*Music*
There's something inherently memorable
about the things that scare us
Especially from when we're young
and can't always comprehend, rationalize
or understand the things we're seeing.
Things that scare you, stay with you;
and in some cases can even haunt you into adulthood
Everyone has movies and shows
that scared them from when they were young, and in this video
I'm going to discuss the media that gave me more nightmares and wet blankets then I'd care to admit
I'll be ascending in order of scariness with the first movie or show being the least scary
and ending with the most scary thing
Young Little Alex IHE has ever seen in his whole life
Please note that the film or show was not necessarily even a horror movie or
Intended to be scary
and most of them do boil down into a single moment or
Concept that really messed with my young little head
so with that in mind
*deep voice* let us begin
When I was a kid, I absolutely loved "Small Soldiers"
But there was always s-s-something about it made me feel a little bit uneasy
Upon revisiting it's really not a very good movie in fact
It's actually quite inappropriate in a lot of ways which I guess is why it was rated a 12 here - wait
Why was it a 12?
How the hell did this ever get made
The director of Gremlins, Joe Dante, was at the helm of this creepy project about action figures who were actually
extremely, artificially intelligent toys that were created by a toy company by accident, sort of,
who used said intelligence to craft violent weapons capable of drawing blood
"There will be no mercy."
"I'm ???"
Half of the terrifying toys were horrible mutants that only cared about escaping their cruel world
they were thrust into and the other half were horrifying
soldiers who were hell bent on murdering the mutants, who in the movie were known as the Gorgonites
Our mission: destroy the Gorgonite enemy, defeat him.
Yeah, apart from the idea of action figures coming to life
already being quite a scary concept in and of itself there was one scene in particular that
really did make me feel quite anxious there was something inherently quite disturbing about jacked-up soldier toys
insinuating how much they'd love to fuck a Barbie doll.
Take a look, sir.
Bombshells, sir.
Fully poseable!
(laughing)
Dolly
(whistling)
Sweet stuff.
Hubba, hubba.
R&R sir?
but the turn this whole Barbie section takes is quite unexpected
one of the small soldier characters was killed in a scene earlier
and the survivors were carrying his corpse around in a tiny little body bag for toys
so then the Tommy Lee Jones villain character tears the head off of his comrade's dead body, pulls the plastic skin right off of his head,
revealing his hideous skull-like features underneath, and
literally breaks his fucking skull in half to remove the equivalent of its brain. And as if that wasn't enough
they use the brain chip from their dead comrade to power a production facility,
a Frankenstein production facility, that brings all of the Barbie dolls which are now randomly defaced and mutants to life?
"It's alive! It's alive!"
"Hi there!" for some reason every doll is naked and has various sharp objects strapped to them
I don't know why it was necessary for them to be completely mutated and laugh like creepy maniacs
But to be honest, I don't think this film is very interested in being safe for children
"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!"
while neither being a truth satire horror that parodies the friendly nature of something like toy story, small soldiers just wound up being a
tonally confusing mess that had no idea if it wanted to be a funny kids movie or a
creepy comedy horror in a similar vein to gremlins and just wound up being
disturbing for an audience who were probably never supposed to actually see this. As a six-year-old there is nothing worse than being fearful of your
Own toys. Thanks very much, small soldiers.
Appreciate it.
Wallace and Gromit is a wonderful stop-motion animated series of short films that you're doing yourself a disservice
if you've never seen. While Wallace and Gromit normally reserves itself to
Absurdist sight-gags and harmless antics there was one scene in particular
That messed with me when I was quite young child. In the Wallace & Gromit Adventure, A Close
Shave, there is a dog character who you believe for the majority of the running time is
Simply just a dog but towards the last sequence this dog character
Gets sucked into a scary pipe by Shaun the sheep
And it's revealed that this dog was never a dog after all this time, and was actually a scary skeletal robot
"Daddy created him for good, but... he's turned out evil!"
The pacing of the scene is beautifully crafted exactly like a horror movie which as an adult is very entertaining
But the young version of me was very much distressed by this and found the image of an evil robot dog to be quite unsettling
Naturally luckily good old Gromit saves Shaun from being mangled by the mechanical mutt
Otherwise this scene really would have upset me. The sequence quickly devolves back into the usual Wallace and Gromit comedy,
But not without ending with the dog being smashed into a meat mincer so his eyes pop out then having his robot guts
Distributed into cans with his own face on. Obviously not a single thing about this is scary
now as an adult, and it's actually nothing but charming and funny, but you're not exactly rational when you're a
Developing child are you? Cans of food were a bit disturbing for a while.
Was it appropriate that I was watching tremors as a young child? In my opinion yes, because I loved it.
"Jim!"
No, good comes from being overprotective from fiction as a parent. It's a movie about a giant slug that lives in the desert that finds
You through vibrations in the floor as you walk around. Sure
There's a little violence here and there
But as long as your kid isn't a fucking moron and knows that it isn't real life and it's all effects and camera trickery,
I see no harm in it.
Although the thought of a creature that could swallow you up while you're just doing a casual activity such as walking down the road was
Quite scary to me when I was younger it somehow never escaped my mind no matter how rational
I tried to be. When I'd be walking to school and my
Imagination got the better of me,
and sometimes I'd even go as far as to sprint up stairs when the thought was truly stuck in my head because I knew the
Graboid monster, (which is the name of the giant slug) couldn't get me if I was up high and off the ground.
Now I have a lot of affinity for tremors
It's actually very good movie, if you can get past extremely cheesy poster and how stupid the premise sounds.
I definitely recommend this one as an adult if you like monster movies.
"Fuuuuuuuuck, you!"
*Kevin Bacon laughing like a gremlin*
So far
We're still on movies that I was obsessed with despite having aspects that scared me and both The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth
Continue this trend because they are wonderful for freaking the fuck out of children.
"Are you afraid of me?"
"Think I'm going to... eat you!?"
There's something just so much more scary about a life like moving puppet than a computer-generated
Ghost or something. When it came to choosing which one I wanted to watch
I always choose Labyrinth because I found it less scary, because of all the singing and generally lighter tone,
But if I really wanted to challenge myself, I would put on The Dark Crystal
The Dark Crystal was
Actually so scary and inaccessible for children in its earlier cuts that the film actually had to be reworked to appear more friendly, to be
Accessible for a younger audience. A narrator was added and the ghastly bird-like characters called the Skeksis
Skeksis? I dunno. Had voices added to not be quite as frightening, but I'm afraid you just simply cannot make something like this-
"Mine!"
*guttural sound*
Not be the most fucking spine-chilling thing you've ever seen. To tell the truth
I still do find elements of The Dark Crystal to be
Nightmarish and unsettling, but I think that's because I feel so immersed into the world whenever I watch it
It actually feels like you're watching a completely different universe, so I found it to be completely
Fascinating despite how strange and unconventional it was. Even creatures
Which are supposed to be friendly and lovable are fucking ghoulish. There was a particular Skeksi (or Skeksis?) who would make this
Disturbing moaning noise that would really get under my skin and make me feel fucking ill. It was like a...
*mm*. Type thing. Jesus.
*mm*
*mm* "It's time to make my move..."
Basically every scene in the movie has something completely unnerving, from the draining of one's very
life essence to being captured by huge crab creatures.
*pained squealing*
Even describing it to you right now is making me shiver. It's hard to put the undeniable magic of this movie into words.
It's definitely a... unique experience,
and I honestly can't figure out if I even like it or not to this very day. As far as Labyrinth goes though, there's
Only one single scene that I found to be nearly unwatchable
And that's this fucking musical number with these pink things that pull
Themselves apart and take their eyes out and jump around on a really bad greenscreen. There is such a perfect level of unbridled
Horror in this scene, that it still makes me want to throw up even if I hear the music without seeing it
"I know what we should do! Take off our heads! YEAHHH"
"Yeah, let's take off our-!"
I have no idea if this sequence is supposed to be as freaky as it is. I'm going to go ahead and assume that it
Wasn't, and they just fucked up horribly.
*Ominous Sound*
Upon reflection
there's almost nothing scary about Goosebumps. For the most part the show is so poorly acted and the effects are so
Laughable, that in retrospect, I find it hard to believe that it freaked me out in the way it did.
"They make me scared..."
Everyone who used to watch Goosebumps had that one episode.
You know the one that played on your specific fears and kept you up at night. For me
This was two episodes, the first one was called The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight
I don't really remember much about the episode if I'm honest
But where I grew up had a lot of crop fields and farmers land
So naturally the idea of anything skulking around them in the dark is just frightening to a young impressionable child.
Scarecrows still creep me out to this very day and - and can you blame me? I mean look at them.
They're - they're just creepy. The other episode was either The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, or Werewolf Skin
Something about a werewolf, I, I dunno.
Again, I really don't remember much because I was too young and at the time I thought it was so scary
I didn't finish it
I just turned it off, and I even rewatched both these episodes, but nothing is triggering any memories
so I have no clue which one it was. The only thing I have a memory of is something to do with a werewolf and
It being Goosebumps. I just thought werewolves were scary, okay?
*Ominous Sound*
I still find Alien scary and unsettling
To this day. When I first watched Alien when I was about 9 or 10 years old
I was stuck in this perfect mix of being too scared to move but also being so
Fascinated by the creature in the story that I was transfixed by every single viewing. The perverse nature of a creature
Attaching itself to your face and laying an egg in the back of your throat
Which is pushed down by food or drink, which proceeds to burst out of your chest, is
Possibly the greatest and most horrible monster design of all time.
Aliens wasn't quite as scary to me because the
Xenomorphs are killed in droves which helped combat and rationalise my fear from the first movie, because it made them out to actually be killable,
But even then the scene where the woman is stuck in the wall and is begging to be killed,
Really did stick with me because of how
D-disturbing it was. Now though, as an adult, Alien is easily one of my favourite movies. From the
Incredible set design to how real the acting and pacing feels, I would highly recommend
Alien to absolutely anyone who is a fan of film, science fiction, and horror.
Aliens is good too, not quite as good, but for action movie people, it's pretty great.
"Eat this!"
*gunshot, explosion of flesh*
*Ominous Sound*
Now is when things get fucking creepy.
*Pingu Intro*
Pingu was my favourite when I was a little two-year-old boy.
Well, up until something happened. In one episode Pingu fell asleep one night and had a strange dream
It's relatively playful and innocent enough until
What the fuck is that. I... I can't stop looking at it. Somebody help me.
*unintelligible moaning and grunting*
Whoever thought this was a good idea must have been off their fucking tits. Because this is one of the most genuine,
Horrors, I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing.
*loud wailing*
When I asked my mum if I'd missed anything off this list of things that scared me when I was young that I might have forgotten
And she said, "There was an episode of Pingu that scared you!" I thought to myself
What? Pingu is adorable! Pingu is innocent. No- Pin-Pingu is child-friendly! It couldn't be that bad.
I must've just been a pussy, but holy shit.
I do not blame two-year-old me at all for being scared of that, Jesus Christ.
I really do hope someone got fired over putting whatever the fuck that is in the show.
WOOOOOOAAHHH
*Ominous Sound*
I was obsessed with reading all of the Harry Botter books when I was a young little boy,
So of course when the movie adaptations started coming out, I was naturally excited, and for the most part
I enjoyed the movies as a kid. All apart from one scene in The Philosopher's Stone
Not The Sorcerer's Stone, The Philosopher's Stone, get it right. As an innocent seven-year-old boy with a wild
Imagination, there was a scene that messed me up, so
Bad, that I actually had to have some minor child therapy to help make the nightmares go away. So what scene was it?
Do you say, what scene could have
traumatised me so much? Well, if you remember, when Harry and his friends go into the forbidden forest with Hagrid and
Voldemort is creepily sneaking around in the background, and what was that other part? What was it again?
Oh yeah, where he's literally sucking the fucking blood out of a unicorn? I don't really know why I found it
So intensely scary at the time - rationalising fiction isn't really important to you when you're seven years old.
But man. Even to this day, seeing this scene sends shivers down my spine, as it triggers the intense memories of
unfiltered fear
*Ominous Sound*
And so finally, we're here. The thing that scared me the very most. The piece of media
that scared me so much, that I literally have not had the courage to
Revisit it until only a few months ago, and that movie is...
*drum roll*
E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial.
*fart*
I know, I know, the classic Spielberg movie that warmed the hearts of millions, is the movie that scared me the very most.
But why? What could be so scary?
Well you've probably noticed a recurring trend with my mind
ultimately being the greatest enemy for me, as sometimes not seeing something or just being teased is far more effective than letting us see all the
Secrets right out. And E.T. applies this tactic early on in the beginning of the movie
Keeping E.T. himself to nothing more than vague and shadowed shots of him in the wilderness and having him reveal himself in a scene that's shot
Exactly like a horror movie. It's no wonder it fucked with me so much. Oh yeah and there's also this.
*E.T. wails*
I never actually finished the movie because I thought it was so scary
So once I finally did build up the courage, I did actually rewatch the movie again, as I mentioned, as a 22 year old man
Who's - Who's, very strong, and not afraid of anything? *mhm, sure* Yeah, I built up the courage to watch a... heartwarming
Children's
Movie. And I actually did really enjoy it this time. The Spielberg charm is here in its full glory
And while some elements are relatively weak, such as plenty of the characters having very little development
But overall with the score and the emotion this film can muster
it really is quite special. Goes to show you can overcome your fears of
children's movies
*Ominous Sound*
While the previously-mentioned shows and movies are the pieces of media that scared me the very most
I feel like there are a couple of honourable mentions
I need to acknowledge quickly. So as much as I loved
Indiana Jones as a kid, and still do to this very day, the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Nazis' faces
melt, and their heads explode,
Made me feel
Weird. Kind of like the way Alien made me feel scared and disturbed, but at the same time I kind of liked it.
It's hard to explain except for that... visceral
Feeling you get in your gut. When you know
Something is wrong to you. The Grudge used to freak the fuck out of me. Not really the movie per se,
But more just the concept of a creepy japanese lady showing up everywhere. I specifically remember a dream
I had, a recurring dream, where I'd look into a grate that was in the corner of the room
And she'd just be there staring at me. Fucking horrible.
And finally I'd like to shout out the beginning of An American Werewolf in London. The atmosphere of the moors is an incredibly unnerving
Conceit, and I'll never forget the blood-curdling howl of the wolf. Pretty great stuff.
*ghostly howl*
"Did you hear that?"
*ghostly howl* **yeah I heard it**
So that's the end of that one then. I'd like to thank YMS for tagging me in this series
So I could make my own entry,
I think it's a fun concept. And make sure you check out the Childhood Trauma
Playlist, which has a collection of a bunch of great Youtubers' own take on this same idea
It'll be in the
Description and linked at the very end here, if you want to check that out. So as always
Thanks for watching, let me know what movies and shows scared you as a kid in the comments below, my voice is dead,
I'll see you next time. Bye!
*Music*