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Child Item

Kids movies/stories/programmes that scared the bejesus out of you as a child

Saralee4

I was reading my daughter Hansel and Gretal last night. Shes two and she really got into the story but there were parts of it that clearly freaked her out!

Nowadays the kids programmes that she watches like Dora, Peppa Pig (although she is a little bit evil) and In the Night Garden don't really have 'bad guys' or a dark side as such.

I remember when I was younger being really creeped out by a few cartoons/ movies that really scared me.

1) Alice in Wonderland the Disney movie scared me. It was the bit where she turned into a giant and couldn't fit in the house.

2) When Pinocchio was turning into a donkey that really freaked me out and then when he got swallowed by the whale.

3) Charlie and the chocolate factory, when the girl ate the blue chewing gum and was going to blow up and when the fat kid got stuck in the chocolate pipe.

4) In Watership Down where some of the rabbits are suffocated in their burrows when the builders come in to start building the houses and when they meet those weird rabbits . Actually that whole movie scared the **** out of me.

On another note Im actually starting to see a pattern of claustrophobia in the things I was scared of - maybe that's what caused me to have claustrophobia

What Kids Movies/Stories/Programmes stopped you from sleeping when you were small?

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Ruu

That evil Bellor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoazQwVyzCs

Also found this series below called Dramarama, remember watching it years ago them found it on youtube. Terrified me of mirrors for a long time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Z7iO3hn8Q

[Deleted User]

The Disney film The Sword and the Stone scared the crap out of me.

Irish Halo

The Peanut wrote: »

Edit: The childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; horrible character.

Akrasia wrote: »

The Witches with angelica Huston is a terrifying movie for kids.

Thing in common? Roald Dahl, he wrote the screenplay for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (based on an Ian Fleming novel) and created/added the Childcatcher to the film version. The man seemingly hated children but certainly knew how to write for them

Mozzeltoff

Back in the days of primary school, a few days before we were released for our summer holidays, the principal would gather us into a class room and show us a video on Farm Safety. One scene depicted a boy being slowly swallowed up by a slurry pit, another showed a little girl who runs into a shed and pulls a jar of chemicals down on top of herself and then there was an interview with this kid who's arm was mangled by a PTO shaft.

That video scared the living **** out of me. I still have nightmares of that kid drowning in the slurry pit

IvySlayer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pBBLN0w7NY

Ren and Stimpy used to scare the **** out of me

cloud493

That story in thomas the tank engine where the engine falls off the viaduct and drowns in a bog.

Rubberlegs

As already mentioned The Nargun and the Stars, the rock freaked me out. The Witches and the Grinnygog was pretty freaky. The Enchanted Garden too, statues moving around in the garden in the night. The adult stuff that scared me witless would have been Sapphire and Steel, Armchair Thriller and Tales of the Unexpected . Just hearing the theme tunes to these nowadays gives me goosebumps. I wasn't fond of the witch out of The Wizard of Oz, and the Oompa Loompas were nightmarish. Planet of the Apes terrified me, I was petrified of the "monkey men ". But scared as I was of all this stuff , I still had to watch it !

Links234

BeerWolf wrote: »

But of recent note, that film Coraline is freaky as hell for a kid's film!

Oh I loved that movie!

Useful.Idiot

maybe a weird choice, but Mars Attacks scared the **** out of me when I watched it when I was tiny. Didn't like those Aliens at all.

Reiketsu

The Moomins :O

dark crystal

Links234 wrote: »

Oh I loved that movie!

My five year old LOVES Coraline! He's a bit like me and loves darker films, rather than Disneyfied slush.

He's also a fan of the two Oz films, Labyrinth, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Gremlins and the Goosebumps series. He's also a big fan of Roald Dahl books. I love that Dahl never talked down to children and he realized, like most good storytellers, that most children like to be scared a little bit. Well, I did anyway!

Venus In Furs

Was just thinking about this recently - some fairy-stories were ****ing terrifying. Really gothic stuff.

whisky_galore

Venus In Furs wrote: »

Was just thinking about this recently - some fairy-stories were ****ing terrifying. Really gothic stuff.

Even the 3 little pigs Ladybird book, remember a pic of wolf falling head-first into a boiling cauldron of water. Nice.

smash

When E.T. died it was pretty traumatizing. Yea he came back alive but Jesus those 10 minutes were haunting.

Venus In Furs

whisky_galore wrote: »

Even the 3 little pigs Ladybird book, remember a pic of wolf falling head-first into a boiling cauldron of water. Nice.

Snow White's stepmother was just an out and out psychopath.

Saralee4

actually come to think of it they really did vilify women/mother role in those fairy tales;

Snow whites stepmother
The witch in Rapunzel
The witch and the Mother in Hansel and Gretel
Cinderellas Stepmother and step sisters
Sleeping Beauties stepmother

Wang King

Saralee4 wrote: »

actually come to think of it they really did vilify women/mother role in those fairy tales;

Snow whites stepmother
The witch in Rapunzel
The witch and the Mother in Hansel and Gretel
Cinderellas Stepmother and step sisters
Sleeping Beauties stepmother

All the heroes were women too

Saralee4

Wang King wrote: »

All the heroes were women too

really? I think all the heroes where Prince charming with the exception of Hansel and Gretal where they both outsmart the witch but even then when they go back home to their parents, it is the father who was more sympathetic towards the children and the mother wanted originally to get rid of them.

Mink

Apparently I was terrified of Bag Puss as a toddler.

Still can't watch gremlins after seeing it when I was about 8.

There was a Japanese animated cartoon called Ulysses (sp?). They were all blue and on a spaceship flying around the galaxy looking for someone's dad? It was very serious and creepy.

I sobbed uncontrollably when Johnny 5 got blown up and my mother had to convince me that he would be fixed so that I'd watch the rest of it.

Buona Fortuna

Saturday morning pictures, I think I was about 8 or 9. There was a film "A Man in the Iron Mask".

I've never managed to exorcise the Demon by finding the film again. I suspect that it was probably a foreign dubbed film, maybe a completely different title, but I've never found it on IMDB.

Anyway it absolutely scared the sh1t out of me. The only image I have left after nearly 40 years of this guy not being able to eat or speak or drink unaided because of this mask. I think that around the time it conincided with some child abductions / murders and that they had been kept in a type of box underground. Adults were careful not to talk about such things in front of young ears and the scant info fueled my imagination. I remember even now 2 or 3 sleeepless nights and I'm sure that the roots of my claustrophobia are there.:o

Saralee4

Mink wrote: »

Apparently I was terrified of Bag Puss as a toddler.

Still can't watch gremlins after seeing it when I was about 8.

There was a Japanese animated cartoon called Ulysses (sp?). They were all blue and on a spaceship flying around the galaxy looking for someone's dad? It was very serious and creepy.

I sobbed uncontrollably when Johnny 5 got blown up and my mother had to convince me that he would be fixed so that I'd watch the rest of it.

Yea Ulysses was cool. He looked like Jesus and it was the best theme song ever

don't remember being afraid of it though!

Links234

Who remembers this guy?

http://i.imgur.com/4ch1VJl.jpg

Gmork!

heldel00

Mozzeltoff wrote: »

Back in the days of primary school, a few days before we were released for our summer holidays, the principal would gather us into a class room and show us a video on Farm Safety. One scene depicted a boy being slowly swallowed up by a slurry pit, another showed a little girl who runs into a shed and pulls a jar of chemicals down on top of herself and then there was an interview with this kid who's arm was mangled by a PTO shaft.

That video scared the living **** out of me. I still have nightmares of that kid drowning in the slurry pit

Was that the video where the ball went over the gate and your man hopped over to get it, his buddy shouted "no" and they threw in a rock to show him it wasn't solid ground?

Umekichi

Two things stand out to me from when I was a little kid:

The first was The animals of Farthing wood, a few scenes from the series were scary but none were as scary as the scene with the shrike, where he impaled day old baby mice on thorns(Starts from 3:17):

And also Slappy from Goosebumps used to have me petrified. I remember when fox kids would be on and it would be time to show Goosebumps. Slappy would always come on and do an intro and I'd have dived behind the couch!

Toots

This really freaked me out as a child. Up until recently I was convinced I'd dreamed it all in some horrible nightmare, then I saw it on youtube and realised it was real! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottie:_The_Story_of_a_Doll%27s_House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8f2Le2B3ok

Venus In Furs

Toots wrote: »

This really freaked me out as a child. Up until recently I was convinced I'd dreamed it all in some horrible nightmare, then I saw it on youtube and realised it was real! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottie:_The_Story_of_a_Doll%27s_House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8f2Le2B3ok

LOVED that book when I was nine or ten, but yes... very dark.

Something very ominous about the voiceover too. The same kind of voiceover used for British public info ads, many of which were absolutely terrifying - their Irish equivalent as scary of course.

kowloon

I remember a farm safety video that showed kids getting killed in a variety of different ways. One of them drank poison, another drowned in $hite and there was crunching under trailers and the likes.

Venus In Furs

kowloon wrote: »

I remember a farm safety video that showed kids getting killed in a variety of different ways. One of them drank poison, another drowned in $hite and there was crunching under trailers and the likes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0GyRz_lOQA

Why did the 70s look so grey and dreary too...

One eyed Jack

Buona Fortuna wrote: »

Saturday morning pictures, I think I was about 8 or 9. There was a film "A Man in the Iron Mask".

I've never managed to exorcise the Demon by finding the film again. I suspect that it was probably a foreign dubbed film, maybe a completely different title, but I've never found it on IMDB.

Anyway it absolutely scared the sh1t out of me. The only image I have left after nearly 40 years of this guy not being able to eat or speak or drink unaided because of this mask. I think that around the time it conincided with some child abductions / murders and that they had been kept in a type of box underground. Adults were careful not to talk about such things in front of young ears and the scant info fueled my imagination. I remember even now 2 or 3 sleeepless nights and I'm sure that the roots of my claustrophobia are there.:o

It wasn't the original 1939 black and white film was it?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Iron_Mask_(1939_film)

I can remember that being on a few Saturday mornings alright during my childhood, and there was the black and white Tarzan films, which seemed to put people on edge when he was being chased by the natives with the spears, and then the elephants would come running. I think knowing the animals were real as opposed to CGI nowadays added that element of danger to the film that children nowadays just don't experience as it's all done on computers.

I think the films that left me with 'traumatised' were the original Planet of the Apes movies with Charlton Heston. I didn't like the look of the monkeys in Dublin Zoo after that, wondering were they all going to escape and what if they did take over the world and wipe out the human race!

SMJSF

Cruella Deville in 101 Dalmatians.... cartoon version...... I always ran and hid behind the sofa when she came on the screen!!