Long time reader, first time poster.  Love the topic.

Scary movie moment: I went with a friend to see “The Ring” when it first came out and was suitably freaked.  My parents had gone to visit some out of town family members, so when I got back to my house I was alone for the night.  To get my mind off the The Ring, I decided to watch a comedy.  We had this drawer full of old VHS tapes, so I pulled one out (don’t remember which one) and put it in the VCR.  I guess I had neglected to rewind it the last time I had watched it years ago, because when I pressed play, static filled the screen.  Instantly expecting Samara to crawl out of my TV, I reached for the remote and turned the TV off.  “No big deal”, I though.

Then the friggin phone rings.  I swear, I jumped high enough to enough to check the wattage in the ceiling light.

Also, I’m not sure why, but every once in a while I’ll wake up in absolute terror.  Heart racing, adrenaline pumping, short of breath, the works.  When this happens, I fly out of bed and turn on the light, convinced that there’s something horrifying in the room with me.  I guess it’s because I was having a nightmare, but since I can never remember my dreams, I can’t be sure.

Chestnuts roasted by Nick @ 10/18/2008 3:55 PM

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Holy CRAP, Leah!!! That is TERRIFYING! Urgh! What did you guys do after the police had come?

And no, your gramma’s not the only one t do stuff like that, don’t worry.

Chestnuts roasted by LemonWitch @ 10/18/2008 4:58 PM

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lemonwitch: The house that we rented was two hundred years old, and spooky as hell to begin with, which I loved, but this just made it so much creepier!  The basement had a coal cellar with a coal chute that we already had locked, and we boarded up the window until it could be fixed.  From that point on, though, anytime someone was missing beer or peanut butter, or any other thing that will go missing when living with so many people, it was always blamed on Basement Guy.

Chestnuts roasted by Leahmay @ 10/18/2008 5:57 PM

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My family lives in a really old farm house in Maine. It used to be a big huge chicken and canning operation, but that closed down years ago. A son of the family was killed somewhere “in the European theater” in WWII, and we have a few of the love letters he wrote to his sweetheart that were found in the house. When renovating the roof and an upstairs bathroom we found a few bottles of snake oil and an ancient lantern chimney. A lot of really weird things have happened there. The first night we moved in I woke up, rolled over in bed and saw the silhouette of a HUGE dog in the doorway, illuminated by the bathroom light. We have a german shepard, but she is show dog size and not very big. The dog I saw was a great dane. I remember thinking it was odd but had a feeling it was just checking me out – so I rolled over and went back to sleep. A few years later my Dad took a job out of state and my Mom went with him. I had a really good job there, so my sister and I stayed behind to take care of the 10+ room house ourselves. It was the dead of winter and my parents were coming home for a visit, so my sister and I were cleaning the house up. My job let me make my own hours, so I generally was up until 2 or 3 am… which was the time it was when this occured. I had just finished vacuuming and my sister came into the kitchen to talk to me. As we’re chatting I’m looking past her into the dining room, her back is to the door. I see walking behind her the upper shoulder and collar of a grey men’s suit. Not a whole body, just this part – it walks past the door into the old cellar door (now a jelly cupboard). She said all the color drained from my face and I went white. She said, and I quote. “There’s something behind me isn’t there?” Another sister owns the farm adjacent to ours, and our property connects. One night we went out to sit on a bench my brother in law built in the back field. Darkness is falling, and as we’re chatting we see this light walking up the tree line between our fields. It wasn’t a flashlight, it looked like a lantern. We asked, but none of the family had been out there and I still don’t know who it was. After we did some renovations to the house stuff picked up a LOT. One night my sister and I were sitting in a room adjacent to her bedroom. As it’s winter and that room had poor heat, we had tacked a sheet up over her bedroom door to keep the heat that was in that room, in there. The lights are on in her room. We are watching TV in this room when we hear someone come running, POUNDING, across the dining room downstairs, up the stairs, across her room and then nothing, it was so hard you could feel the floor vibrate…. we both turned on instinct, feeling as if someone was going to jump through that sheet and attack us, but there was no one in her room and no shadows had been cast on the sheet. My Dad and I were the only ones home on a summer day shortly after renovations had begun. I’m upstairs in my bedroom on the computer, he’s downstairs in the library, these rooms are right on top of one another. He comes to the bottom of the stairs out of the library and asks me if I had come downstairs a moment ago, to which I answer No, my butt was still planted in the chair. Not even 10 minutes later he saw “me” or a “young girl” come down the stairs again, past the library door and walk into the dining room. Another time my parents were sitting in the lodge, another bright summer day, and see someone in a light shirt and dark pants walk past the picture window and into the field out back. They went outside to look but there was no one around. My Mother also saw a woman’s head covered in a bonnet walk past the dining room window outside. I’ve got a bunch more stories, but this is kind of long!

Chestnuts roasted by arashi @ 10/19/2008 12:05 AM

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Well, I’m super late to the game here, but this is way too awesome a thread to pass up. Just a warning though – my stories are really lame.

Okay, first one: So, it was my seventh birthday, and I loved nature shows. I was watching TV with my sister, who was 16, and thought that ‘When Animals Attack’ sounded like a good choice – since it had the word ‘animals’ in it. BAD DECISION. It featured a story about a girl, about my age, who had been attacked by a cougar and had half her face ripped off – and gleefully lingered on all the gory details, including just how terrifying it was to feel something gnawing on your head and not being able to get away. Holy shit, I didn’t sleep for weeks. I was always terrified that a cougar would jump in through my window and eat me – which seemed reasonable to me since I lived in a small town in the bush, but I didn’t take into account the fact that a cougar would need a ladder to reach my window. For about a year I would lie in bed with my eyes closed and slowly become more and more certain that I could feel a cougar’s breath on my neck, and that if I opened my eyes I would see it and it would eat me. Strange thing is, during the day I was REALLY fascinated by them, and would read every book I could find about cougars. Go figure.

Up until a few months ago, when I moved away, I used to look after my sister’s house and pets (all 500 million of them) whenever she and her husband went away. Well, I’m not so good with being alone at night, especially since her house is in the area where all the delinquent teenagers like to hang out (I should point out that I have always had a nearly debilitating fear of teenagers, even when I was one). Anyways, there have been a few times in her house when I would be trying to fall asleep and for some reason would start thinking about what would happen if someone tried to break in. As I continued down this line of thought I would become absolutely certain that there was a man standing in my room with a knife, just staring at me. Sometimes my eyes were closed when I felt this, and sometimes they were open. I would just stare and stare at the spot where I thought he was, trying in vain to see him in the dark.

Now, scary movies/tv shows (aside from the cougar one):

A show called ‘A Haunting in Connecticut’ that I watched a few years ago in the middle of the night. It had this red-eyed devil looking guy show up suddenly at one point and I imagined him standing outside my bedroom door all night. Slept with the light on.

The three seconds I saw of Jurassic Park when I was little, in which a person was torn in half, with very realistic entrails.

A Nightmare Before Christmas (still hate that movie), The Sandlot (it had a scary junk yard dog and I was really little, okay?) and parts of Alice in Wonderland.

That time I watched The Blair Witch Project alone, in the dark, at two in the morning. Another ‘sleep with the light on’ night.

And, last but not least, scary (at the time) dreams:

Two years old – I dreamt that a giant raisin fell from the sky and crushed my house. My mom said I was absolutely terrified.

Seven-ish – A giant duck (I know, I know, but it was horrible) chased me around and bit my ear off, and when I tried to kill it by shrinking it and biting it in half (yeah, wtf?) it just turned into TWO giant ducks. Fuck.

Eighteen – I dreamt that I was exploring a haunted house with some guy and his sister and as we were walking from room to room, the guy became possessed. He then went totally nuts, grabbed a chainsaw, and told his sister that he’d “always wanted to do this” as he tried to chop her up. Her and I ran out and back to the car as fast as we could, and didn’t even stop to warn these other guys that were just heading in. When we reached the car, I suddenly woke up. I looked over at my alarm clock and thought it was weird that the numbers were green, since they’d always been red before. Then I got up to go to the bathroom, still feeling frightened from the dream, and when I got there and tried to turn on the light, it wouldn’t work. After flicking it a few times, I figured I’d just find my way by touch. But as I started feeling around, I realised I was back in my bedroom. I couldn’t turn the light on in my bedroom either and kept trying to get to the bathroom but always ended up in back in my bedroom. Finally I got so freaked out that I woke up (again). Looked at my alarm clock again, and thank god, the numbers were red.

Oh, there was also this one time when I was fifteen when I babysat for my sister’s friend while they went out partying. Her and another friend got back around 4 AM-ish and passed out in the master bedroom. At about 5 AM I heard footsteps coming towards the room I was sleeping in. Now, I was not asleep, since I had a bad case of insomnia all night, but my eyes were closed. I heard the door open and saw the light come on, but thought it was probably my sister’s friend checking on me. About fifteen seconds later the light turned off and whoever it was went away. But a few minutes later, they were back and flicked on the light again. I thought this was weird, but still kept my eyes shut. The person just stood there for a while, then turned the light off and went away again. Another few minutes, and they were back again. This time I was kind of scared. I kept my eyes closed, hoping they’d go away again, but they didn’t. I could feel eyes watching me and then there were footsteps coming towards my bed. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and opened my eyes. There was a strange man standing over me. He noticed I was awake, and quickly retreated out of the room. Terrified, I tried to act like nothing had happened, so I grabbed my book from beside the bed and started reading. About half an hour later, I heard the two friends in the master bedroom talking about something the guy had just done, and they mentioned that he was still in the house - sitting in the living room to be precise. Apparently, he was a drunk acquaintance of theirs who they had left passed out in their car. It would seem he woke up at some point and made it into the house, at which time he started causing trouble. Eventually they called my sister and her boyfriend to come over and get rid of the guy (my sister can be pretty scary, lol). It’s kinda funny that just a few hours earlier I had been trying to get scared watching this awesome show ‘Fear’ on YTV. I wasn’t so thrilled about being actually scared.

Sorry that was so long and lame, but I did warn you that the stories were stupid, and you could always scroll past ‘em, right?

Chestnuts roasted by Frakkyfire @ 10/19/2008 5:26 AM

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Something I forgot about… one night I was with two friends driving to the video store. It had been raining off and on that day, so the roads were still wet. My friend who was driving was going fast and showing off a little, since we were on a back road. Well, she turned a corner too fast and the next thing we knew, the car spun around, slid to the edge of the road and flipped upside down into the ditch. I was damn near hysterical but managed to undo my seatbelt and crawl out of the car via the broken back windshield. Thankfully none of us were hurt, unless you count the car. One of the scariest experiences of my life… as a result, I’m uber-careful when driving in rain.

Chestnuts roasted by Cheetara @ 10/19/2008 2:13 PM

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Oh, and the movie Return to Oz, especially those fuckin wheelers. That whole movie just has a sinister vibe.

Chestnuts roasted by Cheetara @ 10/19/2008 8:07 PM

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OH MAN, all Momby’s heads screaming at once as her beheaded body starts to chase Dorothy… no wonder I was such a fucked up kid who developed a taste for the macabre. Another part that scared the shit out of me is when Dorothy and Ozma are escaping from the hospital. You can hear this horrible moaning in the hallway, and Ozma tell Dorothy that there are patients who have been damaged and locked in the cellar. That movie is creepy to the max, which is why I love it.

I know exactly what you mean about the disappointing lack of darker entertainment these days… Sad, very sad. There were things we saw as kids that screwed with our heads, but I think it made us all the more interesting.

Chestnuts roasted by Cheetara @ 10/19/2008 10:04 PM

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two events:
As a kid I was taken on a visit to a ‘friend of the family’. Thier daughter’s room was at the end of a long dark hall. She had a pink room or a pink lamp that cast a reddish glow in the room. The topper was one of those life-size dolls that stood in the corner and looked down the hall at you. Looking into your soul to see how your innocent heart would feed its evil spirits within …. It totally felt that way at the time. I spent the whole evening in the living room with a bladder ready to burst because I couldnt get to the bathroom without walking past the hall-of-doom. Years later when the Shining (original) came out I coulnt watch it all because of the sceen where you see the pigman in the room totally brought that moment back.

As an adult I was mugged by a dude with a shotgun while my wife was pregnant with our first child. As soon as the guy stepped outta the shadows and I saw what he was holding I froze and looked away. The whole time I was fishing out my wallet and handing over my stuff I kept thinking ‘I must still be alive because I havn’t heard the BANG.’ Fortunately the guy just took my keys, watch, wallet and bag. The police caught him less than 2 hours later and I had most of my stuff back that very night. He was appearently a bit of dumbass …. with a sawed-off shotgun. 

As scary as the adult experience was, its the childhood experience that still gets my hands cold when I think about

Chestnuts roasted by Ubernerd @ 10/20/2008 12:00 PM

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OMG,
I hate bad dreams, I had one few years back, and I will never forget it. I dreamt that I was at a faire, and my parents were with me, I was looking in different tents, and I came across a tattoo artist. I told him that I wanted a butterfly on my ear, but then I changed my mind to sun and moon. All of a sudden, a deafing nose came outside, people were screaming, I Looked out of the tent and people were running in every direction, Sirens like air raids were going off, the air was so hot, I tried looking for my parents, and saw them on the other side of the field. We ran towards each other, but just as we reached each other something enomormus fell from the sky right in front of us.

Chestnuts roasted by Kupo @ 10/20/2008 3:09 PM

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So The Gate was be all end all the scariest movie I had ever seen as a kid.  We watched it one Halloween night in the dusty basement of my friends house.  The house was weird, it made strange noises, odd thuds and since the rest of the house was kept in pristine order, that only enhanced the creepiness of the basement… and that did NOT help while watching this movie at 1am while we were supposed to be asleep.  Scared the living shit out of us.  I think we were 10 at the time.  The part where the hands come out from under the bed for some reason stuck with me… so simple and so cliche, yet it struck a cord… and we could have sworn we saw one of those little one eye’d demons coming down the stairs.  I think we had every light in the house on in 6 minutes.  

Flash forward some 13 years later… I had not seen or heard anything about the movie The Gate in those 13 years.  Never saw it on TV, never rented it, never even thought about it except in those rare nightmares where you wake up drenched in sweat with that nerve in your forehead twitching.  So I’m at a friend’s house (different friend) and there’s about 9 of there, we’re all loafing around drinking, smoking, doing what you do on a wednesday night and somehow the conversation comes up… What was the scariest movie you’ve ever seen.  Everyone is recounting memories of Jason and Freddy when I decide to conjure up my darkest fears about the movie The Gate… as I’m talking one of the girls who’s idling listening decided to click on the TV, what the fuck would be ON THE TV?!  THE MOTHERFUCKING GATE!! right at the part where good old Steve Dorff is outside reading from the book.  Everyone in the room just sat there staring at the screen, blank expressions painted on their faces… double whammy.  Scared two times by the same movie. 

I have not seen the movie since that first time as a kid and the subsequent 2 minutes of screen time on that night since like many fond childhood memories, this is an instance where I’d like to preserve my moments of sheer dread based on rose (blood?) colored glasses peering into the recesses of my memories.  I’d rather not taint those memories by seeing the movie as laughable as it surely is.

Chestnuts roasted by Double G @ 10/20/2008 6:12 PM

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Long time reader (Since around ’03 or ’04, my Middle School years blend together), first time comment poster. I think this subject is special to me, because this is the reason I found this website in the first place.

When I was 5, I saw my brother watching Child’s Play on tv. I asked what it was, noticing the friendly looking Good Guy Doll, reminding me of my hand-me-down My Buddy. My brother quickly changed the channel, knowing I would cry, scream, and rat him out to mom had I watched any further into the film.

This only rose my curiosity more… What ever it was, he didn’t want me to see it. Why, oh why would my own brother not want me to see a movie dedicated to cool dolls that it was alright for boys to own? I formulated a plan quickly…

I took note that he hit “Up” on the remote, and thanks to the channel display in the corner of the screen when you change, I little subtraction lead me to knowing exactly which channel to watch. I got my older sister to come with me to my room, hoping that if I got caught watching what ever it was I wasn’t supposed to watch I could pin the blame on her.

I kept promising her “something cool” as I turned on my old black and white tv… It was only a few seconds later did I see Chucky spring to life and attack Andy’s mom.

From that moment on, I hated anything Child’s Play. Any room with dolls in it that weren’t baby dolls, any video aisle with Child’s Play sitting on the shelf, any Spencer Gift’s with a Chucky Doll in their display window, and any bootleg drawing of Chucky Finster that somehow made him look maleviolent. I’ve seen all the possibilities and pissed myself infront of them.

When I turned 13 I made friends with a horror movie nut, who would not let me hang out with him until I solved his riddle. “Hail to the…” granted, I didn’t hear of Evil Dead until the day after when my mom bought me the trilogy on DVD, but I DID play Duke Nukem. “Hail to the King” allowed me into his kingdom of slasher flicks and autographed Bruce Campbell books.

He helped me get over my fear of Chucky, something he once had as well. I watched the second movie first, the comic relief, and smart-ass remarks out of Chucky actually broke the fear for me. For 8 years I had this devilish imp in my mind, and never seen any of the movies, but knew his face well enough from brief, accidental glimpses of movie covers. I had him made out in my mind to be much scarier than he turned out to be.

My mom always says, when you face a fear you risk making it an addiction. I fell in love with horror films, and Child’s Play especially. I spent my usual time googling everything off the top of my head, and Child’s Play 2 took me to this site. I’ve visited once a week ever since.

There you go, my childhood trauma with a happy ending! Glad to be one of the many site goers!

Chestnuts roasted by Spen @ 10/21/2008 5:44 PM

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