The Horror Thread 2U • Page 898

My love for horror was shaped by a few forms of media as a kid. As a child, my parents had on VHS every episode of Scooby Doo from the OG series. I rewatched them all the time and caught the other series on Boomerang.

Secondly, Scholastic book fair was huge as a kid. Goosebumps changed my world along with Fear Street and Scary Stories. I’d also find Christopher Pike books at yard sales.

 

only got into horror during my late teens, early 20s. i think the closest films that shaped me to appreciate the genre were Signs (particularly that one alien scene) and of course the chest-burster from Alien (which i believe i first watched in high school right before Prometheus released).

 

It’s a pretty interesting question. I was sheltered as hell as a kid so I wasn’t allowed to watch horror. That said, naturally, some things bled through because of friends, extended family members, etc. My list would be weird, but would probably look like this:

1.) E.T. - Yep. This was the first movie that scared the shit out of me as a kid lol. I love the movie now, but as a child I thought E.T. looked disgusting and that scene where Elliott sleeps outside in the chair to see if he can catch whatever is in the shed and wakes up to the silhouette of E.T. wobbling toward him was my first “NOPE. NOOOOOOOPE” cinematic moment for me. My aunt and uncle thought I loved the movie so for Christmas they got me a poster of E.T. in the basket of Elliott’s bike pointing his glowing finger at you and my parents hung it on the back of my door so every night he’d be staring at me and that was how I started sleeping like a mummy. Speaking of mummies…

2.) The Mummy (1999) - My dad took me to see this in theaters and, even though I was scared of it (again, sheltered), I thought it was funny, I loved Brendan Fraser, and the effects were pretty cool. I was getting a little older so the fear didn’t have as much of a hold on me and instead I was starting to find it interesting. HOWEVER, when I went to see the movie they played a trailer for a horror movie that I never saw, but the trailer freaked me out just enough to keep me up in a cold sweat that night after I came home from watching The Mummy. That trailer was for:

3.) The Haunting (1999) - It’s got a reputation for being a corn fest now, but I’ll never forget the teaser trailer that played before The Mummy. It was this one:

and that’s all it was. I don’t know, I could never get that lady’s voice out of my head describing a house as “these are its bones, this is its skin, these are its eyes…” The teaser doesn’t even show any of the story, but the vagueness is what scared the hell out of me. I was also, weirdly, intensely curious about it even though the stupid thing kept me up all night. I’ve found in adulthood that that curiosity is a commonality for lovers of horror. It’s why, the first time I was brave enough to watch:

4.) Jurassic Park - I fell in love with it. I remember being nervous about watching it during the opening raptor scene, but then at some point it became…fun. I remember finishing it with my parents and feeling like my mind had been opened and I wanted to watch it again right away. Early the very next morning my mom came downstairs to the basement to find me watching it alone, which surprised her and I remember asking her “can we rent “The Lost World” now?”

I’d give a special shout out to Nightmare on Elm Street as that was the first horror movie I ever sat through at 13 years old because my older sister was watching it on TV. It absolutely scared me, and I was 100% up that night terrified to go to sleep, BUT I also remember thinking “I think I want to watch that again…”

Also shout out to Danny Devito’s Penguin in Batman Returns, watching Shang Tsung steal people’s souls in the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie I watched at my friend’s house even though I wasn’t allowed to, catching my first glimpse of The Shining while watching Twister (the hallway scene with the twins, which is all I’d ever seen of it and also totally kept me up that night) and also that episode of Boy Meets World, “And Then There Was Shawn” which genuinely scared me lol.

 

Actually, you know, when The Sixth Sense went to video I remember my parents deciding to let me watch it and I was definitely scared of it, but then I made a copy of the VHS (lol) and started watching it again to see what I would notice now that I knew the ending. 1999 was a pretty packed year I guess.

 

1) Beetlejuice
2) Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
3) Leprechaun
4) The Shining

Early Burton really shaped my sensibilities and proclivity toward horror mixed with absurd comedy. Large Marge was pivotal to my early nightmares.

Probably said this in the thread before, but Leprechaun was THE movie that scared me as a kid. The idea of a little guy coming out of my closet or under my bed to bite my ear off was my biggest late-night scare.

I remember the night I stayed at a friend’s house when I was 10 and his mom took us to rent movies. She was a big Stephen King fan, so she recommended The Shining and Salem’s Lot. We watched both that night and I was forever changed and knew horror was my favorite genre.

 

Oh god, yeah, Large Marge. That movie was playing on TV one Saturday afternoon as a kid and I was flipping through channels. I stopped on the movie because I watched his show and liked it so I was sitting there enjoying myself until that scene like “Hey, this is pretty fu-OH MY GOD!”

Instant childhood trauma.

 

i've brought it up in here before, i still don't know the name of the clown mask cowboy movie i saw a part of as a kid.

maybe "cowboy" is a misnomer. it was a rocky desert area, and it was pretty bloody, that's all i remember

 

Saw Saw for the first time, I’m not usually into that vibe but it was better than I thought. One of my wife’s favorites and now she might make me watch the rest.

 

Love this, great question. I also feel like my biggest gateways were TV, i.e. Treehouse of Horror and VHS tapes of The Twilight Zone, but if I had to pick four movies that I distinctly remember watching and retaining early in life, they would probably be:

1) The Sixth Sense (tent and cabinet scenes in particular)
2) The Blair Witch Project (I lived down a country road from my older friends and had to walk next to the woods in the dark back from their house at night)
3) Shaun of the Dead (probably saw this before any other zombie flick way before I should have, the scene where the zombies rip that one guy's guts out disturbed me so bad)
4) Alien vs. Predator (I saw this before any other Alien or Predator movies and I wouldn't call it particularly scary, but I thought it was the coolest movie in the world as a 10-year-old and I kind of still do)

 

Shaun of the Dead and Signs are great shouts. absolute classics

 

Black Christmas (1974) remains one of the best and coziest and most effective horror movies of all time.

 

I agree that there’s definitely a lot of TV that shaped me too. I mean Scooby-Doo is general was probably my first obsession as a little kid before even those movies. The Goosebumps books would also be up there

 

Onto Christmas Evil

 

1. Scream (1996)
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
3. Labyrinth (1986)
4. The Addams Family (1991)

My mom let me watch Scream when I was like 8 or 9 years old. I remember being a bit weirded out by all the blood in the kitchen scene in the third act but I loved everything else. Thought the Ghostface mask was so cool (still do obv).

I also watched Buffy at a really young age. Loved all the vampire scenes. Movie still rules and is very underrated imo

Thought a lot of the puppets in Labyrinth were creepy.

I liked the morbid humor in Addams Family at a young age and the goth aesthetic. Could probably swap another movie here but I’m not trying to think too hard about it lol

 

Would Buffy hold up for a first time viewer? Always kind of steered clear because of the Joss Whedon of it all, but I know a lot of folks love it

 

I feel like I know your taste well enough to know you’d have a good time with it and yeah, unfortunately that scumbags name is attached to it.

 

They’re both his shows so it doesn’t really matter in that case, but if you haven’t watched Angel, you should watch Angel.

 

I’m talking about the movie from 1992. But I do love the shows too, haven’t watched the shows in years though

 

Whoops missed that part. My bad. Haha

 

Why can’t I stop thinking about how much I enjoyed Terrifier 3? I feel like a kid who secretly watched something they very much weren’t supposed to.

 

nope. i don't do clowns.

 

watched 1408 with the family and we all agreed it still whips. having read the short story recently too it really shows what a great job they did adapting it to screen, love that they kept the weird shit like a phone telling Cusack "all your friends are dead"

the ending where he survives >>>>>>>