Gen X childhood TV and film moments that felt genuinely frightening

[Txutxioyigx]

Gen X scary things:
Noseybonk
Mr Bronson -‘kendalllllll’
Triffids
Chocky
Tripods
Worzel Gummidge when he changed heads
Daleks
The Wheelers in Return to Oz
Any others ?

I watched a film called watcher in the woods (1980 film). It scared me to death! Lol! And my mum let me watch alien when I was 11, I couldn't sleep properly for months, I don't know what she was thinking letting me and my siblings watch it! I'm very sensitive even now, I can't watch horror movies!

God yes. And Bambi, which was rereleased when I was about 5. I was so upset at his mother's death my mum had to carry me out.
In Watership Down I had my face covered and was crying most of the time!

Dramarama sometimes did a 'spooky' episode, there was one with a man who turned around and his face was like melted wax. Shit me right up!

Don't even mention Children of the Stones!

Hartley Hare

Edward Scissor hands (not the movie, the old fashioned ink illustrations)

The public information film about getting stuck in a fridge

An old episode of Dr Who set in a forest where there were creatures without hands

As a very young child I was terrified of the advert for Wookey Hole and its famous witch. So much so my mum would leave the room with me whenever there was an ad break in a tv programme

Omg yes, that was more terrifying than the actual monster

This thing in Rupert Bear

Who Framed Roger Rabbit when the cute cartoon shoe gets dipped. I'm 51 now and still can't watch that bit 😪

I had a book, Who’s afraid of the dark? One story in particular, Nile. But also Worzel Gummidge, and Basil Brush when I was little.

@PartyHard yes that jester was very odd.

We read the book, Mrs Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH. I read it to my kids too, and it was one of their favourites.

@PartyHard - we got Flowers In The Attic in a job lot of paperbacks my parents bought at a car boot sale because it had Shōgun in and my dad wanted to read that.

My 9 year old brother, who read anything he could get his hands on, asked my parents what rape meant, which is how they realise what else was in the box.

Also no seatbelts, endless smoking around children, lead in petrol.abd no drunk driving laws to speak of. It's a miracle we survived.

Oh my god, I'd forgotten about the Wheelers in Return to Oz! They were scary!

I was also terrified of the scene in the Dark Crystal where the vulture-type creatures kill the others by sucking their life blood out in tubes!

Omg, I still think about Sapphire and Steel sometimes. The whistling soldier was terrifying as was the photograph one 😳😳😳

I showed my late teens/young adult children Hartley Hare and they said that watching it as a child explained why I'd turned out as I am 😂

Hartley Hare looked like re-animated roadkill

Fenella

Children of the Stones is burned in my Memory.
The government safety adds... especially the electrical box one and the one where the kids run through a train tunnel and die!
The AIDS tombstones
Dr Who (the giant cocoons)
And Tales of the Unexpected! How my parents let me watch that I do NOT know!

My whole childhood was one of benign neglect!

What in the name of all that is unholy is that??? I've heard my aunts mention Stig of the Dump, never seen it or wanted to even look it up. Glad I didn't.

Early 00s I recall being shown Children of the Stones for English, study of folklore lesson arch (we also investigated Nessie sightings), can imagine it was unsettling for children in the 80s. I encountered The Boy From Space as a young adult (educational studies & the 5-14 curriculum) and thought it was quite a sweet series and had some benefit for helping dyslexic children in it's time.

Not just parents but also the teachers. I remember at about 13yo our art teacher let us watch The Fog one afternoon and I was terrified!

We loved having that played to us in Yr 6 at school..
(I have it on every form of recording - and went to a show).

For me - Boy from Space, then, later, Day of the Triffids

Sapphire and Streel.
A programme called Changes that I can never find any info on.
Nuclear bomb survival public info programmes.

I watch this every Christmas as it’s pure nostalgia for me. I used to be terrified at Aslan on the stone table, I used to cry! It’s a wonderful animation though.

Yes! Poor cartoon clown shoe😪. And now I've remembered artax the horse from the never ending story😢.

Timothy Claypole (played by Michael Staniforth, who sadly died of Aids at 44)

Noseybonk !

I watched Hellraiser on VHS on my own when I was about 14. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have done 😬