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 ?

A programme on spontaneous human combustion. I remember vividly the pictures of a pair of slippers over burnt out floorboards and it haunts me to this day

oh i remember that

The Wicker Man - fucking hell

and Straw Dogs, so unsettling

Animal Kwackers. That big blue lion on the guitar. I was genuinely petrified of him as a child.

I was also terrified of the Wombles.

And what the heck was Willo the Wisp??

We watched American Werewolf in London on the coach going to France on our first year/year 7 trip - think the teachers slept through it !!

I have a memory of a road safety film warning about the dangers of stepping out off the kerb too early that either showed a girl's foot getting crushed or about to get crushed by a car or van wheel.

We definitely grew up thinking spontaneous human combustion and quicksand were immediate dangers !

Oooh if we're doing Grange Hill, don't forget that poor boy who fell off the roof in the shopping mall! Antoni, his name was. He was from that very strict family.

Don’t touch sparklers !

The Children of Green Knowe - not really scary just eerie/uncanny, especially when the statue walks across the river and the tree get inhabited by an evil spirit and starts to walk.

I went to the author's house once in Hemmingford Grey and the statue from the book/TV show is in the garden there...shudder!

Yes it was a Disney film😆 but it scared the crap out of me!

I think we all grew up terrified of nuclear bombs, sparklers, grain silos, train tracks, pylons, sand, ponds, old fridges and AIDS. It’s a wonder that we didn’t all get treated for anxiety disorders.

RiP Artax 😭

90s TV drama called Earthfasts really freaked me out. I can't even remember the plot but it made me really uneasy. It was on CBBC after school and had Paul Nicholls in it, which was the only reason I watched it because everyone really fancied him!

God I was petrified of the alien man in The Boy from Space - had nightmares about him!

I was telling someone at work about the Apaches public information film and she thought I was making it up until I made her watch it. I remember one poor lad started crying because he lived on a farm and was properly traumatised by the kids all dying horribly!

Also, haven't seen Moondial but I loved the book by the same name (thought don't remember the birthmark so maybe a different story!) anyway I found it in a charity shop and bought it for my 10 year old. It completely freaked her out and she didn't finish it 😂

Oh and when Paul Daniels pranked people that his escape trick had failed (just googled it, 1987 “Iron Maiden” death hoax). I remember feeling beyond petrified

Has anyone mentioned The Storyteller ?

Ditto - loved the books

Absolutely!
And falling into a frozen lake then the water re-freezing over the top of you so you can't get out. No clue where i saw that but have never forgotten it.

An episode of Trilogy of Terror absolutely terrified me in 1975. It had a little wooden African doll with messy hair and razor-sharp teeth and ran around hiding under the girl's bed, trying to stab her ankles with a little spear.

Some episodes of Dramarama could be a bit unsettling

This hedgehog man thing in The Storyteller

V
Witchfinder General
Dr Phibes..well anything with Vincent Price in
Dr Who, specifically daleks
The X and XX video rental in the DER catalogue - SCANNERS!

Maugrim. If you know you know.