Your biggest childhood fear(s)?

[JPX2011]

Michael Myers. Even to this day as an adult when I get out of the car at night and its quiet in the neighborhood, and the wind is blowing I think of Michael Myers and its makes me wonder what's lurking in the dark. Will I make it to the front door?

[Stand Watch Listen]

Spiders, fire and .........

[kelly4c]

My grandparent’s 2 big dogs, A German Shepherd and Doberman. She used to keep them locked up in the basement when we were over and the big mean looking dogs coupled with the dark scary basement conjured up a nightmare or two when I was young.

When I was going to sleep I’d have to have my hands and feet under the blankets. If I didn’t, I felt like something under the bed would attack me.

[punditwannabe]

Oddly enough it was getting shot by an arrow from a marauding Indian tribe circling the “wagons” (my neighborhood I guess). Either that or a robot coming after me (like the one on Lost in Space)

[punditwannabe]

Oddly enough it was getting shot by an arrow from a marauding Indian tribe circling the “wagons” (my neighborhood I guess). Either that or a robot coming after me (like the one on Lost in Space)

[zeestephen]

I saw “Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte” with my junior high school girlfriend in 1964.”

There's this ghastly scene where Bruce Dern’s hand, then his head, are chopped off with a meat cleaver.

For at least a year it was terrifying for me to stick my hand into a dark room and flip the light switch on.

I kept expecting my hand to be sliced off.

[beaversmom]

Most of my childhood fears were related to things I saw on TV or at the movies.

I can remember a Night Gallery with spiders. Looking that up now it came out in 1971 so I was only 4 at the time! We were in Maine then. I don’t have a fear of spiders at all as an adult. I actually kinda like them and put them outside rather than killing them, but that show frightened and stayed with me all this time. I remember he tried to get rid of it, but it just kept coming back and getting bigger! Watching it now on Hulu:

Night Gallery A Fear Of Spiders
http://www.hulu.com/watch/58807

Also, when we lived in Maine, I saw Jack Palance star as Dracula in a TV movie. Just looked it up and it came out in 1974 so I was about 6 or 7. It probably wouldn’t scare me now, but back then he FREAKED me out as Dracula!

Here is the whole vid on DailyMotion...lol:

Bram Stoker’s Dracula
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22k22f_bram-stoker-s-dracula_shortfilms

I was terribly afraid of any body of water and sharks after seeing Jaws in 1975. I was 8 then and living in Colorado, but not being near an ocean didn’t soothe me at all!!!

Quint Is Devoured - Jaws (9/10) Movie CLIP (1975) HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmLP0QQPqFw

Even though it scared the peewaden out of me, Jaws is in my top 5 of all time fave movies. It’s just classic to me, and I love it on MANY levels.

Then there was a NightStalker episode with a headless motorbike rider. That was 1975 (looked it up) so I was about 7 or 8 when I saw it. I don’t remember much about it, but it was scary to me. Here it is on You Tube...Part I.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMF5pvcUBs8

I’ve never been a fan of snakes and still not to this day. Sorry to FReeper Salamander! Saw a movie called Sssssss sometime in the 70s. A bad B movie, I’m sure, but frightening to me as a kid. It came out in 1973, but I probably saw it on TV a couple of years later.

Here is the very funny (now) trailer:

Sssssss (1973) trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnasfM3UtDc

Amazing and wonderful that we can look up all these things so easily now on the internet!

Two things that weren’t related to movies manifested when I came to Colorado as a child...for some reason Miller moths and the mountains. Not sure why moths used to freak me out.

I used to hide in the back of my dad’s station wagon and cry when we went up to the mountains. Still not a huge fan of heights, but I no longer cry, and I can actually “do” heights in Colorado and Utah. :)

[Don W]

Nuclear war.

Seriously, I remember the drills, the practice sirens, the whole schmear.

I knew even then that “duck and cover” was just something to make you feel better.

The relief I felt when the Berlin Wall came down has been replaced by a far worse dread.

G_d save us...

[Don W]

Sheesh, you sound like another Armstrongism refugee!

If ever there needed to be a refutation of protestantism/evangelism, look at the damage Herbie and his son did to Christianity.

[beaversmom]

One of my older brothers told me not to be scared of the monster in the closet because “As long as you are awake that thing will never come out of the closet”.

That's too funny! What a devil!

Now we now monsters in the closet are actually nice guys with a huge heart. I bet your grandkids know this one:

Touching Goodbye Scene - Monsters Inc (Boo & Kitty)

[beaversmom]

I like this retro scene from the animated Iron Giant:

The Iron Giant - Atomic Holocaust (duck and cover) - from the movie

The relief I felt when the Berlin Wall came down has been replaced by a far worse dread.

I know what you are saying.

[beaversmom]

PS:

Sleestaks from the Land of the Lost did scare me as did the bad guy from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Land of the Lost, Season 1, Episode 2 The Sleestak God (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8VmJXcTTmk

Child Catcher From Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUnhfvGdmmw

[Fresh Wind]

I always hated the basement.

I loved the basement. It was full of tools, workbenches, piles of wood, and as I grew, my piles of electronics junk (my treasures). At one point, it was a shooting range for a Sears-Roebuck .22 rifle. There were boxes of stuff from Old People's houses, old wooden skiis, a floor sweeper that worked just by pushing it, cans of mysterious paint and other stuff which must have been deadly poison, and damp dark places that I never dared to explore.

I coexisted with whatever was down there and was never scared, except alone late at night after I turned out all the lights except the last one.

Then, there was the nagging fear that I had to get up those stairs as fast as I could.

[Cboldt]

Tornados.

[21twelve]

I grew up in Mpls. I was always afraid of the basement when I was a kid. I thought trolls lived under the stairs. I would have a reocurring dream of being down there, the trolls coming to get me, me going up the stairs - only to have them flatten out and me go sliding back down. And the dream/nightmare ending.

Then one time the dream didn’t end. I grabbed onto the railing and hauled myself up the flattened out stairs. Never had that dream again!

Ended up with the bedroom downstairs once I was older. But, every once in awhile I would still get spooked.

[21twelve]

“There’s this ghastly scene where Bruce Dern’s hand, then his head, are chopped off with a meat cleaver.”

Well - he deserved it. For killing The Duke and all.

[House Atreides]

“... “Something” in the dark. Not the dark itself, I was fine with that. But sometimes I’d get the feeling that there was something else in the room with me. Something evil. Something horrible. And there was nothing I could do to stop it....”
*****************************************************************************************************

Sounds like my first wife.

[jmacusa]

The nuns at my Catholic elementary school. And dogs.

[Fresh Wind]

A house we lived in in Saguache Colorado had an opening to the attic which scared me to death! I was always in fear of something grabbing me and pulling me into the attic!

That must have been Ceiling Cat!

[a fool in paradise]

The Carter presidency.