What was the first horror film you ever saw?

Stephen King’s It. I didn’t sleep well for a couple of weeks after that.

You must be much younger than I am :) Any reason why it scared you? How old were you?

@MadMadMax It came out before I turned one, but I think I watched it when I was 6 or 7. I wasn’t scared of clowns and I’m still not, but it scared me for some reason. I didn’t want to take a bath because I thought he’d come out of the drain. I watched it again years later – stupid movie.

Which Stephen King movie was it @livelaughlove21?

You know, in answer to your question @MadMadMax….I can’t remember. I remember avoiding seeing Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the 70’s.

I am not really sure. Two of my older sisters are huge Horror Movie fans. So, most likely it involved one of them.
I do know one that made a huge impact on me. Trilogy of Terror
It was a made for TV movie. I would have been seven. It still scares the crap out of me.

@Dutchess_III It, like I said. :) The one about the clown.

I can’t remember.

Oh…I didn’t catch the ‘It’ title cause it was so short. My eyes zoomed right past it. Got ya @livelaughlove21. :)

The Blob with Steve McQueen.

I think mine was Dracula’s Daughter which made me think she was in my closet in Brooklyn for more years than I’d admit.

One really bad experience was Psycho. My father took me to a doctor I think, in Manhattan, some tests were done and we had to come back in like three hours. He didn’t know what to do up in the city for all that time so he figured a movie was a good idea. He took me to see Psycho, Bad move. I guess he figured I was 10 and old enough but I wasn’t.

Wait! Creature From the Black Lagoon! Oooo. That scared me!

And the Abdominal Snowman on Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, HE scared me, a lot.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane! Man, it’s all coming back in a rush now!

The Birds.

The first one I remember was called The Crawling Hand

It was either the original “Frankenstein” with Boris Karloff, or “Dracula” with Bela Lugosi…..can’t remember which. And, it would have been on following the 10 o’clock local news since those were the days before the networks cluttered up late night television with late night talk shows and the local stations ran old movies instead. Whichever one it was, I’m sure I didn’t sleep all that well that night!

Probably The Birds. Scared the shit out of me.

@rojo Oh…I remember that one. Shudder. Do you remember the one about the giant slug? I think it was on twilight zone.

It was on t.v., near 50 years ago. I don’t know if it was a movie, episode of Dark Shadows, Twilight Zone, or what. What I do remember still bothers me though. Some pretty young girl was supposed to marry a creepy old rich man. She didn’t want to. They had a dinner date, and he gave her a gift. It was a lapel pin, but it looked like a real mouse. The guy showed her he could pull the pin out, and it would st5ay on her lapel anyway. On the way home, he wanted the goodies, and she didn’t want to puke, so he dumped her out, isplated country dirt road. Mouse starts growing. At one point, it looked like an opossum, which is one reason I’ve always REALLY hated them. The last it was shown, it was like the size of a dog, and she was unable to stand. Of course the cops found her dead the next day.

First horror movie I ever saw was The Fly, at about 4. (I guess more sifi than horror, but eh) I remember it being pretty interesting, but the end was my favorite part because it was all gross and everything.

Oh God. The Fly. I’m never going to sleep tonight.

Probably some Dracula Hammer Horror shit, good little films though.

I still think Gary Oldman was the best Dracula ever. I adored that film. His Dracula was inspired by the silent German film: Nosferatu.

@ucme Hammer is fucking classic, man. :)

@Symbeline Too fucking true sistah, grew up watching them flicks.
Peter Cushing was a genuine class act & one of my proper childhood heroes.

We rented Steven Kings “The Shining” with Jack Nicholson. We let our kids join us. The older one loved it. The younger one was way too young to see and identified with the little boy in the film. I was so sorry. He had nightmares for a long time and I knew it was my fault. My parents were never careful about things like that but films have changed and parents have to be more attentive.

Halloween H20. I would have been about 10. It was at a sleepover, at a girl’s house which had a lot of windows. Not cool, because in the movie Michael Myers would just stand at the windows holding his knife watching everyone before he’d attack. And it was one of those one’s where people would run away and he’d be walking but still be able to catch up. It really scared the shit out of me, probably just because it was my first one. I’m not scared of the dark as such, but I’m still scared of Michael Myers coming out of the dark if I’m outside by myself. The next sleepover where we watched horror movies I made a girl who had already seen them tell me exactly what was going to happen so I could be prepared, and that’s how I survived Scream, Wrong Turn and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the remake). The next one I saw was The Grudge (english version) and the first time the girl appeared I screamed and was so ashamed of myself that I just flat out refused to be scared for the rest of the movie, but making fun of and laughing at the ridiculousness. Since then, I have not been able to find a scary movie that truly scares me, even though now I would like to be able to get that adrenaline rush, I’ve made it impossible because I was so scared of being scared I just refused, and became one of those annoying “oh as if” cynical people who couldn’t suspend their disbelief. I am still on a quest for good horror movies that will break me out of this! I have been playing bioshock actually and that has been able to give me some good scares!

Recently I decided to watch the original 1978 Halloween in the hopes that it would be so 70s and so campy and cheesy that I wouldn’t be scared of Michael Myers anymore, but, it’s not considered a classic for no reason. It was filmed in such a way that the things I hoped would be dated and look ridiculous (the blood and gore etc) were minimal and it was all about the suspense, which doesn’t age. Even though it was pretty predictable I still jumped and screamed in all the right places, and it didn’t alleviate my fear at all. I still have nightmares about Michael Myers.

@MadMadMax I remember being accosted as we were going into a theater to watch Aliens with our then four year old son. Some well meaning couple walked up to us and asked us if we did not think this film was a little intense for a young child? My wifes response was “Well, it didn’t bother him last week so I don’t think he will have a problem with it this time”.

I saw Halloween and Jaws both when I was around 9.

Neither of the first two I saw was a horror picture, but they each had a character than scared the pants off me. The first was “Fantasia.” When I saw those eyes on the Sorcerer looking down at little Mickey, I started crying. The second was “Lost Horizons.” In that one, it was the wizened, 200-plus year old High Lama who sent me running to the lobby.

The earliest one that I can remember I believe I had watched at around the very tender age of either 4 or 5 I’m guessing. It was Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark, which was already about 5 years old by the time I remember watching it. I was so young that I struggle to remember a good deal of it, but the scence at the end still stands out to me until this day for some reason. If I’m not right here then the other movie would have to be The Car :)

There was a show on in the 60’s and 70’s called Creature Features that played all the classic horror movies and I think the Mummy was the first one my folks let me watch….and at the same time there was of course the Twilight Zone that played some very creepy movies most notably William Shatner’s early role in the movie Nightmare at 20,000 feet

The Crawling Eye! 1958
Yikes! I can still remember that tentacle.
Is that why Japanese tentacle sex gives me the creeps?

I would think one would have an instinctive aversion to Japanese tentacle sex, not related to any outside influence!

The first film to ever actually disgust me, and one of the few to ever manage, was the 1980s remake of The Fly (the Jeff Goldblum vomit scene did it for me). But I was pretty little then, and it didn’t have that effect on me 20 years later. I think another that got to me was Arachnophobia, but I have arachnophobia.

Things like Antichrist just couldn’t do it for me. It was a little gross, but so over the top (nail through the genitals, followed by bloody ejaculation?) that it wasn’t very psychological or visceral.

@bolwerk You wrote “so over the top (nail through the genitals, followed by bloody ejaculation?) ”
Obviously you never had a 12 core prostate biopsy. Ick…. ;-)

@Dutchess_III Calamari anyone?

I was watching nightmare on elm street and Predator when I was 3 years old. I thought predator was hilarious for some reason….

@LuckyGuy: yes, I’m sure it’s less fun when it happens to you. Seeing it onscreen was just corny though.