Has any media made you too scared to sleep as an adult?

[ClassicStripe]

Went to see Ghost Stories last night. Was absolutely brilliant and thoroughly enjoyed it. It did make me jump out my skin a few times and it was very fun and creepy. However I ended up spending most the night laying awake feeling scared and listening to every creak last night. I nearly had heart failure when the baby started crying at 3am. I’m no stranger to being awake with anxiety or stress but it must be decades since I’ve laid awake at night scared!

I watched the ring when I had just moved in with my ex, he went to bed. Just after it had finished I turned the TV and everything off and headed to bed, then the TV turned itself back on with a screen full of static, proceeded to shit myself and dived into bed lol.

Immediately after I finished watching The Ring, the landline phone rang, I've never been so terrified for a couple of seconds.

The Eyes of Laura Mars (1970s film with Faye Dunaway) - ridiculously scary back in the day!!

Also the book of Dracula - Bram Stoker. Unable to sleep for 2 weeks after.

Blair Witch Project - why did I do this to myself??? 😂

Eraserhead. I watched it on TV as an impressionable teenager which was a very bad mistake.

No. Never. Not even as a child. I don’t tend to watch horror films or the like but only because I think they are daft.

I’m another one who came on to say The Woman in Black play. DH and I went to see it and I gripped his arm so tightly he had my nail marks on it (bless him he didn’t flinch). I said afterwards that I now know what it’s like to be so scared I could cry. We had to sleep with the light on for a good couple of days afterwards. My friend went with her mum to the matinee and they had to go to a loud buzzy bar afterwards because they both said they needed bright lights and people around them.

We watched the film one winter’s afternoon - we didn’t think we could do it at night - and we both hid behind cushions several times. There was one particular bit where DH said the hairs just stood up on his neck.

I started reading women in black but never finished it as I had to return it to the library. Starting to think that was a good thing!

I read The Woman in Black years ago and it has stayed with me. The film with Daniel Radcliffe isn't as scary as the book in my opinion. I'm not brave enough to see the play after hearing from friends that went to see it and said how scary it was. 🤣

The Uncanny podcast episode about the little girl following them home from France and the subsequent weird photo. I think it's been explained by being a sort of negative photo of the woman's daughter in the back of the car but it really gave me the creeps!

The one that lives rent free in my head is the very short film that won awards for scariest short horror. It's about turning the light off and seeing a woman's figure standing at the end of the hallway, lights on and she's gone, light's off and she's closer etc etc and then suddenly she's by the side of the bed and the lights go off. It was years ago and I still sometimes think of that bloody woman being by the side of the bed when I'm trying to get to sleep. I don't watch horror films anymore..... 🤣

John Connolly’s first 4 or 5 books (Charlie Parker series) gave me a few sleepless nights. Properly messed with my head.

Same. That film traumatised me at the time, it was terrifying and really upsetting.

The Exorcist - even the name scares me . Any image of the film shown on tv and I’m not sleeping.
A follow up The Heretic, has a really gruesome hospital scene, which I replayed in my head every night shift I did where I had to go along a quiet corridor. I never moved so fast in my life

Well I’ve just looked up the Elizabeth Cage books and the first was was 99p on the Kobo. If I don’t sleep tonight I’m blaming you lot

Ghostwatch! Oh my god. Probably doesn't stand the test of time but it properly got to me.

This. I am 38 now and still to this day can't sleep in the same room as a TV!

Someone bought me the DVD a couple of years ago and I had to get rid of it. I was so scared when I watched it back in the day.

That was on BBC iPlayer last Autumn (I think it was the anniversary of it). I watched it then, it was incredibly painful and shocking to watch..

I watched ‘Us’ (the Jordan Peele film) in 2019 and have only recently been able to look at a pair of scissors without being utterly afraid. But now that I’ve thought about it again, I expect I’ll go back to being scared of scissors. It doesn’t help that the scissors emoji looks a lot like the scissors in the film (if my memory serves me correctly). ✂️

The bus scene from Luther.

Didn't make me too scared to sleep but I found it really disturbing.

Someone at work was talking about it and I watched on on YouTube in a crowded / busy office and I was still scared shitless.

I've never been able to watch 'The Shining'. I tried reading it once too but didn't get much past page one!

At least you managing see the whole thing. I just can't and yes, most hotel corridors remind me of it!

I was too scared to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth on my own after watching the Fred & Rose West thing so i keep well clear of horror films!

That episode of Luther where the killer is hiding under the lady’s bed… I won’t have a bed with space under it any more!!

Black mirror

Oh I saw ghost stories in the theatre a few weeks ago. All through it my watch kept alerting me to calm down 🙈🙈 the data from my watch afterwards was hilarious 😂

Or the one where he pins her against the wall and licks her face. Both of those scenes gave me a visceral reaction of fear.