What Really Scared You As A Child?

JupiterKid

When you were young, what were the things that scared you to death?

Monsters under the bed?
The Boogeyman that lived in the wardrobe?
The thunder and lightning on a stormy night?

For me it was skeletons and skulls on particular. Mo matter how many times my mother or older sisters would reassure me as a 7 year old that skeletons were just our own bones and couldnt harm me, I simply did not believe them.

The sight of a skeleton would really frighten me.

There was the poster for a horror film called One Dark Night, it was in the cinemas circa 1982, around the time that ET was released in the silver screen, and just seeing that poster, featuring a decomposed skull like figure in a cloak with his bony hand menacingly reaching out, gave me nightmares.

In my bedroom at night I was terrified this evil figure was just around the corner of the room, ready to kill me.

So what frightened you?

the banshee in darby o gill

PsychoPete

X-files theme song

EmmetSpiceland

Ghostwatch. Was a little older than a “child” though.

frag420

Father Murphy

Leg End Reject

The dark, and what lurked under my bed in the dark.

Death also terrified me.

Bogwoppit

I used to have these existential thoughts/daydreams of a white space filled with clay balls. They varied in size from fit in your hand to unimaginably huge, made me feel irrelevant, I don’t matter because these balls can exist at any size.

Terrifying.

Rodney Bathgate

The boogie man. Disco dancing twat.

Then there was the bogie man. Covered in other people’s snot.

messrs

The Witch in 40 Coats

Doctors room ghost

The gremlins scared the sh1t out of me.wasnt right for a few days after watching it

Doctors room ghost

Also the wolf in the never ending story

Truthvader

THE CHILDCATCHER

screamer

My grandfathers ghost stories put the **** crossways in me

91wx763

Wasps

Rimmy

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Nuclear war.
A ten second clip of a black and white movie with giant spiders in it.

Rodney Bathgate

Slugworth

RedXIV

1930s king kong movie I saw when I was 4 or 5, and in particular this scene (55 seconds in) where kong gets mad and stamps on someone. Had nightmares for years about it

Aglomerado

Nuclear war for me too, and I was in my 30s when I first saw Threads. Imagine if I'd seen it back in 1984! I'd have been a gibbering wreck!
Industrial Schools. Used to get threatened with being sent to one by my family. I had a fear of convent buildings for a long time, there are one or two that, when I pass them, I feel a bit queasy.

purplepanda

My grandmother telling us youngsters grizzly stories of the Banshees flying about during the night time summer storms down at coastal Wexford. :eek:

Anytime I hear a severe storm brewing I always remember her.

freshpopcorn

I thought a man was going to come and take me away for misbehaving.

Jimbob1977

The whole Mirror Pension Fund debacle

Vampire Danny Glick hovering at the window in Salem's Lot

Signore Fancy Pants

[Deleted User] wrote: »

the banshee in darby o gill

Fcuk yeah!

micar

I watched an old black and white version of The Phantom of the Opera one afternoon when I was a kid.....scared the sh1t of of me for years.

Day Lewin

I read the book "Dracula" when I was about 12.
The scenes where little black dots dance in the moonlight and then coalesce into a bat outside the window....I couldn't sleep for weeks.
Always imagined that image when ever I'd see the moon through a window. Gives me the creeps to this day.

eviltwin

Trains

Pherekydes

JupiterKid wrote: »

Monsters under the bed?
The Boogeyman that lived in the wardrobe?
The thunder and lightning on a stormy night?

All of those.

Also, when my mother said "wait til your father comes home..."

I knew I was in big trouble.

Uncle Pierre

Nuclear war did it for me too. I was 11 back in 1983 when RTE showed a TV movie called 'The Day After', that had caused sensation in the US. I didn't watch it, but even the trailers for it freaked me out at the thought that it could really happen.

I remember reading a book around the same time, called "World's Greatest Predictions" or something like that, where there was a chapter about how somebody (not Nostradamus!) was predicting the world would end in 1999. It terrified me too, and I tried to convince myself that I'd at least have 16 years to forget about it, but I still remember it to this day.

Then about a year later, the first horror movie I saw was the original Salem's Lot, with this scene:

I still don't like sleeping in a room with the curtains open!

Panthro

Around the Twist.
Surely they were outta their boxes when they were writing it

Atlantic Dawn

AIDS, there was misinformed crooked ads on tv saying you could catch it from all sorts, made you paranoid, I suppose the Covid of its day.

stinkypinky

Are you afraid of the dark on RTE was spooky stuff. That intro is creepy as f, especially when you consider the show was aimed at kids. Goosebumps was another good one.

heldel00

A programme that used to be on called "Strange but true". Shouldn't have been watching it at all. One story of a man driving alone at night and glancing in rear view mirror and seeing a person in back of car. To this day i adjust the mirror if I'm driving on my own at night

Also, the scene in Mad Max where they chain yer man's hand to towbar of car and take off at speed..... Jesus I'll not sleep tonight!

castletownman

This ****er



Dad had it stored in the press, and used to activate him now and again for the **** and giggles. Minus the giggles.

twowheelsonly

Dogs.
I was absolutely petrified of ALL dogs and that carried on until my mid-teens.
Probably owned 9 or 10 dogs since then !!!

corner of hells

Nuns , I firmly believe they turned into bats when they died .
Also the threat of the "wooden spoon " , my mother would actually throw it at you , if she couldn't catch you.

Zirconia

When I was a young child my parents would say they would give me away when they were annoyed with me. It had a terrible effect on me, resutling in me having panic attacks whenever I was left alone for any brief length of time away from our home. For example when my mother was pregnant with a younger sibling, she brought me into the Rotunda hospital when she went for a checkup. I was left in a waiting area on my own and after about 20 minutes I was convinced she had left me there as threatened previously and I had a serious panic attack. I can remember a number of similar situations. It had an ongoing effect on me to this day.

byhookorbycrook

There was a series called “ Children of the Stones” ( we didn’t have multi-channels so must have been on RTÉ) We we’re TERRIFIED of it . Bought it on dvd years later , it was laughable then.

Jimbob1977

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

There was a series called “ Children of the Stones” ( we didn’t have multi-channels so must have been on RTÉ) We we’re TERRIFIED of it . Bought it on dvd years later , it was laughable then.

One of the most atmospheric and creepy children's TV series I have encountered.

The wailing singers and the claustrophobia of being stuck in a small village.

gingernut79

when the screen went white at the end of the Doctor Who theme, as if it had exploded. late 80s maybe?

tabby aspreme

I was terrified of crows for a few months after watching Hitchcock's, The Birds, aged around 10 at the time

Zaph

Quicksand - I believed it was a lot more prevalent than it actually is and we all need to be on the lookout for it. I think it must have been in a couple of TV shows or films I saw fairly close together, I can't think of any other reason it would bother me, especially as I don't recall it ever being reported in south Dublin.

Gremlinertia

Rotary phones, between the Joker using them to gas people and our one getting blown off the wall by a lightning strike i can see how that came about

Nuns, thanks primary school :mad:

mistersifter

Ready Brek ad with the fella with the lights around him doing break dancing. Freaked the shít outta me.

And a bit later the unsolved mysteries ghost stories when it was presented by Robert Stack.

KilOit

Pennywise and bath lady from shining kept me awake at night for weeks, slept top of stairs till parents went to bed

Mehapoy

Stephen Hawking!

Strumms

Power cuts were about the only thing and an old psycho school principal. Where we lived there would be about four or five power cuts a year. But they’d put the fear into me. if it happened during the day, or daylight I wouldn’t give a **** but at night, darkness, I’d hardly sleep with the fear in fact. The loudness of the quiet, no tv, no radio..

I was rarely in trouble in school but the odd time where I was sent to the principals office he’d welcome you in with a smile, sit you down, give you a biscuit, listen to why you’ve been sent down, then..” ok, just stand up for me, *still smiling* hold out your hand” *smack* he’d take a bit of an old picture frame out of his drawer and it would be across the palm of your hand with maximum force.. the false smile still etched on his face like a proper psycho..

KungPao

The aliens in V when they revealed themselves to be hideous reptiles.

The Omen, and the music in particular Ave Satani...Satani....SATANI! Love that music now, still creepy though.

Frederick Krueger.

Mostly just stuff I was too young to be watching really which stuck in my mind, had no other real fears I don't think except the dark.

We were out for a Sunday walk in Birr when I was a small kid, and a black helicopter (not a Garda helicopter) landed and some detectives got out of it.
My Mum said one of them had a gun, and we had to leave, at the time it seemed very exciting.
We found out they were after some Spanish rapist who had attacked a woman, or women, and was on the run.

I didn't know what a rapist was, and it didn't seem to matter, because it surely meant "serial killer". No doubt he'd be after us as potential witnesses. Me, specifically, for some reason. I became genuinely afraid of what I called "The Spanish Lad", and it was often used against me.
It was "Don't go to the river the Spanish man will catch you" or, "Come in before dark or the Spanish will get you" (there was a mildly racist undertone).

The threat of Santa's Bad List was trivial compared to the certain catastrophe of the Spanish lad ever locating me.

Writing this how, I wonder if there ever really was a Spanish man. Either way, he kept me on the straight and narrow between the ages 7 —10

Church on Tuesday

Banks.

Having to go into a bank and talk to a clerk was anxiety central.

castletownman

May sound bad, but I used to be afraid of people with intellectual disabilities or down syndrome when I was 4/5. I really hope I wasn't the only one at that age.

sunbeam

The Incredible Hulk terrified me as a toddler.

The threat of nuclear war when I got a bit older. I actually watched The Day After for the first time last week when it was randomly suggested to me on YouTube. It would probably have terrified me at age 11, but Threads makes it look like a Disney movie. Good job I didn't see that as a kid, or I'd never have slept again.