the field to see what was in the bushes.
Suddenly, there was this Grrrr sound and, gripped with fear, I turned and ran back to the house.
I've since realised that it was only a cow in the neighbouring field, but I would never go up there again on my own..!
I can remember that Doctor Who used shop dummies as the enemy, the hands were hinged revealing a gun. Frightened the living 5hit out of me.
I think it was Dr Who, anyone know better?
The ITV series Chimera... anybody remember that... absolutely scared the **** out of me when I was about 9
I can remember that Doctor Who used shop dummies as the enemy, the hands were hinged revealing a gun. Frightened the living 5hit out of me.I think it was Dr Who, anyone know better?
Dr Who and the Terror of the Autons
The child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang.
oh and daleks and cyber men.
Ghost Trains. I can still remember hiding in the front of this train so I couldn't see all the ghoulies and ghosts.
Would never go on roller coasters either.
And I cried at the Great Escape (not through fear), because Donald Pleasance got killed. I was wearing a Ladybird dressing gown at the time.
Has to be Jimmy Saville. Come to think of it, he's still pretty scary now.
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The Russian SS-15 intercontinental ballistic missile. If a plane flew over when I was in bed at night I would wait for a blinding light and expect to see a mushroom cloud rising over Trafford Park.
I was a right morbid little f*cker.
Dr Who and the Terror of the Autons
The only Dr Who that truly freaked me out.
My real fear as a kid was the old ner ner ner ner sirens on Ambulances and Fire Engines. Just way too loud. Used to make me freeze rigid to the spot if one went past.
I was wearing a Ladybird dressing gown at the time.
Ahhh - the junior smoking jacket of its time.
The Singing Ringing Tree messed me up - not sure how much as, until NOW, I had hidden it away in the depths of my mind. Thanks for that!
*heads off to do damage to things*
The child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang.
Is it just me or was he the inspiration for the movie characterisation of Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings?
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The Russian SS-15 intercontinental ballistic missile. If a plane flew over when I was in bed at night I would wait for a blinding light and expect to see a mushroom cloud rising over Trafford Park.
...but your idea of a good night in is to watch "Threads" from under the dining table whilst drinking your own wee.
wombles oh and coming home from school only to find someone else living in my house with my parents nowhere to be seen!
...but your idea of a good night in is to watch "Threads" from under the dining table whilst drinking your own wee.
HtS - that's funny and apart from the wee is pretty much spot on.
I remember reading a book called Nuclear Power - Boon or Boom? - when I was nine.
My mate's boxer dog. As happy as larry if you were in a room before he came in. Mad in the 'ead if you walked into a room he was already in (they would lead him out so I could go in the room then bring him back in once I was sat down).
Led to a pretty strong fear of dogs as a child.
Priests & Christian Brothers but then I am irish so it probably was a pretty rational fear
My mates dog, 'Fly', wee mad-eyed collie b*st*rd who hid in the undergrowth then motored out with the express purpose of sampling some ankle sandwich.
And Salems Lot...
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I just couldn't do it as a kid.
Needless to say, when I was 20, I had nine teeth out in one sitting.
I blame my parents.
The Russian SS-15 intercontinental ballistic missile. If a plane flew over when I was in bed at night I would wait for a blinding light and expect to see a mushroom cloud rising over Trafford Park.I was a right morbid little f*cker.
Derekstarship. Yes, I heard all about nuclear winter etc etc etc throughout school. Sh&t me right up. We even had special coldwar features on nuclear weapons at school and their social-impact if used, (leftie pacifists *****).
It got to the point that if I heard a lowish flying engine I actually thought 'is this it' too!!
The Daleks and the dentist
The all-pervading, ever-present fear of all out nuclear war between the USSR and US.
Exacerbated by the government's public information film When the Wind Blows (try it anytime you think you may be feeling too happy) and by reading On the Beach by Neville Shute at age 10 or 11...
Happy days
if I heard a lowish flying engine I actually thought 'is this it' too!!
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Upper_Heyford#Cold_War_Use_By_USAF ]I grew up close to the US Airforce base at Upper Heyford.[/url]
Low flying aircraft were nothing new. It was just the time when I got out of bed on the day we were due to fly for a family holiday in Crete* to ask my parents about the thunder in the night, and I found them in silence watching the TV. [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Libya ]The USA had just attacked Libya[/url], and the thunder was the sound of the bombers flying out and back.... 😯
*Crete is 110 nautical miles from Libya. We saw warships and all sorts of helicopters and fighter jets when on holiday.
When the Wind Blows
Wasn't that a book by Raymond Briggs (as in The Snowman, Fungus the Bogeyman etc).
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No, really!
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Yes, it was a book, made into a film (cartoon sort of)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(film)
When I was about 5 or 6, the Dr Who theme tune scared me. Hid behind the sofa from [i]all[/i] the Dr Who baddies.
Scooby Doo baddies (yes I know). That's why I am so rubbish at keeping the house tidy - it's down to a pathological fear of janitors.
Singing ringing tree.
The DARK, especially if trees were involved like on some waste ground at the end of our street.
Whoooooo....
Karinofnine - Member
Yes, it was a book, made into a film (cartoon sort of)
Yeah thought so - not a Government Information Film though. Great film, great writer and great illustrator. I have lots of his children's books that I bought for myself as an adult. Where the Wind Blows is very bleak though I agree.
Needless to say, when I was 20, I had nine teeth out in one sitting.
Are you a crocodile?
I was scared of dogs, now its just dog poo I hate.
Eskimos and mongooses (mongeese?)
Escalators- those teeth at the ends!
On a similar theme to Threads, there was a play on TV about a bunch of US bomber pilots using heroin and dropping the bomb at the end that was quite alarmingly bleak.
Oh, and a film warning about playing on farms where a kid gets run over by a tractor. There's only his toy gun lying on the ground when the tractor goes by...
I don't remember anything being scary?
Escalators- those teeth at the ends!
I was once coming out of the underground in Paris behind a woman with her toy poodle that was stood on the escalator beside her.
Dogs don't know to step off escalators and have fur.
The noise it let out really was scary.
🙁
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I was only fishing for Dace in my local stream and connected with one of these with my free Kellogg's fishing rod, remember them?
It probably was a Jack Pike looking back, but by the time I got to school the next day, it had grown into a 35lb monster and the following week saw every kid form miles away fishing this 1 foot deep stream in the hope of connecting with the monster 😉
mastiles_fanylion; Rupert the Bear used to scare the crap out of me as well. I think it was something to do with the drawings.
I just remember the raging white horses when he was on holiday at the seaside
Also watched a film about Trantulata invading some town and it gave me a massive spider phobia that lasted 30 years FFS!!
Also
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No other dogs just those.
Talking of scary films...
La Cabina
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Proper sh*t me up - would leave my foot in the door of telephone boxes for ages after to stop them fully closing 'just in case'.
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Boggy_Creek ]Watching this[/url] on the telly when I was about 8, gave me nightmares for weeks and is the reason I can NEVER nightride solo.
Kind of an early Blair Witch Project, a bit too realistic for a young developing mind!
Edit: trailer [url=
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There was a really creep episode of Bergerac one, I think it involved hooded satanists. Absolutely terrified me.
Also, the Emperor from Star Wars, and Zelda from Terrahawks.
Far more impressive fears than my brother's clown phobia, he wouldn't even go into McDonalds until he was about 14 because of Ronald McDonald...