10 Things That Frightened Me During My Childhood

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10. Preacher Kane from Poltergeist II: The Other Side: This guy gave me the creeps. You can say the clown should be on there from the original film, but there's something about this guy that makes my skin crawl. Too bad in the third film of the franchise they made him just an average guy with tons of zombie make-up. Hats to the late Julian Beck of making me be aware (or beware) of strangers.



9. Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Christopher Lloyd did a wonderful job playing the main villian that hates cartoons yet turns into one at the end of the film. I get creeped out easily when I see eyes that are not normal looking too.



8. Going to the woods--I remember my sister used to give me *beep* about monsters who live in the woods to come and get kids like me and be their next meal. Sometimes, I hate nature and glad to grow up in the suburbs.



7. Zhuls from Ghostbusters--They may not be so scary now, but back at the age of 3-6, they scared the wholly *beep* out of me. Especially when Sigourney Weaver transforms into one with the famous line "There is no Dana, only Zhul!"



6. The wooden Jackie Robinson statue from Enchanted Village (Federal Way, WA)--Jesus, it almost made me not to watch baseball again.It looked like it wanted to eat me alive. It wasn't until I was about thirteen years old when I did a book report on Jackie that not only got over my fear of him, but I also consider one of the best things to ever happen in baseball to every race to play in the big leagues.



5. The Wheelies from Return of Oz--These *beep* are scary (and little too scary to be in a children's film), enough said!



4. Large Marge from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure--No wonder Pee-Wee's frightened of her, she sure has a way of scaring people into listening to her stories. It was one of the best scenes of that film because it came out of nowhere.



3. The He-Man Nightmare--When I was a wee guy, He-Man was the top show to watch in the mid-'80s. I was a huge fan of that show and the toys until that nightmare I had where I thought the golden gladiator was gonna save me from the dangers of Skeletor and his evil minions but he chopped my head off. I became afraid of him for the next month or so and my siblings wouldn't let me forget it.



2. Teddy Ruxpin--I think this so-called playful mechaincial bear was the inspiration for Chuckie from the Child's Play films. You may think he's the most harmless thing ever but at night he looks very sinster and wants to eat me alive. I would rather have Freddy Kreuger tell me bedtime stories then Teddy sing "Come Dream with Me Tonight" anyday.



AND #1 THING THAT SCARED ME IN MY CHILDHOOD:



Micahel Jackson's Thriller--I know what you guys are going to ask, You're a metal fan, how could you out of all people be afraid of "Thriller"? First of all, I was three years old when I first saw the video and I haven't even discovered metal yet. Secondly, this "video" (it's orginally a short film that's going nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Feature of 1983, but it didn't work out so it made to the airwaves on MTV instead) has two parts that scared me out of my wits like no other:



1. Michael's werewolf (or werecat) transformation--Especially with those yellow eyes which I thought were orange.

2. The Zombie Dance scene--Something about those zombies that scared the living *beep* out of me.



Ironically, I didn't become a fan of MJ until his Bad album came out so I wasn't ready to embrace Thriller yet. I didn't get over my fear of that video until I was thirteen years old. Talk about childhood trauma.



HERE ARE MY HORRIBLE MENTIONS:

Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" video

Dee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart" video

The face ripping scene from Poltergeist

Kifer Sutherland's orange eyes from The Lost Boys

Michael Jackson's transformation scene to Poptimus Prime in Moonwalker

Here's my ten childhood scares, in no particular order-

1. The Wolfman. I've been a lifelong horror movie fan, and I grew up watching the old black and white Lon Chaney Jr. movies where he starred as the wolfman. As a kid, nothing was as frightening to me than something caught between the states of man and hairy animal.

2. Oliver Reed's werewolf (I don't remember the movie title). This time, the movie was in color, and it was produced by Hammer studio. But same reason why I was afraid of the Lon Chaney Jr. wolfman.

3. The Moon Of The Wolf werewolf. This was something I think was made for TV, which I watched as a kid. Gave me countless sleepless nights for years after. A few years ago, I picked up The Moon Of The Wolf at the dollar store, and watched it. That night, my wife tells me I woke up from a bad dream.
Anyone seeing a pattern here?

4. Animated decaying corpses. In particular, I remember the 1960's Tales Of The Crypt - The Vault Of Horror movie, which I saw at a drive-in when I was very young. One of the stories was about Peter Cushing coming back from the dead as a rotting corpse to murder his tormentor who had driven him to suicide. For years after, I often imagined a rotting Peter Cushing hiding under my bed.

5. Gigantic crocodiles. Well, I don't think there's anything abnormal about being frightened of carnivorous reptiles that could eat a human being. As a kid, I was very frightened thinking of them, after seeing a nature photograph of a croc with it's jaws wide open, and it's gullet and sharp teeth clearly visible!

6. Giant spiders. I HATE SPIDERS!! !! !! !! !! !! ! And even today, the very thought of the non-existent gigantic variety sends shivers up my spine. As a kid, I used to freak myself out imagining great big, huge arachnids. Bad B movies like William Shatner's Kingdom Of The Spiders really spooked me growing up.

7. Bears. Yes, like Stephen Colbert, I was horrified by bears growing up. I had seen captive bears in a zoo when I was, I think, a tween. For sometime after that, I found myself imagining those damn things on the loose - - and following me!

8. Any kind of hairy monster. Back to the werewolf theme again. As a kid, I had a record with horror stories narrated by the late William Castle on it. One of them which scared me in particular was about a nameless hairy creature sent from the darkness to sacrifice human beings to what ever had sent it here. Another source was a comic book filled with horror stories, in which a creature covered with gray fur was lurking in a grave yard at night with a sinister grin on it's face, as it stalked humans. Scared the poop out of me.

9. Big Foot, or Yeti. No, I'm not done with the hairy monster theme, yet. The only difference here is, as a kid, I had watched terrible pseudo documentaries and docudramas (one as a matter of fact was hosted by the late Robert Graves) about supposedly real monsters, which as a kid, I honestly thought were real - because these were supposed to be documentaries! In a couple of these movies, actors were dressed in Sasquatch costumes, which scared the hell out of me. Often a night, I had expected to see a huge, dark figure peering into my window, ready to smash through the glass, and pull me outside.

10. The mutant monster bear from Prophesy. Now, this movie to be sure, was a real stinker. The story was underwritten, the dialogue corny, and the monster was just a guy in a rubber suit. That said, that horrible thing, with molted, raw flesh where fur no longer it's body, deformed with only one eye, and one of it's ears sitting too low on it's head, filled my nights with terror, not only in my childhood, but also long into adulthood. Even as late as this year, I've had nightmares about that mutated bear monster. It didn't help matters that South Park had chosen to make Man-bear-pig in Imagination Land in the image of this monster (yes, that made me loose sleep, too!). The psychologist who diagnosed me with Asperger's explained to me that my obsessive fear of this movie monster is just part of being an Aspie.
Good news is, the last dream I had about that mutant bear involved me holding it beneath the water to drown it, while I stabbed it repeatedly in it's good eye. I like to think I finally freed myself of it.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Most movies and television shows didn't frighten me as a child, but I remember one series of movies that were chock full of nightmare fuel: the Brave Little Toaster. There are plenty of disturbing moments, but the ones that stood out for me were the air conditioner scene, the junkyard scene and the "B movie" scene.