Things in media that scared you as a kid.

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

I never saw the Golden Goose example above, but there was something similar in Season 1 of Reboot- the Medusa bug. The bug gradually petrifies everything, an unstoppable tide of gray that we get to watch gradually consume the entire city of Mainframe including several named characters.

Every attempt to stop it fails. The terrified survivors take refuge in the heart of Mainframe, cutting it off from the rest of the city and activating an energy shield... and then it somehow transmits itself across empty air and tears down the shield to petrify everyone before they can finish screaming. Oh, and it's discovered that if a living being is petrified for long enough, they shatter.

It's a very good thing that Hexadecimal isn't as evil as her brother, or that would have been the end of the series right there. There was another Hex episode that ended with the destruction of an entire Game world. Then there was 'Painted Windows'... Pretty much every Hexadecimal episode is potential nightmare fuel. She's practically that series' version of Q or Mr. Mxyzptlk.

Spoiler: Artistry

 

[Veldel]

The skeletons outside in hyrule field at night and the hands in the forest temple in OoT.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

The Witches with Anjelica Huston was horrifying.

 

[Scarim Coral]

That Simpsons episodes when Selma wanted a baby. She dated Moleman and that closeup scene of Moleman kiss up close scared the hell out of me as a kid!

 

[lacktheknack]

I couldn't deal with live-action movies until I was, like, twelve. It didn't help that the few I did see were always tragedies like "Where The Red Fern Grows", or somewhat frightening like "North by Northwest".

The only live-action movies I could tolerate were "Mouse Hunt" and "Baby's Day Out".

In games, freaking Tomb Raider III, which I first played when I was ten, kept having enemies launch out from behind corners, scaring the crap out of me until I'd approach all corners from an obscenely large angle.

 

[MrFalconfly]

This thing which featured for a glorious 2-3 seconds in the B monster movie, Hogath Hughes watches in The Boy and the Iron Giant scared the bejesus out of me as a 7 yeah old boy.

I had nightmares of the thing.

Big killer robot destroying cities, and nuclear weapons causing annihilation? Fine

Brain monster? GET THAT THING AWAY FROM MEEEEE!

 

[CaitSeith]

The transporter accident scene from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. You have a sudden and frankly-jarring alarm sound, followed by a scene where two people are malforming while in transport, screaming horribly. The book was more detailed about just how grotesque it was.

Another thing is that I had a curious fear reaction to certain B-level movies, like for instance The Green Slime, Forbidden Planet, and The Blob (either version). Of course, 80s-version Blob may actually be A-level material, but who knows? It was actually more the scene of being trapped in the diner basement that gave me nightmares. Forbidden Planet gave me fears of being attacked in the dark by an invisible monster, something I can't even begin to resist. The Green Slime was hokey sci-fi, but the sound the creatures made and the electricution attacks freaked me out.

Oddly enough, John Carpenter's: The Thing should be nightmare fuel, but no one in my family has ever been affected by it. Most it ever did was give me a dream about being Kurt Russell.

The Blob (1988)- nice. I still remember thinking that, in the sewers, they wouldn't let the "plucky wisecracking sidekick neighbor kid" get killed... and then BAM! It really lent the flick an edge of uncertainty about who may live or die (even if, looking back on it, it was still rather safely formulaic).

On topic, This is rather silly, but in Ghostbusters 2, Winston is called out in the sewers by staked rotting heads.

That... fucked me up.

Also, the rotting head underwater in Jim Gardener's boat in Jaws. Similar vibe, really.

Oh, same here. I still can't watch The Blob without feeling scared. Any 80's horror movie that showed some weird body mutilation was too much for me as a kid (heck, even the Alien bursting out a chest in Spaceballs was bad enough; let alone in the original movies). The death by "maws of death" cutscene in the game Out of This World (Another World). Impalement in movies also scared me (Terminator 2); but not in games (too many to mention).

I'm trying to remember what else in media scared me as a kid, but I think anything else at most just crept me out.

 

[HotPie]

Courage the Cowardly Dog. Not Ramses, like most people seem to remember but this ************

 

[Fijiman]

The villian from The Black Cauldron scared the crap out of me when I was younger, but that's really all I can think of. That's about the only time I remember where I had to leave the room whenever he was on the screen.

Courage the Cowardly Dog. Not Ramses, like most people seem to remember but this ************

I can not tell you how endlessly amusing I find it when anyone mentions being afraid of anything from Courage the Cowardly Dog. Though I can understand why some might find them scary, I still find it funny.

 

[DarklordKyo]

This asshole, his episode is the only Courage episode I actively avoided.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

damn, got some *old* motherfuckers in here, some of these things were decade(s) out before I was even a child.

someone mentioned resident evil, that scared the poop out of me as a kid, I am a very lucid dreamer so that was definite nightmare fuel.

not sure how it happened, but I think I was having a sleep paralysis episode when I fell asleep coloring, so zordon (power rangers coloring book) came out of the book and turned into a huge *Fucking freaky* ass floating ghost head, I woke up screaming and made my mom beat the comic book to death with a broom.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Also I don't remember it, but apparently the Wheelers from Return to Oz used to scare the shit out of me.

 

[Queen Michael]

Gremlins is the only movie I've ever seen that actually did give me nightmares. You know that scene where the mean old lady sees the gremlins singing Christmas carols outside her door and thinks they've come to take her to Hell? I was raised Christian. To me, that scene was something that really was going to happen to me someday.

 

[FalloutJack]

damn, got some *old* motherfuckers in here, some of these things were decade(s) out before I was even a child.

I'm actually not as old as the B-movies I mentioned. (Born in the 80s.) They were just on TV at the time.

 

[lionsprey]

the zombie enemys from legend of zelda ocarine of time. just no....
also m?rran/The Groke from Momin.
because of a error the purple character was completly black and the whole episode was darker then usual. she scared me so much she created a whole new type of nightmare for me.

 

[Zen Bard]

The 1970's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers freaked me out as a kid. It had several weirdly off-putting that stayed with me for months after I saw it.

-There's the dog with the man's face that occurs after a bum and his pet fall asleep in front of a single pod.
-Brooke Adams' face collapsing like a deflated football as she's being replicated by the Pod People.
-And of course, the famous final scene with Donald Sutherland pointing and shrieking accusingly at the audience.

Plus that whole damn movie instilled a sense of dread and paranoia that no middle-school kid should have a right to feel.

 

[BrawlMan]

This asshole, his episode is the only Courage episode I actively avoided.

Were so many kids my age or older really scared of this guy? I found him hilarious.

Courage the Cowardly Dog. Not Ramses, like most people seem to remember but this ************

He can't help it, if he's a little...nauuugghhhtttyyy

 

[DarklordKyo]

This asshole, his episode is the only Courage episode I actively avoided.

Were so many kids my age or older really scared of this guy? I found him hilarious.

I guess it's because he's just fundamentally off, even compared to your typical Courage villain. Maybe it's the odd movement, or the clashing CGI, but he just seems off compared to most.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

The Alien, without a doubt holds a tighter stranglehold on my fear response thany any other creature in fiction.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

I never saw the Golden Goose example above, but there was something similar in Season 1 of Reboot- the Medusa bug. The bug gradually petrifies everything, an unstoppable tide of gray that we get to watch gradually consume the entire city of Mainframe including several named characters.

Every attempt to stop it fails. The terrified survivors take refuge in the heart of Mainframe, cutting it off from the rest of the city and activating an energy shield... and then it somehow transmits itself across empty air and tears down the shield to petrify everyone before they can finish screaming. Oh, and it's discovered that if a living being is petrified for long enough, they shatter.

It's a very good thing that Hexadecimal isn't as evil as her brother, or that would have been the end of the series right there. There was another Hex episode that ended with the destruction of an entire Game world. Then there was 'Painted Windows'... Pretty much every Hexadecimal episode is potential nightmare fuel. She's practically that series' version of Q or Mr. Mxyzptlk.

Spoiler: Artistry

Oh man, I loved Reboot as a kid, but Hexadecimal for sure creeped the piss outta me. It's been so long I can hardly remember any specific examples, but whenever I think of that show and her especially I get an uneasy feeling of ancient fear that I can hardly even explain.

I do remember the one time Hex and Megabyte got somehow combined into Gigabyte, who was basically stronger than Megabyte, more cruel than Hexadecimal, and more evil than both. I don't remember how they got separated, but I was simultaneously scared and excited by how monstrous Gigabyte was.