What Really Scared You As A Child?

JupiterKid · 30-07-2020 10:17pm #1

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?

30-07-2020 10:17pm

the banshee in darby o gill

PsychoPete · 30-07-2020 10:18pm

X-files theme song

EmmetSpiceland · 30-07-2020 10:19pm

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

frag420 · 30-07-2020 10:19pm

Father Murphy

Leg End Reject · 30-07-2020 10:19pm

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

Death also terrified me.

Bogwoppit · 30-07-2020 10:20pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:21pm

The boogie man. Disco dancing twat.

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

messrs · 30-07-2020 10:21pm

The Witch in 40 Coats

Doctors room ghost · 30-07-2020 10:22pm

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

Doctors room ghost · 30-07-2020 10:22pm

Also the wolf in the never ending story

Truthvader · 30-07-2020 10:22pm

THE CHILDCATCHER

screamer · 30-07-2020 10:22pm

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

91wx763 · 30-07-2020 10:23pm

Wasps

Rimmy · 30-07-2020 10:23pm

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 30-07-2020 10:24pm

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

Rodney Bathgate · 30-07-2020 10:24pm

Slugworth

RedXIV · 30-07-2020 10:26pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:29pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:31pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:32pm

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

Jimbob1977 · 30-07-2020 10:32pm

The whole Mirror Pension Fund debacle

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

Signore Fancy Pants · 30-07-2020 10:33pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

the banshee in darby o gill

Fcuk yeah!

micar · 30-07-2020 10:33pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:34pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:35pm

Trains

Pherekydes · 30-07-2020 10:38pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:38pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:40pm

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

Atlantic Dawn · 30-07-2020 10:41pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:42pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:43pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:51pm

This ****er

da-grunt-caveman-animated-toy-furry_1_7390aeb3dcbe6809e07c23c873b0d469.jpg

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

twowheelsonly · 30-07-2020 10:52pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:53pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:56pm

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 · 30-07-2020 10:56pm

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 · 30-07-2020 11:01pm

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 · 30-07-2020 11:05pm

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

tabby aspreme · 30-07-2020 11:12pm

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

Zaph · 30-07-2020 11:13pm

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 · 30-07-2020 11:15pm

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 · 30-07-2020 11:19pm

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 · 30-07-2020 11:22pm

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

Mehapoy · 30-07-2020 11:23pm

Stephen Hawking!

Strumms · 30-07-2020 11:25pm

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 · 30-07-2020 11:27pm

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.

30-07-2020 11:27pm

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 · 30-07-2020 11:43pm

Banks.

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

castletownman · 30-07-2020 11:46pm

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 · 30-07-2020 11:46pm

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.

What Really Scared You As A Child?

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