Let's Revisit Some Childhood Nightmare Fuel!

[Misereor]

An American Werewolf in London.
Saw it at a friends house when we were 11 and his parents were away for the weekend. I remember having to walk through the dark basement afterwards to get our sleeping bags. Not even a little bit funny.

On the positive side, after getting over it, I've loved werewolf movies and stories ever since.

[The Fury]

Weirdly, no - though I think the fact that I saw "The Hobbit" first helped a lot. I think a lot of the nightmare stuff is because of how Uncanny Valley-weird the humans and scenery looked. Kid-me's brain just put Mama Fortuna and Rukh in the same box as Thorin and the rest of the dwarves. (I think I thought it was a little funny that a dwarf was speaking with Gollum's voice). The unicorn being so beautiful made me focus on that, too.

I feel like The Last Unicorn's most notorious Nightmare Fuel Scene was the skeleton in King Haggard's castle. He starts out being silly, talking in a goofy voice as wacky music plays. After he tells the gang how to find the Red Bull he sees the unicorn in human disguise, the silly music stops, and his voice drops into a more threatening tone as his eyes start glowing red "Oh no... No you don't... Not that one!" Then he start's screaming "Unicorn!" like a demon... Creepy!

I know my sister was terrified of that scene when she was little.

[Telonius]

I feel like The Last Unicorn's most notorious Nightmare Fuel Scene was the skeleton in King Haggard's castle. He starts out being silly, talking in a goofy voice as wacky music plays. After he tells the gang how to find the Red Bull he sees the unicorn in human disguise, the silly music stops, and his voice drops into a more threatening tone as his eyes start glowing red "Oh no... No you don't... Not that one!" Then he start's screaming "Unicorn!" like a demon... Creepy!

I know my sister was terrified of that scene when she was little.

I do remember being a little creeped out at that scene - but by the clock itself, not by the skeleton. (Yeah, I was a weird kid).

[JoshL]

Some of my favorite stuff here, both as a kid and as an adult! Sort of surprised no one has mentioned Return to Oz yet. That movie is wonderfully creepy!

Some non-film favorites, the Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark books are amazing, particularly with the original Stephen Gammell illustrations. Some of them are pretty horrific, even as a kid!

I also have memories of being absolutely terrified by some of the early 80s run of Secrets of Haunted House comics (horror anthology, extension of House of Secrets/Mysteries). I haven't gone back to them, but I absolutely should NOT have been reading that as a kid! My parents would buy me cheap stacks of comics with the covers torn off, but didn't really pay attention to what was in there. Definitely stoked my taste for horror!

As for the aforementioned Munchausen film, it was indeed Gilliam and is fantastic. Points to his Time Bandits as well. The end in particular was a weird sort of unsettling.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

There are two pieces of media I can recall from my childhood that gave me the heebie jeebies.

The first was a particular scene near the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which I won't go into for spoiler reasons. If you've seen it you can probably guess at which scene it is.

The other is the adventure game Return to Zork. When you die it quite suddenly cuts to a game over screen and the sound of evil laughter that's mixed very high and easily startles you because death is difficult to predict and can happen at any time. I remember playing that game in a constant state of terror for suddenly, inexplicably triggering a Game Over screen.

[Lacuna Caster]

About half the episodes in Ulysses 31 involve some degree of harrowing nightmare fuel. I was only about 3 years old when this episode aired, and I still remembered Sysyphus' wails of anguish decades later. (The series itself is hit-and-miss, but includes some of Shuky Levy's best work, along with the english-release soundtrack for Teknoman.)

Batman the Animated Series. Feat of Clay takes pride of place for me, but who could forget the origins of Two-Face or Man-Bat, or a dozen other episodes? (Honourable mentions also go to Phantom 2040 and perhaps Gargoyles.)

Oh- The Secret of NIMH! Has nobody else mentioned the laboratory escape scene, or the scene with the great owl? Cripes. All Dogs Go To Heaven had a pretty good hell sequence too.

Yup, I'm not scarred at all. Carry on.

[DomaDoma]

Not Without My Handbag. Shoot, I didn't even remember the death and damnation aspects. The handbag itself is enough to sear on my mind forever.

[Chromascope3D]

Ernest: Scared Stupid singlehandedly made me afraid of the dark throughout my whole childhood. Those troll designs were horrifying, and the fact that they specifically targeted children only made it worse.

Like, there's one scene where a girl checks for the main troll under her bed. So after slowly looking down over the edge, lifting up the edge of the bedskirt to reveal... nothing!
Relieved, she lays back onto the bed, the camera panning over to reveal the troll laying next to her! And while I know that kind of bait-and-switch is blase today, it sure wasn't when I was five! Also, that scene might have been a contributing factor to my paranoia today, so that's fun. :p

[Telonius]

Oh- The Secret of NIMH! Has nobody else mentioned the laboratory escape scene, or the scene with the great owl?

Got it covered.

Watership Down (... so much blood ... though oddly the Black Rabbit was okay with me), The Secret of NIMH (that owl), The Rescuers (those evil crocodiles), The Black Cauldron (saw it in the theater - zombies and a main character depressive suicide), The Dark Crystal (basically the whole thing), and The Neverending Story (I was okay for the horse - the Rockbiter just sitting there and letting the Nothing come was what got me). It's amazing any kids from the early 80s turned out even slightly sane.

[TheGreyWolf1600]

That old Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. There's the scene with the walrus and the carpenter, there's the forest, really the whole thing was freaky.

[Wookieetank]

A lot of mine have already been stated up thread (Alice in Wonderland, All dogs go to Heaven, Alone in the Dark, Bald Mountain, NIMH, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), but for the ones that haven't:
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland was a big contender. When there's a whole Nightmare Land ruled by the Nightmare King done in rather exquisite detail, its not hard to see why.
Aliens³ caught bits and pieces of one of the chase scenes and then the ending when I was 9 or 10. Almost put me off the series for life, and gave me a terribly strong fear of my basement after dark.
ET From the time they find him ill in the stream till they escape from the house still bothers me today.

[Rodin]

Some non-film favorites, the Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark books are amazing, particularly with the original Stephen Gammell illustrations. Some of them are pretty horrific, even as a kid!

Came to mention this. Some of those illustrations are horrific even as an adult. The girl with the spider that lay eggs in her face was particularly horrific - I was terrified for years afterwards that it would happen to me in my sleep.

[Mikemical]

There was a kid's show called Ghostwriter when i was growing up. Standard plucky preteens solve mysteries fare, but with a ghost who manipulated written letters instead of a Great Dane. One episode, i think it was a writing competition in school or something, had this pink-purple slime monster that engulfed and devoured people. That became the monster living in my bedroom closet for years.

Jesus Christ I remember this, it was a two-part episode. Discovery Kids had no chill back then: One week they're solving a mystery related to a cockatoo, the next, Majin-Boo and Chuckie's unholy spawn that actually kills people. Worse of all, that thing crossed over into a Power Rangers movie. I wish I was joking.

As for films, I guess Nightmare on Elm Street is par for the course, with a killer that can come for you anywhere that specifically targets children. I had trouble falling asleep thinking Freddy was gonna kill me like in a Loony Tunes skit.

[The Fury]

Some of my favorite stuff here, both as a kid and as an adult! Sort of surprised no one has mentioned Return to Oz yet. That movie is wonderfully creepy!

Aw, man I completely forgot about that one! Little kid me and my sister both were scared of The Wheelers from that. And our dad made fun of us for it... Thanks Dad.

Then there's the parts that were scary to me as a kid that I still find 100% creepy. The whole bit with Princess Mombi, who has a bunch of spare heads that she keeps in glass cases, who calmly tells Dorothy that she might want to add her head to her collection too. Which was disturbing enough, then Dorothy tries to escape during the night and one of the heads wakes up and gets the whole hall of severed heads in glass cases screaming as Mombi's headless body chases Dorothy. Sweet dreams, everyone!

Some non-film favorites, the Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark books are amazing, particularly with the original Stephen Gammell illustrations. Some of them are pretty horrific, even as a kid!

Me, I always found those illustrations more cool than I did scary. I did date someone that was terrified of those illustrations and got really mad when I brought one of those books over.

I also have memories of being absolutely terrified by some of the early 80s run of Secrets of Haunted House comics (horror anthology, extension of House of Secrets/Mysteries). I haven't gone back to them, but I absolutely should NOT have been reading that as a kid! My parents would buy me cheap stacks of comics with the covers torn off, but didn't really pay attention to what was in there. Definitely stoked my taste for horror!

I didn't really feel this way until my 20s, but I'm a little put out that I didn't get to grow up with good horror comics. I recall reading about a horror author, (I think Stephen King?) recounting his experience with pre-Code EC horror comics and they sounded so cool! Having read some of them as an adult, I can say that they are pretty awesome and worth tracking down, though maybe they would've been a little much for little kid me.

[Algeh]

I loved both Return to Oz and The Last Unicorn as a kid, and neither one freaked me out as much as those Garfield specials I mentioned earlier. I think it's because both show you up-front that they're going to be supernatural, and the further things got from the real world the less they tended to scare me.

I still haven't seen The Black Cauldron, but I loved those books when I was a kid. They weren't really...little kid books, though, so I can see why they'd be startling as a Disney kid movie rather than an older elementary/middle school kid movie. (I have no sense of what normal people read at various ages. I was already reading adult-aimed Tanith Lee novels sometime around age 11, speaking of things that I probably should have found more scary that Garfield specials, which to be fair, I saw at a much younger age than 11.)

[Knaight]

I was mildly freaked out, for extremely small values of mild, but when I was 13 or so my parents took my brother and I to go see a movie they'd liked when they were younger - or rather, that's what they thought they were doing. What actually was happening was that they were taking us to go see a new movie that happened to have a similar name.

The target movie in question was Labyrinth. The actual movie seen was Pan's Labyrinth.

For those not familiar Pan's Labyrinth has some fairly graphic imagery.

[DomaDoma]

That old Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. There's the scene with the walrus and the carpenter, there's the forest, really the whole thing was freaky.

Oh yes. And apparently considered a rollicking good time to the Victorian English. Fortunately I have since taken to having a Guy Fawkes Day tradition of dramatically reciting it up until "O OYSTERS, COME AND WALK WITH US!" It pays to diversify your Victorian interests.

[Jan Mattys]

Laugh at me all you want but the Gorn fighting Kirk in that Star Trek episode of the original series scared the hell out of 4 years old me.

[Telonius]

I was mildly freaked out, for extremely small values of mild, but when I was 13 or so my parents took my brother and I to go see a movie they'd liked when they were younger - or rather, that's what they thought they were doing. What actually was happening was that they were taking us to go see a new movie that happened to have a similar name.

The target movie in question was Labyrinth. The actual movie seen was Pan's Labyrinth.

For those not familiar Pan's Labyrinth has some fairly graphic imagery.

I supplied my daughter with some nightmare fuel with Labyrinth (David Bowie is creepier than the rest of the goblins, from what she tells me), but I think it would be a "lesser of two evils" in that situation.

[Gnoman]

Laughable as it may seem, I had recurring nightmares for years after reading The Ghost Next Door, one of the better Goosebumps books. More for the concept than the story, but for some reason the idea of dying, then going about as a ghost without even knowing it, really unnerved me as a kid. Probably why a hack director stole it for one of his better films.

[Deadline]

The Adventures of Mark Twain, specifically the Mysterious Stranger bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhgLEkgO0yo

The 80's had a weird fascination with claymation. And it was terrifying.

[Talakeal]

I think I might have you all beat on stupidest thing to be afraid of.

In the early 80s when I was 2 or 3 there was a commercial for toilet bowl cleaner where a toilet went too long without cleaning and mutated into some sort of alligator monster that ate anyone who sat on it. I think that commercial alone de-potty trained me for a couple of years.



Also, the Muppet big bad wolf on Sesame Street (the one with blue fur) gave me more than few nightmares around the same time.

[The Fury]

I was mildly freaked out, for extremely small values of mild, but when I was 13 or so my parents took my brother and I to go see a movie they'd liked when they were younger - or rather, that's what they thought they were doing. What actually was happening was that they were taking us to go see a new movie that happened to have a similar name.

The target movie in question was Labyrinth. The actual movie seen was Pan's Labyrinth.

For those not familiar Pan's Labyrinth has some fairly graphic imagery.

Weirdly enough they have the escapist angle in common, (depending on how you want to interpret the story in Pan's Labyrinth.) Though they differ pretty sharply otherwise. In Labyrinth the fantasy was originally an escape from the mundane, In Pan's Labyrinth the fantasy is an escape from the horrific.

The Adventures of Mark Twain, specifically the Mysterious Stranger bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhgLEkgO0yo

The 80's had a weird fascination with claymation. And it was terrifying.

Though if the conversation I had with that animator was any indication The Mysterious Stranger wasn't terrifying because the 80s had a fascination with claymation, it was more that the studio wanted that segment to be as disturbing as possible! And hey, disturbing imagery, a villain with a scary voice, creepy ambient music, existential dread... yeah, this is ticking a lot of Nightmare Fuel boxes.

Though yeah, the 1980s was when Will Vinton Studios was in their heyday. Though oddly it was because of their success with The California Raisins commercials more than anything else. Evidently they were only able to get a producer to fund their Christmas special if it included a California Raisins segment. Which sort of puts me out because the studio managed some pretty impressive animation besides. I mean, I was always fascinated by how convincingly they could animate water using clay.

[Algeh]

Though yeah, the 1980s was when Will Vinton Studios was in their heyday. Though oddly it was because of their success with The California Raisins commercials more than anything else. Evidently they were only able to get a producer to fund their Christmas special if it included a California Raisins segment. Which sort of puts me out because the studio managed some pretty impressive animation besides. I mean, I was always fascinated by how convincingly they could animate water using clay.

My dad and I still watch that special every year when I come visit for Christmas. The California Raisins segment is always kind of a weird moment in it.

I like the Joy to the World segment the best, although it was probably a real pain to make.

[JoshL]

That Mysterious Stranger segment is amazing! I can't believe I've never seen that before.

The Fury, not sure if you caught this, but a gallery in Texas did a tribute show to Scary Stories last year, with some amazing art inspired by the original. They have a ton of photos of the art, and from the opening (with some visitors in fantastic makeup!)at: https://www.instagram.com/scarystories_art_exhibit/

And speaking of Alice in Wonderland, though not really a kids version, the stop-motion version done by Czech animator Jan Svankmajer is amazing, and creepy as all get out. Easily my favorite version!

Also not really a for-kids thing, but when I was young there were tv commercials for the movie Videodrome. The image of a gun pushing out of a blank screen television absolutely terrified me. I was 3 or 4 when it aired, so I had no idea what the movie was until college.

[The Fury]

That Mysterious Stranger segment is amazing! I can't believe I've never seen that before.

I heard that the segment was banned in TV broadcasts of that movie for being too scary. I've also heard plenty of people say that reputation is hyperbolic and mostly untrue. It still freaks me out though...

The Fury, not sure if you caught this, but a gallery in Texas did a tribute show to Scary Stories last year, with some amazing art inspired by the original. They have a ton of photos of the art, and from the opening (with some visitors in fantastic makeup!)at: https://www.instagram.com/scarystories_art_exhibit/

I didn't hear about that, thanks for sharing it!

My dad and I still watch that special every year when I come visit for Christmas. The California Raisins segment is always kind of a weird moment in it.

I like the Joy to the World segment the best, although it was probably a real pain to make.

I thought the California Raisins segment was weird too... Actually I'm not sure that's the right word, it was definitively the weakest part of the special in my opinion though.

The same animator that seemed really gleeful about having had a hand in making The Mysterious Stranger genuinely horrifying was the person that told me that the California Raisins segment was included as a mandate from the television production company. I can't confirm that it's actually true, but judging from the overall quality of the special and the phoned-in feel of the California Raisins Segment I'm inclined to believe her. But hey, if a bland segment in an otherwise memorable special is the cost for admission I'd pay that.

[Knaight]

I supplied my daughter with some nightmare fuel with Labyrinth (David Bowie is creepier than the rest of the goblins, from what she tells me), but I think it would be a "lesser of two evils" in that situation.

Somewhat, yes. Pan's Labyrinth has and earns its R rating, and it earns it mostly by being almost unrelentingly bleak in almost every scene that isn't in the fantasy world, while occasionally having the sort of graphic violence that fits that. Then there's the fantasy world, where your introduction is this guy:


Said creature is supposed to be the super memorable part of the movie, and to be fair said creature was memorable. The part that stuck with me and provided proper nightmare fuel was a bit later though involves a character in the real world getting knifed.

[Deadline]

Though yeah, the 1980s was when Will Vinton Studios was in their heyday. Though oddly it was because of their success with The California Raisins commercials more than anything else. Evidently they were only able to get a producer to fund their Christmas special if it included a California Raisins segment. Which sort of puts me out because the studio managed some pretty impressive animation besides. I mean, I was always fascinated by how convincingly they could animate water using clay.

Were they also the group who did the claymation in the Michael Jackson Moonwalker special?

[Draconi Redfir]

the opening sequence of Jurassic park ("Shoot her! Shoooot herrrr!!!") always freaked me out as a kid, essentially watching a man die horribly with nobody able to do anything about it.

what probably stuck with me though was i THINK the "Monster hiding under your bed" from Nightmare before Christmas. the scene in the opening itself isn't all that scary, but ever since seeing that scene (i think, might have been something else) i've been terrified of eyes looking at me / you / whatever from behind a veil of darkness.

[Some Android]

Mr. Toilet Man from Look Who's Talking Too:

Spoiler

Show

I think it's the fangs that really creeped me out. Looking back now it's not even intentionally funny. Just really bizarre.

Apparently it's Bruce Willis and Mel Brooks in that clip which I didn't know when I was a child