Event Horizon. Cool, the guy from Jurassic Park is missing his eyes. Terminator 2. Thanks Dad. Akira. Hello, baby's first body horror. Clockwork Orange probably also counts. I was fascinated by the film that had about 5 different content warnings at the beginning of it. There was also that time we rented The Big Lebowski for family video night when I was a kid. Didn't last too long on that one.
David Cronenberg's They Came From Within (aka Shivers) My Mom and I went to see this at our local theater when I was 13 years old. It turned out to be a very uncomfortable situation for both of us. If you've ever seen the move, you'll understand. Shivers (1975 film) - Wikipedia No wonder I'm so screwed up!
Night and Fog, which my fifth grade class was shown with no permission slips required. I can't imagine that today.
Helter Skelter (1976 mini-series) - supposed to be in bed, hiding behind the couch, took me fifteen minutes to realize I should get the hell to bed, but not before being scarred for life. Ode to Billy Joe (1976) - After we got free HBO with our new tv (no black box necessary) I saw all kinds of stuff I didn’t really understand at 8 or 9 years of age. This one stuck with me. The Silent Partner (1978) - To be fair there’s a grisly scene in this that I wouldn’t recommend anybody see at any age. That said, I don’t know if it was my age or if the scene was as truly horrific as it is in my memory. I’m too afraid to go back back check.
You’re not wrong about Silent Partner.I rewatched it a couple years ago and the scene you’re referencing was just as strong. The movie has held up pretty well, but the tone up until the scene in question was lightish… kind of a caper movie, well acted with Elliot Gould in full grown up doofus mode. Not so light afterward.
Most films that should have scared me as a kid didn't, with the exceptions of the 1986 version of Murders at the Rue Morgue. That monkey at the end scared the living daylights out of me and I could barely sleep for several days afterward. I watched it as an adult and conquered my fears, but that creepy monkey will always be the one that got me.
This helps. I’m guessing I saw this on a Saturday afternoon on tv. It wouldn’t have been too long after I had seen Gould in the silly The Devil and Max Devlin at the movie theater. It must have been even more shocking thinking I was watching one type of movie and then to take that dark turn.
Can't think of any for myself, but my stepmother took 12-year-old me and her four-year-old son to see "Alien" in 1979. Messed him up bad! Still no idea what she was thinking. I wondered if maybe she believed it'd be light sci-fi like "Star Wars", but I can't imagine that - we all knew it was a horror movie!
Dr. Strangelove. Most of the satire went over my head. In the late 50's and early 60's there weren't many scary movies that would mess up a kid's psyche.
I had older siblings, so I watched a bunch of movies that, looking back on it, I was too young for. The ones I now feel like I shouldn’t have been watching generally are those with sexual content, like Porky’s and The Last American Virgin. The more scary ones I remember seeing, like The Shining, The Thing, Alien and (more disturbing than scary) A Clockwork Orange, I don’t remember being particularly bothered by. Maybe because I was too young to be interested in them so I wasn’t really paying that much attention. Although I did like Alien, and don’t recall being bothered by it at all. I thought the chest-bursting scene was super cool, at age seven. I liked The Thing a lot, too, actually. I definitely did get scared by movies, but the ones I remember being scared by weren’t really “scary” movies. Some of the scenes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind scared the crap out of me.
am i the first to say Jaws? i was 14, went with my parents, that opening scene did me in.....and the rest was icing on the cake, we lived next to the beach so i still went swimming but never without a little nervousness when i went out far....even close...terrifed at first also 16: All that Jazz....with the jump cut to the chest getting cracked....that was more disturbing than all the "Saw"s
I saw The Omen when I was about 7 or 8 - it was the TV edit, but it still freaked me out bad. Not quite as scary 30 years later, but it was still effective for the most part.
1971's Headless Eyes, rated R in a Falfurrias Texas theater. I was around 12 years old. Also the original Last House On The Left around the same age. It made my 10 year old brother run out of the theater and wait for me to see it to the end. Lot of "Grind House" style movies released in the early '70's. There was absolutely nothing else to do in that desolate town back then. We watched whatever was available no matter the adult rating.
Deliverance, Jaws, Dirty Harry, Halloween etc. most probably all before I hit my teens. I actually screamed, cried and ran out the room during Jaws. The decapitated head in the boat scene. I reckon I was around 7 or 8. I remember seeing Alien when I was around 21. I bit some of my fingernails till they bled. I was probably too young for that one.