• PugJesus@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    My mother used to make me watch scary movies with her to toughen me up.

    Gave me nightmares for years.

    • jopepa@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      PugMary sounds like a difficult woman to grow up with, sorry you had to go through that.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        She was a single mother with somewhat archaic ideas of what a boy should learn from his father, and as I had no father in the picture, she took the task upon herself.

        It was a mixed bag. But she was sincerely trying her best out of parental love, and I didn’t turn out too fucked up, so mostly I look back on it with amusement.

        • jopepa@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          People are messy and doing their best, the best any of us can ever do is keep stepping up. Glad you’re doing well and glad you had her all the same.

          Still sucks to even imagine growing up like that, but horror movies fuck me up as an adult, so I’m biased I guess.

          • PugJesus@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Funny enough, long after she had stopped watching horror movies with me, I became very fond of horror movies. But now she, who I’m pretty sure saw every horror movie released 2000-2010, can’t stand horror.

            Life develops in funny ways.

            • jopepa@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              In her golden years she moves in with you. The tvs in her room are just out of reach playing all of the 20teens horror movies, y’know the ones after a24 changed the game. The PA system trips whenever she starts shouting and an automated voice loops “I am strong now mother”

              Or you know being kind and decent despite your history is cool too I guess.

    • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I’m my experience the people that watch too many scary movies are the most scared of the world around them lol. they’re the ones that will hear a noise and assume it’s a killer or a ghost, rather than go see what the noise was.

  • BougieBirdie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    10 months ago

    My first “too scary” movie was the 1999 cinematic masterpiece The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser. For those unfamiliar: not very scary at all, but I was probably eight when I saw it.

    My siblings and I would fight over who got to sleep with the cat - in the movie the mummy is scared away by cats. Anybody who owns a cat knows this is a pointless argument, and the cat sleeps with who it wants.

    • Treemaster099@pawb.social
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      10 months ago

      The scary movie that got me was No Man’s Land. A serial killer kills himself to avoid being taken to prison and his ghost traps the whole town while he goes on a killing spree.

      I watched it again years later and it wasn’t nearly as scary as I remembered. I was like 12 and it was 2 in the morning, so it chilled my sleep deprived self to the bone.

      Oddly enough, this movie wasn’t what gavee the worst nightmare I ever had. That honor belongs to the kids show Chalk Zone. The episode with the pink, hair eating frogs scared me in my dreams so bad I still get goosebumps just remembering it.

    • IDontHavePantsOn@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      The mummy, then, The Ring. The Ring doesn’t really hold up, but goddamn that movie was the pinnacle for its timem

      • papertowels@lemmy.one
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        10 months ago

        The ring definitely fucked me up as a kid too haha. Couldn’t be in the same room as a TV by myself for a bit

  • YaksDC@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I begged to see Poltergeist when it came out in 1982, I was 11. One of my main arguments was that it was only rated PG, ET came out the same year and it was rated PG; the PG-13 rating didn’t exist yet.

    I did not sleep in my room for 3 months after that and when I finally was able to go back all my stuffed animals had to be out of the room.

    I have never found another movie again that scared me so much and I have seen more horror movies than I could count.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Holy shit! I was the same exact age! Yeah, didn’t sleep for weeks.

      Wife and I just watched it Sunday. She wasn’t impressed.

      • YaksDC@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I had my wife watch it too and she did not get why it was so scary. It was very disappointing. 😂

    • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      For me it was the multi-legged gargantuan monster at the top of the stairs, and something in the way the psychic described “the beast” that really struck terror in my poor preteen heart.

  • bobotron@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    My experience with this was event horizon, “where we’re going, you won’t need eyes to see”. Man, I didn’t sleep right for months. No horror movie has scared me as much as that one

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      That and Jacob’s Ladder are the scariest movies I’ve ever seen. Sure, there are movies with more gore, or more jump scares, or creepier, but those two movies found a perfect combination of all those things, and executed it masterfully.

    • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      This happened to me. Same film. The eyes in the guys hand and when that red guy. Appeared. I was way too young for that film. It stuck with me for decades.

  • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Close Encounters of the Third Kind terrified me as a kid. Not because of the alien shit, but because the thought of a vacuum turning on and running by itself was just the most horrific thing I could imagine.

  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    For me it was the original Poltergeist when I was 8 or so.

    And later I found out the skeletons in the graveyard scene were actual dead bodies. Yum.

    • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I was 3 when my babysitter decided to show me Child’s Play. That’s bad enough on its own. But did you know that the Good Guy doll that Chucky possesses in the movie was based on a real doll on the market at that time, the My Buddy doll? And did you know that I had a My Buddy doll that I slept with every night? And did you know that the only way to keep your doll from murdering you and your family is to bury it in the closet under as many books, toys, blankets and dirty clothes as possible and never step foot in that closet again? I DO! My Buddy got banished until I was probably 8 years old

      • MrShankles@reddthat.com
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        10 months ago

        I too had a My Buddy doll. He was cool, until he wasn’t. And he was also banished to the attic closet in my room… and never received a pardon

    • iheartneopets@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      My dad did this too! It was more like he would just leave them on the TV, though, and not as much having me sit down with him to watch. It kinda let me tap out whenever, but boy did I get real scared at times.

      I remember when Signs was on once, that one got me. Anything that vaguely sounded like clicking at night would have me sweating, haha. We had this fish tank and the filter noises from it would keep me up for hours just listening in case it was an alien.

      All that said, I remember those things as a quirky and kinda fun memory now, and probably was what got me into scary movies as an adult.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    DO NOT DO THIS.

    Fuck, that someone needs to be told not to fuck up their child like this. We don’t have time to be this stupid

  • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    If you haven’t seen this movie, and you have any tolerance for scary movies, stop reading and go watch this movie

    Let’s make a high stress movie in one of the scariest environments possible.

    “Okay but what if the main character has legit psychological trauma that we watch” I mean sure.

    “And what if we add some of the freakiest and most unexpected jump scares before they get to the scary part?”. Okay…

    “And what if this naturally scary environment also had monsters?”. What sort of writer are you?

    “And what if we didn’t introduce the actors to the monsters until we were actually filming the scene, so their reactions are as legitimate as possible?” That would certainly be horrifying

    “And what if the monsters were humanoid, and the humans were monstrous?” You seem to have some experience being a monstrous human.

    “And what if we made multiple endings, each of them equally ambiguous about the main characters future?” Are you a monster? You are a monster aren’t you.

    • beneeney@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Yeah, I love this movie. Like first of all, Wendigos are dope. I feel like the top three pieces of Wendigo media are: The Descent, Supernatural S1E2, and Until Dawn.

      Second of all, well you described it perfectly. The trauma backstory felt deep and impactful - especially with the real ending (not the US one that lines up the sequel).

      I still think that scene where Rebecca free climbs across the chasm is the most terrifying part of the movie lmao. No monsters yet and I’m already screaming

  • Blaubarschmann@feddit.de
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    10 months ago

    The Descent scared the sh*t out of me. That one jumpscare was so unexpected and so intense that my body couldn’t even react to it, I just got massive chills all the way through without moving. It was surreal. Letting your kid watch this is just insane

    • kamenLady.@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I had the same experience when i watched it. The uncanny feeling lingered for a few days.

      But, idk … For me, it was a mistake to watch it again. Knowing what to expect, i paid more attention to everything else and i didn’t like it, i don’t remember why exactly.

      • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        There being 2 endings didn’t help my mind when I watched it a second time and had a completely different experience… I was like, wtf, I know this is the same movie, but why do I feel so very different.

        Ugh fuck just about everything about this movie. It was a masterpiece.

        Let’s put extremely normal and relatable people into a pretty normal situation with pretty good intentions, then let’s have them do a somewhat risky hobby in a somewhat stressful environment, then let’s have normal reactions to some pretty fucked up, high stress situations, then let’s fucking have some pretty fucked up relationship stuff come out and some pretty understandable reactions to it, then let’s add some fucking fucked up fucking fuck fucks who may or may not be human and may or may not be looking to eat or just getting off on fucking people up. And then let’s have just the tiniest but it reminder of normalcy fuck up everything that wasn’t fucked before. And then you don’t know which ending you’re getting, and you don’t know which one is technically better for the characters.

        • kamenLady.@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I didn’t know about the 2 versions. Hmm, gonna see if i find the other version, you’ve got me hooked up. Both times i saw the same version, but i guess there is no “happy” ending. It can’t, really.

          sigh, my claustrophobia already makes me gasp for air when i watch documentaries with people in tight caves. Here we go again.

        • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 months ago

          Well now I kinda wanna watch it, even tho I’m not really into horror… that many uses of the word fuck in one paragraph -has- to mean something 😜

          It’s already on my Plex so I guess now’s a good time!

          • Alteon@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Out of all the horror movies Ive ever watched, its my absolute favorite. It’s truly one of the best “horror” movies you will ever watch. The dread is so well done. The jump scares are well paced and actually add to the story. It’s fantastic and lingers with you for awhile.

            My other favorites of all time, is the first tape from V/H/S, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nope, The Poltergeist, The Ring, Juon (White Ghost, Specifically).

            • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              10 months ago

              It was really hard to watch through the land shift scene. I’m super claustrophobic. Reading wiki articles about spelunkers getting stuck is enough for panic attacks. I stopped right before the shift (fortune), and right after to recover. After that I did fine with it. It was very well done.

              I didn’t find the jump scares to be very impactful, but maybe it’s because I was anticipating those and was more interested in the rest of it? Or the panic burned out my jump scare receptor lol

  • numberfour002@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Sometimes it works out, though!

    From a very early age, my parents let me watch increasingly scary stuff thinking I’d eventually hit a limit on what I could handle, but I feel like even as a youngster I was pretty aware that it was not real. Never got nightmares or anything like that. Horror movies and scary sci-fi movies were always my favorites and I still love them to this day.

    • aulin@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Yeah. The blood and creeps are a bit goofy, but the claustrophobia is palpable!

  • nifty@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Descent and its sequel (though cursed by virtue of being a sequel) were great. In general, women-led horror movies are awesome when done right, like having women in characters who self actualize instead being used as a filler or sideshow.

    Some others include Ginger Snaps (and its second movie), Alien (don’t like the sequels), Scream, and Piggy (2022). Evil Dead as a franchise does not have a female lead (I am not that familiar with this franchise), but Evil Dead Rise was executed really well, and worked on many levels.

      • nifty@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Cabin in the Woods also has questionable use of female characters, but like Scream it was attempting commentary, so it works. Were older Evil Dead movies also doing similar kind of meta horror genre commentary?

        • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Not really, the first evil dead just has a particularly egregious scene involving a handsy tree.

          The series as a whole is fantastic and evil dead 2 and army of darkness are barely horror movies.

          The first movie still has its merits and raimi has gone on record stating that he regrets the tree scene.

    • Xanthrax@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      You’d like “behind the mask the rise of leslie vernon”. That’s one of the core themes.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Yeah what I want out of a good entertaining Friday night film is shallow in your face Hollywood pandering on female empowerment and gender equality. It just makes for such a good cinematic experience.

  • DragonAce@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    For me it was gremlins, I was like 8. The end scene with the one that pops out of the fountain, that shit scared the living fuck outta me.

    Also being forced to go see Lost Boys with my sister at 10 years old while sick with the flu, because my parents had a date and didn’t want to reschedule or some shit. That movie wasn’t THAT scary, but when you already feel like absolute shit…

    • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Gremlins was actually a huge part of the reason for the PG-13 rating, alongside Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The G rating was starting to gain a stigma for childishness so kids’ movies would throw in a damn or hell to get a PG rating, and movies that almost but didn’t quite cross the threshold for R landed in PG alongside them. This added up to parents thinking “hey it’s PG, so it’s family-friendly”, and ended up with traumatized kids.

  • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    There were two that really left me scarred in retrospect.

    There was this weird 70s or early 80s movie and this scene with these doll things coming to life in this small quarters… like a genie bottle or some alien ship… I think there was like satin and shit… and the doll things had these sharp teeth and started biting this woman trapped in there… and they all swarm her and overcome her… 35 yrs later… if anyone knows the name… Please help?

    The Accused… saw that way too early.

    Oh, and the song Hungry Eyes…