I'm afraid to admit it...

[Wingnut]

Most people (I think) have a movie that traumatized them as a child. For some people, it's a legitimately scary movie. For the little brother of a high school friend of mine, it was "Fern Gully." How you can be scared by that movie is beyond me.

So I want to know what movie you still can't watch because of negative childhood associations?

Mine...is E.T.

[Dr T]

Wizard of OZ! (have u seen those monkeys? and that WITCH?!)

[Guest JHM-in-Bountiful]

For me it was the "Wizard of OZ". I was not afraid of flying monkeys or witches. It was the Wizard. Seeing an angry Head yelling and being surrounded by smoke frightened me. For many years that was my impression of what Heavenly Father is like.

[kona0197]

Nightmare on Elm street

[skalenfehl]

I must have been about 4 or 5. Something like that. The following scene in "The Fly" traumatized me.

YouTube - The Fly (1958) - Help Me! Help Me!

I still remember being horrified and crying for him and being confused at the same time. I remember my dad trying to quell my emotionally charged state. Looking back, I laugh. It wasn't funny back then, though. Still there isn't anything that traumatized me so much that I can't watch it today.

There was another monster movie that scared the snot out of me but I can't remember what it's called. I just remember some kind of mud monster (human-like) trying to get in a house and when he tried getting through the door, the man/woman slammed it shut, cutting its hand off. They spread salt all over the basement floor and steps and the monster burned from the salt. Something weird like that. Maybe I was just dreaming it, I don't know. My memory is too vague. I'm sure it was in the early '70's when it came out on TV.

I just had an epiphany. Perhaps being exposed to these sorts of films as a boy is why I don't care to watch horror flicks today. I still watch them sometimes, but I just don't care to sit through each jump-from-the-edge-of-my-seat moment.

Edited December 16, 2008 by skalenfehl

[tubaloth]

Little Shop of Horrors

I don't know if it scared me, but just always remember watching that the first time.

That and Newsies, Batman can never be the same.

[Lbybug]

DUMBO oh my gosh that movie is the scariest ever. i still can't watch it. well not the whole movie, but the scene where the mouse gets drunk and sees all those scary elephants. i still to this day cannot watch that scene.

[pam]

Well this didn't traumatize me as a kid but as a teenager. When the original Jaws came out, the opening scene where the couple are drunk on the beach. The girl swims out to the buoy where the shark gets her. Was so real to me to this day I won't go any farther into the water at the beach than to my knees.

[Dr T]

hahaha on the Bumbo ride at Disneyland I tell my kids u can keep this flying longer than all the othe other elephants by doing a code I figured out. I goes U=UP D=Down. Ok kids, When u get in the elephant u need to push U, D, U, U, D, U, D, D U, D,U,U,D,D,U. I memorize the sequense so I convince them that is the same sequence every time and that i has to be in the same order for it work. So I practice a few times show they and then i watch them all try it with no avail. "AWWW U were close may one or two off a little or at the wrong time. The always think, we'll go it righ next time. hahaha it's fun to watch.

[Misshalfway]

For me, it was the early Lord of the Rings animated movie. That cartoon Gollum really disturbed me.

[Hemidakota]

Wingnut....you find many here have that issue. I do clearly remember "the Exorcist" the movie. I was traumatize for months. :)

Edited December 16, 2008 by Hemidakota

[pushka]

I was traumatised at 15 when I watched Watership Down at the cinema..I cried for the full 20 minutes or so journey home on the bus!

Prior to that, when I was probz aged 11 or so, I cried watching The Last Of The Curlews, or summat like that..I remember sitting on the settee with a teatowel to wipe away my tears, and my family standing around laughing at me

I also have a vaguely disturbing feeling when I recall the Childcatcher in the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang film too..

[Guest Alana]

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The part when they are in the tunnel...ugh. My husband loves that movie, so I bought it, as a way of taking on my fears. I was able to watch it, but I didn't like it. Whenever my husband sings the umpa lompa songs (which he happens to know all the words to, punk) I get creeped out.

Also a movie that REALLY scared me when I was little was Cat's Eye. I just looked it up and all the scared feelings came back. I don't want any little creatures stealing my breath!!! I would be so terrified as I fell asleep. I'd pull all the blankets over my head (they can't get you if you're under the blankets) and make a little breathing hole. I swear I was hearing stuff in my room. I'd wake up in the morning all sore and having not moved an inch.

[applepansy]

Age 17, The Legend of Hell House. That movie was about a pure evil spirit. I even tried to watch it again about 6 years ago, on TV, in the daylight. NOPE!!! Evil!

Age 50, I couldn't watch the movie 1408.

Evil spirits are too real. I can't watch movies about them.

applepansy

[applepansy]

Wingnut....you find many here have that issue. I do clearly remember "Exorcise" the movie. I was traumatize for months. :)

My husband was bothered by "The Exorcist" To this day he won't "let" me see that movie. LOL I allow him to think he "lets" me do anything.

applepansy

[talisyn]

Remember all those crazy mausoleum horror movies from the 80s? The one I remember had a bunch of evil jawa-looking creatures who come through a portal from some horrible dimension. I couldn't sleep well for about 3 months >< I'm sure my daughter thinks I'm terrible but I won't let her watch anything worse than the Twillight Zone.

[NeuroTypical]

I actually read the book The Shining in middle school. It brought with it an intense fear of the dark. It teamed up with my existing fear of spiders, and probably caused a nightmare about a scary monkey demon living on the ceiling of our stairwell.

Our basement stair light was a bulb haning at the bottom of the stairs, and you had to walk to the bottom and then reach your hand out in the dark spidery night to turn on the bulb. Not only that, but you had to turn out the last basement light, and then sprint to the lighted upstairs with the spidery devil monkey darkness enveloping you and clutching at your back.

To this day, I have to spend extra energy to reach into dark rooms to turn on lights. So I bond with my daughters who are having some less traumatic fears of darkness, and we face our fears together.

LM

[Wingnut]

I also have a vaguely disturbing feeling when I recall the Childcatcher in the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang film too..

Yeah the Childcatcher is a little creepy, but to me it's worth it to see the queen get freaked by the little kids. Maybe the Childcatcher is the reason Mr. Wing won't watch that movie.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The part when they are in the tunnel...ugh. My husband loves that movie, so I bought it, as a way of taking on my fears. I was able to watch it, but I didn't like it. Whenever my husband sings the umpa lompa songs (which he happens to know all the words to, punk) I get creeped out.

I love the Oompa Loompa songs, but yeah, the tunnel scene is a little disturbing, even as a grown up.

[RainofGold]

Wingnut....you find many here have that issue. I do clearly remember "the Exorcist" the movie. I was traumatize for months. :)

Without my mom knowing I went to the movies with my older sisters to see

"The Exorcist", in big screen. I was only 15 years old, and to this day I still have nightmares of that girl. I regret watching the movie, I don't think they have made another movie that has being scarier than "The Exorcist".

[kona0197]

The new or old Charlie and The Chocolate factory?

The Mist was pretty bad but the book was as well.

[Wingnut]

As an adult, I didn't like the movie What Lies Beneath. I thought ti was pretty dark.

[Guest Alana]

The old Charlie and the Chocolate factory scared me. The new one is fine. In fact, I think we'll watch it for quiet time today!

[kona0197]

The old Charlie was pretty bad compared to the new one.

[Dr T]

The new one freaked me out way beyond the old one! Nothing in the old one did for me but my sister in law was scared in that movie. The new one just showed that character way too pedophilish to me!

[pam]

I love the old Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Gene Wilder is amazing in it. I like Johnny Depp but love the original one better.