What scary movie characters left the biggest impression on you, especially when you were a kid? One's that gave you nightmares? I'd like to know, good movie or bad. I'd also like to know what about the character scared you the most :o). My choices are: 1. Gargoyles - a movie from the 70's. Bad movie, scary looking monsters ;o). 2. Salem's Lot - the freaky eyes on that vampire gave me nightmares for weeks!! 3. Legend - I wasn't exactly a kid then, but the character Darkness frightened me. His face was terrifying but at the same time just a tad sexy? (yeah, call me weird ;o)). 4. Thirteen Ghosts - another bad, bad movie with cool monsters. "The Jackal" scared the bejezuz outta me. Wouldn't want that chasing ME down the hall! LOL (that character was the one with his/her head in a cage). I think all in all, what scares me the most about the monsters that scare me the most is the eyes. Yep, the eyes. I guess that's why I have such a fascination with them :o). Laurie

The Thing ( the newer movie)

Boris Karoff as Frankenstein, I saw it the for the first time when I was about seven. Those stupid flying monkeys in the Wizard of OZ, to this day I still shiver when see those things. The all time scary movie for at least the first third of so of the movie has be THEM!. It's really scary until the ants make their appearence. Allowing for the budget and the Special Effects technology of the 50's though they ain't too bad. Another scary movie, one of the few horror movies that really scared me as I go older, was the British film, Legend of Hell House, I think it was the title. No gore and very little blood, but the suspense will kill you. The movie Alien, the first video tape that I ever bought back in the early days of VHS-Betamax wars, has to be scariest SF film that I have ever since.

"The Birds".........I think it bothered me so much because, Birds are/were real creatures we live with all of our lives, and I really thought it would happen! When I was older (I wasn't a kid either), it was the "Exorocist", but that was probaly mostly because I am a Catholic. Genny

LOL genny. I'm not Catholic and it scared the heck outta me too! ;o). Forgot about that one. I find spooky movies affect me more than typical "monster" movies. Movies that play on one's religious background/superstitions like the Exorcist or movies about ghosts, vampires or demons. There's something about a ghostly creature that can show up anywhere it wants and you can't kill it or make it go away ;o). And while I think that "Aliens" is the flat-out best sci-fi movie ever made, it think it's more suspenseful than scary. I was on the edge of my seat the whole way thru the movie, but it didn't scare me. What scares me are movies like "The Others", "The Sixth Sense", and "The Omen". Laurie

Dracula by far for me. Yes the eyes have alot to do with it. Ron

Scary creatures that gave me nightmares? Actually, I was the kid that was forever pointing out the wires, or the flaws in the costumes, or trying to figure out how they did the effect. ;) I think the things that scared me the most were those I could never properly see. The things with no faces, the shadows that loomed but were never properly visible. Those, and the things that looked /almost/ like creatures I know, but were just a tiny bit /wrong/. Humans with glowing eyes and blank faces, dogs that lurched instead of running properly, rats that swarmed and attacked instead of running away. I have to admit as well, daleks still scare me a tiny bit, despite having seen inside a 'real' one. I think it's the way they glide without legs. That, and there used to be one in a museum in London, set up so that you didn't see it unless you were looking behind you as you turned to go through a door, and rigged so that as you opened the door it chanted "STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" Did that ever make me jump!

A movie that actually did give me terrible nightmares is a very old one - with Vincent Price - I think the title is The Wax Museum. Where he appears to be a nice guy, but his hidden face is a crazed murderer. I was and still am terrified by Hitchcock's Psycho. Very intense to me - TOO intense. Cape Fear - with Robert DiNiro - I found that film very scary. I guess I find "real" people more scary than monsters. :-) -dg

I'm with dg. Real people doing terrible things scare me more than ugly monsters. I remember two movies that scared me as a child (under 10). One was "The Blob". The only thing I can remember of the other movie was a woman with an axe fixing to off her husband (I think). It was a black and white. However, that one scene is the only part I remember. These days the news scares me. Laurie, my favorite movie is "Legend" (not the director's cut). Though it has its downfalls, I find it the most visually stunning movie I have ever seen. And, Darkness is my favorite character. Beth

the Little dolls from Barbarella, they scared me! I stayed far from my sisters room for months after seeing them. OK I was like nine but it really really scared me. Will

I had nightmares for years about Zombies, they still make me shiver even though I've seen loads of movies with them in.

Has anyone here seen the original movie "The Picture of Dorian Gray"? It came out in the mid forties, and starred Hird Hatfield(who?). I'm not that old, but I'm a film buff of sorts. When they suddenly flashed the color shot of the corrupt portrait,that was probably one of the scariest moments in movies. The color shots of the picture were the only color shots in tha movie which was black and white. I viewed an exhibit of Ivan Albright, and some other macabre artists, such as Bacon, etc. They were here at the Chicago Art Institute. One of the pictures was Albright's original work for that movie. Although he didn't just do macabre paintings,his attention to detail and realism beyond reality was almost unbelievable. If you get a chance to see the original tape, with the color shots, check it out for yourself. Not all prints of the movie have the color shots in them.

That should be HURD Hatfield, sorry.

well, i gotta stick with flying monkeys. after that, cujo, gage the cat in pet semetary1, and jack nicholson in "the shining"...things that can be real, like a rabid dog, or resurrected dead pets tend to scare me more than vampires and stuff.

For me, it was the exorcist, even though I was around 17 at the time. I've never really been scared by movies. I'm like HaiGan. Always looking for the strings and checking the make-up. I LOVE BAD horror and gore movies. I laugh myself silly at them. I did see a BBC play when I was a kid which scared me. It was from an Edgar Allen Poe short story about kids, but I can't remember the name. Glad to see Ridley Scott getting well-deserved praise for Alien and Legend. And don't forget his other classic movie, Blade Runner. He used to do TV commercials in the UK before he directed movies, (in fact, his brother still does), and it shows. Great atmosphere and attention to detail is the secret. mac

A Vincent Price film called "Doctor Fibes" or something like that..He fed some fat guy a pie made of the guys poodle and gave some women a perm with an electric perm helmet, frying her brains in the process. I used have a cushion in front of my face for 90% of the film

Oh it might not have been vincent price, there was some other english horror actor out the same time as him. Cant remember his name but he had a dodgy tash, always get him and Vince mixed up

Actually to change gendres, the paintings of hieronmus bosch still give me nightmares partucally hel and his last judgement . Although he worked in teh 1500's he was definaly an atist about 500 years ahead of his time. He still makes Salvador Dali look like Spongebob Squarepants. I am positive he did too much LSD in the 60's (albeit teh 1560's).

Ooooh! Good movies everyone! Movies that scared me the most: Alien Magic (with Anthony Hopkins, scary ventriloquist dummies!) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (remake with Donald Sutherland) The Thing (remake) Ghost Story (really freaked me out)

The only movie that ever really scared me, as opposed to grossing me out or just get me excited, was the ORIGINAL scary movie... Nosferatu. When I was an itty bitty tiny child, I got the chance to see it from a bootleg copy of the actual fim. As in reel-to-reel. To this day, when the vampire rises out of his coffin perfectly flat, I get goosebumps.

Jaws did it for me, I was 10 and lived on a beach so the movie didn't require a lot of suspension of belief. I didn't sleep well for days afterwards, but it didn't keep me out of the water. ;-)

Michael Jackson in the THRILLER! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Psycho. I had to shower sitting down, with the curtain open (we had
one of those that had the extendable wand) for years, and to this
day I still require a clear shower curtain. >^_^

When i was real young, child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang and those french clown dolls with the tears, can't recall the movie...what scares me now is the Omen, any of the 3 movies..Steve

"I am positive he did too much LSD in the 60's (albeit teh 1560's)." Sorry to be the party pooper, but that popular notion (hallucinogenic ergot fungus) and the other, that Bosch was a madman, are totally baseless. His imagery was typical for depictions of the Christian Hell in his time and place. Many other Flanders artists of that time depicted similar demons and freakish scenes. Bosch was just the best of 'em. :-) At first I thought you meant that Dali took LSD in the 1960s, which is true. As a child, several of the films already mentioned spooked me. Also an episode of Outer Limits (or was it The Twilight Zone?) called "The Zanti Misfits" which featured creatures with antlike bodies and humanoid heads with lots of teeth. Oh, and there was that awful early '70s TV movie with Karen Black and the little African idol who comes to life and goes on a stabbing spree...can't remember the title, but it scared lots of people. As a young adult, yeah, The Exorcist, The Shining, and the original version of The Haunting, mostly for not showing "monsters." The soundtrack in Exorcist is scarier than the images.

My best friend just called and reminded me of the title of that Karen Black TV movie..."Trilogy of Terror." He'd seen it recently, and says "it's Sid and Marty Kroft bad," which doesn't sound scary at all. (Well, actually, H.R. Puffnstuff is scary in another sort of way...)

pakled, interesting opinion, since "Aliens" is usually ranked with "Bride of Frankenstein" and "Toy Story 2" as among the very, very few excellent sequels. Was it the alien drool and all that which disgusted you? I walked out on the Kurt Russell flick "Soldier." Whoa. Even worse than "Reign of Fire" or "Battlefield Earth." However, there will always be a special place in my heart for "Showgirls," perhaps the most enjoyable godawful movie, ever.

When I was a little kid there was a show on T.V. - I think it was probably French, I'm not sure. Either the title or the scary guy's name was something like Belphegor (sp?). I don't remember anything about it other than it made me quite scared of the dark.

I'm with geoegress on the newer "Thing", and with artnik on "Dorian Gray". Regarding the latter; I remember watching that at university amongst a theatrefull of cynical students - you could have heard a pin drop when the colour painting came on screen. Oh, and thinking of student film nights - not a character, but a single shot - there's THAT moment at the end of "Carrie"...

When little... The original "Thing" The BLOB, The Abombidable (sp) Snowman

Agree with artnik, Dorian Grey freaked me. Then: Alien (1) cause you didn't actually SEE the alien til the end of the movie. Norman Bates dressed as his mother with knife and killing in the shower scene. I smelled all weekend as a kid, no way was I taking a shower! haha, have since :P Tales of Terror I think it was called, little voodoo doll with a knife hackin at the ladies legs. and what REALLY scared the holy....well what got me as a kid the most? The Michlean Tire man in those commercials, that's my #1 not a movie, but wooo that one got me everytime as a kid.

Movies that i thought were scary when younger was The collosal man Freaks Hunchback of notre dame Exorcist Omen

Not a "horror" movie or "monster" movie per se, but I have to go with "Night of The Hunter" with Robert Mitchum as the preacher. Might be dating myself with that one, since I saw it when I was still a kid .... sometime ago, I must say. Of course, the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" Charles Laughton version would fit right in there. Still see it now and again on late late night/early morning TV. Larry F PS: Modern day, I'd have to go with the first encounter in the very first "Alien!"

The first one I remember making an impression on me was Jaws. My mum took me to see that when I was a little girl and I have been fearful of whats in the water ever since. Oh and nightmare on elm street the first time I saw it when younger. And someone mentioned that real "type" people are scarier than monsters and I would have to agree. When I was a young teenager I saw a movie I think it was called Pieces or something like that, that was the most horrible movie I have ever seen.

'not a character, but a single shot - there's THAT moment at the end of "Carrie"...' Ha-ha-ha! You just made me remember that when I saw that in the theater, the entire audience rose about a foot into the air... "All together now..... Jump!!" (me too). Speaking of walking out on movies, the only one I can remember walking out on was 'Independence Day' which I saw in an I-max theater when I was on vacation in New York. Even seats shaking and stupid sound effects couldn't hold me after the first dreadful hour. When I saw the president of the US of A climb into a fighter jet, I was out of there. I shoulda known better than to go in. mac

Pakled- army of darkness....funny[same guy as did hercules and zena for tv] evil dead 2...has a few funny moments...mostly lighthearted but pretty gross in spots...ash is in it,and he has some great one liners evil dead[the original]........very scary movie!nothing to do with the other two other than that the plot is based on the same idea...i first saw this as a teen...in a cabin while on a school camping trip....don't know who picked the movie...really bad idea tho,nothing like having to walk through the woods back to your cabin after seeing that one!

Wow I almost forgot about the Blob. That caused me to have nightmares for years. Ron

Yeah the original Blob - Young Steve McQueen, if I recall correctly. Didn't like the remake! Also, the original Night of the Living Dead isn't half bad! Certainly not half dead! Ha, I can remember my little brother - now in his mid 50s - just couldn't handle the original The Body Snatchers!

Yeah it was Steve McQueen. Ron

It

heyas; the things that scare me are machines, actually. when i was little, i had terrible nightmares about the 'fembots' from the bionic woman/six million dollar man. and that venusian tank thing that tried to flatten steve austin. one of the creepiest damn movies is phantasm. i think there's something in it for everyone. i was always unnerved by the barrels with the little windows where the crushed humans could look out. my mom totally freaked when the kid cut off the tall man's fingers, and they started flopping around. it's so surreal, it's like a nightmare in itself. actually, i think ash in evil dead is the basis for duke nukem, not doom. duke gets all his one-liners like 'hail to the king, baby.' if you like to be scared, and you enjoy first-person shooters, you should try the games thief - the dark project, and thief 2 - the metal age. these have something for everyone, too: undead zombies, religious fanatics with large blunt weapons, spiders, and those nasty mechanical things. if you dont like first-person shooters, you can still try them out. you do NOT run around shooting everything in sight. in fact, you have to hide and sneak around without being seen or caught. much more nerve-wracking than a stand-up fight!

Sue88: Belphor

I have to agree with Valandar about the original Nosferatu. I was no stripling when I first saw it, nor did it truly frighten me, but I found the character of Count Orlock particularly creepy. Those fingers ....

Hi Ailien 1 was the most suspensful of the lot 2 was a better action movie skip 3 four not too bad.. vampires in salems lot had me sharpening some of those wooden,african, tourist carvings ( Fork and spoon no good but the knife made a good weapon!) Doctor who was good for scares but the best was the green death those giant maggots were the worst I laughed when they became giant flys though (bad fx) most movies didn't scare me when I was a kid ok they made me jump I played too much D&D and Traveller to worry my trusty +4 deamon killer sword or my power armour and Fgmp14 had a way of dealing with most creatures! I still belive in the old addage tho' that with the possible exception of Lord of the rings the pictures are better on the radio and the sound and pictures are better in books just keep lovecraft out of my house!!! Dave

"A Vincent Price film called "Doctor Phibes" or something like that..He fed some fat guy a pie made of the guys poodle and gave some women a perm with an electric perm helmet, frying her brains in the process." I think this was actually "Theatre of Blood" with Vincent price and Dianna Riggs. (I'm a longtime Vincent Price fan) Scarey? As a kid I recall nightmares after an animated short that aired on the Ed Sullivan Show that showed effects of a nuclear war - One image of a Deer being incinerated to a skeleton in mid-leap stayed with me for years. As an adult, I recall feeling unsettled watching "The Changeling" alone one night in the 80's. I love splatter and monster movies, but I started doing those effects as a hobby and sometimes professionally in the early 70's, and I rarely see anything but an actor with latex and Karo Syrup when I watch them. The staging, story, and editing is what makes them work.

I cut my teeth on horror, weird, and suspense movies as a child as my mother was a fan, so I can't say what monster scares me as I am not "normal" (evil laugh), but I do remember as a small child being afraid of large monsters such as the original Godzilla, Reptillicus, and the like that that could step on your house and crush it. (I am showing my age I guess since I saw them at the movies on their first runs.) I would keep watch over the house roofs for a few days so I could runaway if I saw them. The movie, The Exorcist did not scare me as much as the book did. My mind can make way more scarier things than any movie. I tend to like psycholgical horror more than the physical.

"IT" was terrible. Think of a CLOWN who kills kids? How scary is that? shudder

For me, it was one of the first "WereWolf" movies. I've always been fascinated by wolves. But, Leather-Guy has "hit the nail"! My first viewing of the destructive power of a Nuclear Blast! I get Shivers instantly. As Spock would say: "Nothing Unreal Exists"... Marco

I forgot about The Body Snatchers - the very eary B&W one and the Donald Sutherland versions both scare me. When I saw the Donald Sutherland version, (I live in a big noisy city) I kept sitting up at night, thinking I had heard that peculiar shrill sound they made after they had been "podded" - outside in the street somewhere. Shudder!

Dr Phibes! Hehe, I bought this around Halloween and hadn't watched it yet (saw it long ago) runs to put tape in VCR. Bloodsong - haven't played Thief or Thief 2, but as far as first person shooters: Clive Barker's Undying is pretty scary as well as playing the marine in AVP 2.

Nosferatu creepy Dr. Phibes when I was a kid Omen, Thing, Silance of the Lambs And those creepy Hillbillies in Deliverance... that was very Damn scary to me.

How about the wolf in 'An American Werewolf in London'. I don't mean the werewolf but the wolves at the beginning, the ones you don't see. There is just this guy, out on the Yorkshire moors. All alone. It is dark and misty. He is afraid. Then, from out of the cold, wet, mist comes a howl, a howl full of terror and frustration. Something is out there, something not human. He pulls his coat tighter around him, though no coat could keep this cold out. Then the sound comes again, louder, closer....... I want my mummy.