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?

Worzel Gummage still scares the crap out of me now I'm mid 30s.
Puppets, clowns, spiders too

My God yes the AIDS adverts! John Hurt's booming voice terrified me, I was convinced everyone was going to die from it.

I remember being off school sick and it was near Halloween and This Morning was showing clips from horror movies and they showed the girl from The Exorcist going down the stairs in a crab position. It scared the hell out of me and I only watched that film for the first time a couple of years ago (I'm 33 now) but was feeling so anxious.

That scene in 3 men and a baby with the boy hiding behind the curtain.

Didn't that turn out to be a cardboard cut out?

Does anyone remember the programme Silas ? I’m sure there was a horrific scene with a watermill.

The book 'In a Dark, Dark Room' I remember reading it in year 6 and one story was about a girl who wore a ribbon around her neck and her husband untied it and her head fell off.
I was frightened for years after that, and it always pops into my mind every now and then.

@habibihabibi this happened where I live, I was only a child but remember it so well.
I even still go to the shopping centre, although the butchers where he was taken isn't there anymore.

But I'm the same, I hate reading stuff about children being hurt or killed, but I absolutely cannot watch or read anything about how little James was killed, as it's horrendous.

@UnagiSalmonSkinRoll omg thanks for reminding me of that scene, easily the most horrible thing in that movie, really freaked me out!

@theneverendinglaundry

The boy behind the curtain terrified me for literally 20 years. I thought about every single day from 8-20 ish

Johnny I want my liver back I'm at the bottom of the stairs
Johnny I want my liver back I'm at the top of the stairs
Johnny I want my liver back I'm at the bottom of your bed

There was an episode of casualty where someone got impaled on a metal fence, a child I think? I remember being totally horrified by it and obsessed with being accidentally impaled for months. Casualty actually used to be quite horrific.

Oh and Quatermass. I was really small but was terrified of it.

And another tv thing where people kept fixating on this lumpy hill/land formation and were making it out of clay - all making the same shape. That's all I remember but it was really sinister.

Actually I've just realised the clay lump thing was 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', which wasn't really scary. But the clay lump thing - and the fact that everyone was having the same vision - really made me uneasy as a small child. I have, since then, always been extra spooked by any suggestion of 'mass hysteria' 'group think' - anything where people are having the same thoughts.

The X Files episode called 'Badlaa,' the little man on the skateboard made me cry every time I thought about it. I was about 8 or 9 I think when that episode came out and the thought of it still freaks me out 20 years later. My sister used to make the same squeaking sound that his skateboard made and say "little man is under your bed..." I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it

In the Narnia book The Silver Chair, there's a scene where Aslan the lion appears to Jill in a dream, to remind her of the quest she is on, and the signs she must remember. I watched the BBC show of it a second time as an adult: that scene is terrifying, and made me afraid to go to sleep! Jill's fear and begging for forgiveness is so brilliantly acted, Daniel Radcliffe eat your heart out.

If you're brave enough to watch it, it's , at 19:25.

@SlightyJaded i’ve walked underneath a cruise ship in a dry dock. fascinating, but slightly terrifying.

i had a book as a child called the Hamlyn Book of Horror. my mother used to let me watch horror films* as a small child and became fixated on me ‘loving’ scary stuff. the book has a picture on the inside cover of a severed hand on a windowsill. there was a section on werewolves that frightened me so badly i didn’t sleep properly for months.

turns out my mother is a sociopath and i never liked being scared. i’ve bought the book as an adult to try and dispel the lingering fear but i still can’t read it.

cheers, mother.

• Amityville Horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original uncut Evil Dead, Driller Killer, I Spit on Your Grave, The Hills Have Eyes etc. there was a video shop in our local town that did these ‘video nasties’ under the counter, and mother would watch them with me on a sunday morning. i was seven. i was permanently terrified as a child, and have lasting mental illness as a result.

Thunderstorms - terrifying. The next bolt of lightning is aimed at me. 50 plus years and I'm still here!
The daleks in Dr who. The theme music gives me the shivers.
Oh and dead goldfish

[quote OnceBitten25]@Lardlizard me too!! Am terrified of them![/quote]
OMG, all these years I thought I was a weirdo but there's at least 3 of us. Could we form a support group?

Edna the tv in willo the wisp

@Justmuddlingalong

Getting up for a wee during the night, I always imagined the witch that lived under my bed would grab my ankles as I put my feet on the floor. After doing my wee, I was terrified the witch that lived in the toilet, would reach out and grab me as I flushed the loo. I never washed my hands after the loo at night. I would flush, flick the light off, tear along the hall and leap onto my bed from the bedroom door, because the witch under the bed was still waiting... I use the past tense here, but I'm now 50 yo and those witches are still waiting.

I used to be very scared of getting up for wees in the middle of the night, but not because of witches. I was afraid fo waking my parents up. If my father was in a bad mood, He could scream at me and I used to be very scared of him. I tried never to make him angry.

Pylons. Too many of those PIFs shown at school of how dangerous they were.

Walking under ladders or scaffolding.

I like Sesame Street but I found Ernie and Bert scary. Those eyebrows!

Lifts, especially old ones.

Being blind. used to have obsessive thoughts about losing my eyesight and once on holiday woke up panicking because the room my sister and I were in was completely dark (curtiains left no chink) and thought I'd gone blind.

@BrandyandBabycham

Another vote for pylons If Dark Water is the one where a voice intones “ I’ll be back....” then that was absolutely terrifying!

Make that 4. Pylonophobia is definitely a thing. I wonder if we are similar ages (I'm 51) and there was some pylon thing going on in the 70s.

I know there was a public info film with the father & son and the fishing rods, bit I'm pretty sure it's not that.

@halfbakedkate

I agree with the kite tangled up in the pylons from the 80s. I'm still scared witless about pylons and can't even look at them. Zammo from Grange Hill. Best drug prevention ever. Also, the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He is still the most terrifying film character I've ever encountered. Just the thought of him sends chills up my spine.

Sorry, last one, apologies to any subsequent pylonophobic posters. I should really have RTFT before I posted but the sheer relief of finding I'm not alone when I've always felt I was weird is immense.

When my DC was born I used to force myself to walk under lines/past pylons so as not to pass it on, but even now I have to scuttle on with my head down. Here's strength to my new found fellow pylonophobes.

@Greenteandchives yes the "skellingtons" were my worst nightmare plus the giant statue/sculpture that comes alive and tries to kill them...

@DanceWithYourBalloon that sounds like the Enfield poltergeist which is a true story (allegedly)

@tinkywinkyshandbag
Nooooooo! Why did I read this at bed time?