Things which scared you as a kid and have stayed with you...

[GinJeanie]

I’m talking about things which scared the bejeezus out of you at the time and you would still hate to encounter as an adult- no doubt irrationally. I have two examples and suspect if I revisited them, they wouldn’t be as bad as I remember. I won’t though - still too scared!
The first is a book called A Candle in Her Room. It’s about some sisters who have an vile, evil wooden doll in their house and horrible things keep happening to them. It was a children’s book but I found it terrifying. I’m a middle-aged woman but NOTHING would make me read it again. The thought makes me want to vomit.
The second is a public safety film called Apaches which was shown in the 1970s. It involved a group of children dying one by one on a farm (all had horrible accidents)... I know I will never watch that film again even though it’s readily available on YouTube. My terror is too great.
Anyone else?

I think I'm going to watch the storyteller on Amazon. I need to face my hedgehog man demons!

Weirdly I haven't been able to get it out of my head since finding this thread and remembering it.

I'm sure it had a bit near the end of the episode where his skin/prickles were removed to reveal a prince beneath, but the prickle skin was thrown on the fire and the man starts screaming in pain!! Harrowing!

@Zelda93 I remember reading about a house with dangerous ivy I vaguely remember it was in a Bunty annual or similar in the late 70’s.

Yes it was a horror type monthly comic I think it was called Misty but not sure!! It proper stayed with me!!

I wonder that too @Zaphodsotherhead. My daughter is 2. There was a hey duggee episode where there were some eyes in the dark woods. She’s now terrified of eyes in the dark. So you just never know what’s going to affect them. And maybe we are too sensitive to it all and a bit of mild anxiety during a tv show is good for them. But equally I don’t think horror movies is the way to go. I was traumatised by nightmare on elm st.

Has nobody mentioned Struwelpeter, the book of gruesome cautionary tales? Especially the story of little Suck-a-Thumb? (Shudder)

@wanderings

Has nobody mentioned Struwelpeter, the book of gruesome cautionary tales? Especially the story of little Suck-a-Thumb? (Shudder)

Was that the thing with the boy who would come in the night and cut off your thumb if you sucked them?

@Lardlizard

Electric pylons

Me too, for as long as I can remember. I'm in my 50s and still have to steel myself to even walk under the wires. No idea where it comes from.

But then, is today's generation of children just a little bit too protected from anything scary?

Have you watched any kids' films recently? There's stuff in them that terrifies/repulses me as an adult.

But then everyone find different things scary/repulsive.

My 18 year old DD was happily watching things like The Evil Dead and Night of the Living Dead from aged 14 but was TERRIFIED last year by Erazerhead and nearly had a heart attack at the end of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train.

The White Witch, played by Barbara Kellerman in the BBC version of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1988 was truly scary; much more so than Tilda Swinton's quiet portrayal of her. She roared "NO!!!!!!!!!" when Edmund dared to ask for more Turkish Delight, and my mum remarked at the time "just like me with the tidying up". (My mum had threatened to make me miss the programme if the tidying wasn't done.)

Misty:
comicvine.gamespot.com/misty/4050-33890/

The big drums in marching bands.

Thought of another one...

I remember seeing a picture of nuns with huge bat-like head pieces in a story book about Pinocchio. I think they're called Cornettes. Very upsetting.

www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/305822630930907439/

@jonsnowsghost quite possibly!

@FlamingoAndJohn That's the one.
"Mama had scarcely turned her back:
the thumb was in; alas, alack!
The door flew open, and in he ran:
the big tall red-legged, scissor man."

And the pictures showed this is all its glory. Read the poem in full to your thumb-sucking children, if you dare!

@Geekster1963 you'd think, wouldn't you? But I know it can't possibly be, because I watched it at the house of friends which was the house we moved into in 1976

plus I was 11 in 1980.

I'm wondering whether it was actually the Seeds of Doom, but the metamorphosis was neither a plant nor Tom Baker...

An episode of 999 where a group of school kids/scouts had gone pot holing. They came across what’s called a ‘sump’ which is a pool of water and the hole in the rock to crawl through is under the water level so you have to take a deep breath and go under and feel your way through and come up the other side. One of the boys didn’t come up the other side and turns out he’d somehow gone in the wrong direction under the water and ended up in another cave on his own! The experts in the group must have realised what happened and went to find him. I’m order to get out he had to take a massive deep breath and go back under to escape the cave. He was so freaked out by this thought that the group leader had to say to him ‘if you want to see your mum again you’ve got to do this!’. Anyway, of course he got out ok. When the Thai boy football team got stuck in those caves approx two years ago, I was heavily invested in following the story even though it freaked me out to think about the details of the cave system. I remember I was painting my kitchen with the radio on and the news every hour was that more and more of them had got out alive and I kept calling to DH ‘there’s another one out!’.

This makes me laugh to write this but the bit in Sleeping Beauty when Maleficents green eyes appear in the fireplace.

That used to scare the living daylights out of me

Has anyone mentioned Darby O'Gill and the Little people yet? The Banshee and the Death coach scared the bejesus out of me!
Another old film I remember that was quite creepy, but had a great storyline to it ( they don't make them the same these days), was a ghost story called "The Amazing Mr Blunden".

The Witches is the worst, scariest thing I’ve ever seen and I would never watch it now as an adult!

@merryhouse I was going to suggest The Seeds of Doom. They do change in to a plant. But not Tom Baker like you said. The only other one I can think of is The Ark In Space but that’s more insects.

@merryhouse these are The Seeds of Doom plants.

The Towering Inferno.
I have been terrified ever since of being trapped in a fire.
And then 9/11 happened! 😱

Drive in car washes. One gobbled up the windscreen washer on my ddad's car when I was little. He went ballistic. Not sure if I was more scared of the car wash or him but that's another story. Still can't go in a drive in car wash age 48🤦‍♀️ oh and Dr Who. Ds7 may want to watch it soon!

@whatshebininagain the fear of pylons for me comes from a public information film or a story they told us at primary school about a boy who climbed up a pylon and got electrocuted.

@aquamarine08 I watched it when I was way too young and I was traumatised. I mean properly. There was a poster in the local video shop and I couldn’t walk past it. Slept with the light on for a year.