Abelkems

I remember as a kid, growing up in a Southern Baptist church, being subjected to those Christian exploitation films that pretty much said embrace Christianity or really bad things will happen to you. These films were often shown in church, and I've had friends say they were shown at Bible camps, as well. Probably, the most popular was the "A Thief in the Night" series that dealt with a woman who was left behind after the Rapture.

There were others, but the one that stands out in my memory is "If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?" (link to full movie) This conversation recently came up between me and some friends and I spent half a day watching these movies trying to find the right one. I was forced to watch this in church when I was around five years old, and I had nightmares for years after that. This movie was a sermon by a Mississippi preacher interspersed with graphic, horror scenes that warned if America didn't return to its Christian roots then the Communists would take over and do horrendous things to us. I just rewatched it for the first time since I originally saw it and find it hilarious and ridiculous now, but as a kid being shown these movies, as factual accounts of what would happen if I didn't love Jesus, was very traumatizing.

It's also interesting to note that all the communist soldiers have Southern drawls.

The scene that caused me the most psychological damage as a child was this one. (Warning: it is kinda graphic)
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Another that messed with me, but I now think is funny as hell is this one.
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This clip isn't graphic but also funny with its "Fidel Castro is better than Jesus" message.
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Did anyone else here see this or any of the other films in this genre as kids and suffer from it?

Artman

Yeah I watched The Thief in the night series...it definitely did scare me...but I never really said anything about it to my parents. Personally for me the "end times" is really the least important part of my faith now... what happens will happen.

wm lopez

KING OF KINGS gave me nitemares as a kid.
But looking at those old clips like that last one.
It could easily be one of today's Hollywood liberal saying that.

arminius

That's what you did in church? I never saw anything like that but I was Lutheran until I was 15 and then was asked to leave by the pastor.

Groucho

Apparently you went to the Church of the Totally Fucking Awesome.

calhoun07

I had no idea movies like this even existed. I heard of one with Pat Boone (I seem to recall) called the Cross and the Switchblade (if memory serves) but I've never seen it. I guess these other ones were never major releases, just distributed from church to church?

Mondo Kane

Maybe not what the OP had in mind, but all those painted depictions of Jesus used to always have him resemble a Hell's Angel or a Biker to me. I was scared to death of bikers when I was a kid. So yeah, Jesus scared me as a child.

jeffbase34

I don't remember watching those, but Jack Chick tracts and comics were pretty scary. He had me convinced that the Roman Catholic church would give birth to the anti-Christ.

For a really scary read, there's a book called 30 minutes in helll or something like that. The guy supposely died and visited hell. His descriptions rival your worst nightmares.

inri222

Shit those videos are funny as hell. Something Weird Video where are you.

Ash Ketchum

We saw INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS at my church (original 1956 version, of course). A minister-in-training from Union Theological Seminary showed it. Later, one of his colleagues had the genius idea of taking a group of us (seventh graders at the time) to Union Theological Seminary to see Robert Bresson's DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST. I slept during it.

When I was a youth worker I ran a series of films at a local Catholic church on Sundays. We rented 16mm film prints and ran them on a projector (this was pre-video by about ten years). We ran THE RAVEN (1962), JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963), THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958), and PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE (1954), among others. Great stuff. And we had a big crowd every week.