My dads brother visited us one time - when I was around 7 years old - and they sent me to bed and watched a movie together on TV. I’m not sure where my mom was, perhaps taking care of my little brother, but I quietly went down the stairs and saw them watching the movie, and I stayed very quietly so they would not know I’m there.
It was a Bruce Lee movie, “The Big Boss (1971)”. In that movie Bruce works at a ice factory and his boss kills some people and puts them into the ice. That’s not the worst of it. They then have those big ice blocks and a big blade saw and that saw cuts the big blocks into smaller peaces. It also cuts those bodies in the ice blocks into smaller pieces.
I couldn’t believe what I saw and went back upstairs and couldn’t fall asleep. I never told my parents.
Evil Dead
Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, when I was like 8. Was all fun and games until they ripped that slaves heart out and dunked it into the lava, or something to that extent. It’s been a while since I last watched it, the details are a bit hazy.
I can totally clear up those details for you, but the details are rather extreme, so you get to decide.
Spoiler!
They ripped the guys heart out, and slowly lowered the guy into the lava. During the descent you can see the heart beating faster and faster as the guy panics, then just as he gets to the lava they do a close up shot of the high priest holding the heart up as it bursts into flames. spoiler:::
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
I couldn’t sleep…
Same. And eggplants scared the hell out of me after seeing that. I guess they looked enough like the things the aliens came out of.
Scary Movie 3. Among many reasons that’s a film you shouldn’t watch as a child, that was my introduction to the Ring, and I had a TV in my room.
An American Werewolf in London.
I stayed up watching it on my brother’s black and white TV. My parents had no idea. I nearly shit the bed afterward when my brother jumped on me in the dark and yelled “raaaah.”
Brain Damage. Scary and way too sexual for a little kid.
Jaws. Watched it when I was about 8. Now in my 40s and still don’t like being in open water or sea where I can’t see the bottom… I know what’s down there…
Same movie, same age, same irrational thoughts in water!
I live 3hrs from the coast and even swimming in a crystal clear fresh water river, it’s still in the back of my mind as an adult, as I kid, I wouldn’t even swim a alone in our pool!
When I was around 10-11 my dad sat me down to watch Mulholland Drive with him (because a coworker got it confused with another, more wholesome movie)
For the most part, my neurons were plastic enough to just accept the weird surreal dream logic, but for some reason my subconscious drew the line at sex. I must have been flushing, because my dad turned to me after the movie was over and started apologizing profusely.
The only time I remember feeling that much stunned embarassment/shame at watching a movie was when I got my sister Enter The Void as a gift, having never seen it. (Great movie, but the incestual implications make it hard to watch with family).
Now I’m a lesbian. Mulholland Drive got to me young enough to forever warp my sexuality. (Enter The Void, luckily, did not).
I was chaperoning on a school bus full of kindergarteners. They started chatting about the scariest movies they had ever seen. Some of them were talking about Goosebumps and some were talking about stuff in the realm of ET. The one little boy in my group looked up to me and said that stuff for babies that’s nothing. I said oh yeah? What are you watch. He said I like Jason I like Freddy I like Michael Myers. I asked him which scenes that he thought were the best and he actually seemed to have watched it all. I said so what did you think of IT by Stephen King. His eyes got wide and he said no no no no no no no. We’re not going to talk about that.
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I’m scarred for life :/
There was a movie with Rosie O’Donnell called Exit to Eden. My mom was not particularly uptight about us seeing R rated stuff and the previews made it look like a slightly dirty comedy. It was Rosie O’Donnell in like…the 90’s so I mean…she did not look into it any further than that.
Turns out it’s basically a soft core porno with a couple funny bits and it was extremely awkward to sit through.
The movie (that I literally didn’t know existed until right this moment) is based on a novel by Anne Rice, under the pen name Anne Rampling.
She also wrote a series of BDSM novels about Sleeping Beauty under the pen name A. N. Roquelaure.
Revenge of the Nerds when I was 7. Adult forgot about the peephole scene.
Candyman. I couldn’t even look in a mirror for weeks.
I was around 7 and my much older brother convinced me to stay up until very late in the evening when the dirty softcore stuff was on tv. Must have been midnight or whatever. Finally it started… I don’t know what I expected but I was like “that’s it??!” It was so boring! Fell asleep a minute later.
Stephen King’s IT from behind the couch.
How I didn’t develop a lifelong fear of clowns I have no idea.
