OldBoy

saw this with my grandpa in Florida when i was a kid in 1986 in the theater and had nightmares for months. remembered having to sleep with my grandpa in the big bed and kick my grandma out, when i got back home, had to sleep with light on and thought they were always in my closet. it was traumatic...

TomOpus

None

Bluelitespecial

The transformation scene in The Fly with Jeff Goldblum. I saw that movie way too young.

Sonic

Scared yeah, traumatized? No.

I've seen plenty of horror movies and whatnot and the only movie that did left me a scary impression was Exorcist. But not enough for me to sleep with the light on.

sherm42

A Clockwork Orange.

I must have been under ten years old. Fucked up movie. No way I can ever watch it again.

tommyp007

Poltergeist

That fucking clown doll, man.......

Mondo Kane

Not traumatizing, but certainly qualifies for “Messing me up” was Slaughterhouse Five. While it’s (True) WWII events went over my young head, there were other sequences throughout that haunted me.



^Despite it’s sci-fi/fantasy themes, I would put money on this to be the first movie I saw to understand how delicate life is.

Still the ONLY r-rated movie I could never, ever watch with my parents. I’m still surprised this was brought back to play in certain chain theaters a few years ago.

GoldenJCJ

I was dealthy afraid of using public restrooms after I saw the murderer scene in Witness when I was about 4 years old. It took me several years to get over that fear.

That’s the only actual “trauma” I can think of. Although Return to Oz was freaky as shit to me as a young child.

rw2516

When I was 8 I saw a movie at the drive-in called Island of the Doomed. Story was about some tourists trapped on an island with a guy who breeds crazy plants.
There is a vampire tree. It looks like a weeping willow. It an move it's branches to grab you. Each branch has a pod that opens and this wormy looking thing drains your blood.
About the same time Day of the Triffids was on CBS Friday Night at The Movies.
Also saw an Outer Limits episode called "Species Unknown" about creepy killer plants.
To this day some plants just creep me out with the way they look. Like something from alien planet.
As a kid I was scared of sunflowers. Their center looks like an insect eye. Was scared to get to close and would never turn my back to one. Plants with red or purplish stalks remind of blood flowing through them.
I'm not really scared of them, just creeps me out.

Hulkabrgr

The Day After

joe_b

Traumatized? Only one comes to mind...



I also recall losing a few nights sleep because of Reverend Kane:

Goonies85

Don't know if I was traumatized, but I remember me and a buddy sneaking his parents' VHS copy of Silence of the Lambs and bringing it over to my house to watch it...We waited til my parents went to sleep and pressed play...Didn't last long (I think we were around the age of 9 or 10)...Pretty much shut it off within ten minutes of so, after seeing them examining the first body on the table...Just seemed too real to us, and we were not the right age to handle that sort of thing...

Similarly, his parents also happened to own the original Friday the 13th on VHS (it's the cover that really made us want to watch it; the original Friday the 13th VHS cover is one of the greatest "VHS artworks" of all-time), and I remember we also snuck that and brought it to my house and did the same thing...I know it's such a cheesy movie but watching it at the age of 8 or 9 was a little startling...We found the classic Kevin Bacon scene (fans will know what I'm talking about) just brutal...Nowadays, it's one of my favorite horror movie series, but I have to admit that I actually did find it scary as a kid...

Anyway, those were the ones that frightened me a bit as a kid...

Goonies85

While I wasn't traumatized by this movie (probably because I was at least 14 or 15 when I first saw it), I remember catching it on TV as a late-night movie one night...At that point, I hadn't even seen the first one...I was glued to the TV, and it was awesome because the TV channel at the time did not censor it, as it started at like 1:00 AM...I remember immediately going out and purchasing a VHS copy the next day...Just a brutally effective movie, and probably my favorite James Cameron film...I really wish they'd make an actual sequel to this one, with Sigourney back...And just ignore Alien 3 (which I don't hate, like some, but it just went in a direction that the series probably shouldn't have gone in...And no, I don't blame Fincher...I'm aware of the backstory)...

OldBoy

that's a good one. i still remember some of those images of people being eradicated instantly by the bomb. it was horrorifying whenever i saw it when it was shown on tv and always stuck with me...

Draven

Lots of moments in The Beastmaster fueled a few nightmares.

mewmartigan

I made my dad leave the theater during Ghostbusters II. I think it was after the train scene.

At home, I scared myself watching Jaws 3. The part where the half eaten body floats up past the viewing tunnel at sea world. I saw that body in my room and under my bed for quite a while after that.

rw2516

Not traumatized, but scared the hell out of us. As a kid we would set up a tent in the backyard and sleep outside. Sometimes we ran an extension cord from the garage and had a small b&w portable tv in the tent. One night we watched Horrors of the Black Museum on the late show. Afterwards we had to go in the house because we were too scared to stay outside.

TGM

that Australian movie "Fortress".

Josh-da-man

Hellraiser.

Horror flucks don't generally freak me out, but Uncle Frank walking around bloody, drippy, and skinless like a drawing from an anatomy book triggered the fuck out of me for some reason. It's still an image that disturbs me.

cultshock

Fuck me, I remember watching that same film on TV when I was around the same age. Scared the shit out of me, I had to leave the room and couldn't finish watching it.

Some of you watched some of these films when you were wayyyyy too young, "A Clockwork Orange" when ten? "Witness" when four years old? WTF??

rw2516

I saw Blood Feast at the drive-in when I was five. It didn't scare me or warp my mind, but definitely an experience you never forget.

Vipper II

'The Gate'

It was the construction worker in the wall that gave me nightmares for a few nights.

Then there was the scene in the original 'Night of the Living Dead' where the girl takes the trowel to her mother.

stvn1974

Wrath Of Khan


When Khan put that slug like thing in Chekov's ear. I am 43 and I still get nightmares about that.

Norm de Plume

I remember being scared shitless by the ending of Sorry, Wrong Number (the boots on the stairs). The shipwreck scene in The Black Stallion was also frightening for this little lad. And the rat-eating scene in Time Bandits comes to mind as well.

JeffTheAlpaca

Poltergeist

I wonder how that got a "PG" rating when it should have been rated "R"