@Suck_on_my_Presence Jaws did, I lived near a lake. Took me a while to realize the lake was really much too small for sharks, but the movie gave me vivid dreams.

Alien terrified me, as the house I lived in had long dark hallways where those beasts or eggs could hide. Saw the film when video2000 and Betamax were still competing. I never found xenomorphs in my house and terror faded, but the franchise stayed with me including Disneyfication.

What actually scared me more was Poltergeist. What a terrifying world, house, family, setting, glow from behind closed doors and the TV sucked you in to the other side.

ET. I’d have nightmares so bad that my dad had to sleep in my room because I was so terrified of him (I’d dream he was walking on my bed). He still freaks me out!

Return to Oz

Childhood trauma all over the place...

The Evil Queen disguised as an old lady in Snow White

At the height of the cold war, 87 or 88 iirc, a movie came on HBO called Dreamscape. It's WW3 imagery really blew my mind, I recall having dreams about it for ages. I'd turned it on because a few weeks before I'd really enjoyed Innerspace with the same lead actor, but this was a bit different lol

To be clear, it still terrifies me.

I enjoy the rest of the movie but this is one of the greatest horror sequences ever. A remake that truly surpasses the original.

EDIT: I have to give a shoutout to the movie that had the most real world effect on me. That would be Arachnophobia. I couldn't function normally for months. Sitting on the toilet. Putting my shoes on. Sticking my hand in a bag of chips. I was a wreck.

Volcano (1997) terrified young me. How could anyone sleep peacefully when lava could just appear out of nowhere?

Needless to say I never lived even remotely close to any kind of geologically active area, let alone a volcano.

Darkness falls.

It's a movie about the tooth fairy but the tooth fairy is actually an old woman who used to collect the teeth of the children in her village until the townspeople burnt her alive and then she became a spirit who was essentially the tooth fairy but if you ever saw her she'd kill you.

It's cheesy as hell but it was terrifying when I was younger

Terminator 1

Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!

This fucked me up more than any monsters... This thing just has one mission and it's relentless

Fire in the Sky. Hoo boy I still get the willies decades later.

It wasn’t a movie per se. I thought it was when I was a kid, though. It’s an episode of “Friday the 13th: The Series” called “The Executioner”.

I was like maybe 6 or 7 at the time.

It starts with this guy in prison you see them take him to the electric chair and attempt to execute him. They botch it and the warden or whoever pretty much goes “oops, well by law we did technically carry out your sentence so you’re a free man now”

He then goes on to become a dentist and uses a “cursed electric chair” as his dentist chair to take revenge on the world.

This gave me a real fear of going to the dentist on top of just being a kid and being scared to go. Still hate going to the dentist (who doesn’t I guess)

I used to play Myst at the time and that even made me feel uncomfortable in the Time Machine room with the dentist chair at the first island.

edit: I watched it again as an adult and it was corny as hell

TELL THEM LARGE MARGE SENT YA!

Yes, the danger must be growing For the rowers keep on rowing And they're certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing

I don't remember my age, but Spirited Away absolutely fucked me up for a little while. I felt like I was in that world and was terrified of No-Face eating me up. Legitimately had nightmares... It doesn't seem that bad rewatching it but it was not good for my younger mind.

Who framed Roger rabbit, the scene with the judge guy putting a shoe cartoon into the acid barrel.

In hindsight, it was irresponsible to watch Robocop as a 10-year-old.

Gremlins, when they transformed

I think it was from one of the Creep Show movies, Tales from the Crypt, or a similar collection, but a short about teens on a raft on a lake being picked off by some kind of black slime/algae thing. Never been comfortable swimming in lakes since

When I killed your brother, I talked...JUST. LIKE. THIIIIIISSSSS!

Oddly enough, I had nightmares about turning into a dog and not being able to get back to normal after watching Shaggy D.A. Also remember my dad, brother and I watching a rented Betamax copy of American Werewolf in London in our little unfinished basement TV area and being very spooked about being alone in the dark that night. Those subway access tunnels!

1. Signs - the aliens terrified me and I was scared walking to school for a long time
2. The scarabs from The Mummy - I thought they would come out from under the sink and the closets to eat me alive

Can't remember what name of this movie, but it had in the end a train flying over a destroyed bridge and into a river at the bottom of a ravine. That and corpses and debris floating left it seared in my head for a couple years.

edit: might be this. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074292/

It's a tie between the wicked witch and her monkeys in the Wizzard of Oz and the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Ugh... I grew up during the 80s with absolutely no parental oversight. I was allowed to read and watch whatever I wanted. Ton of slasher and horror movies, though 3 fuuuuuucked me up. Friday the 13th - Jason, Child's Play - Chucky, and the most impactful being Nightmare on Elm Street - Freddy Krueger.

At a 6 year old sleepover, the host father rented Nightmare on elm Street for a bunch of us little dudes. Half way through the movie, i got up and dressed out of my pajamas and walked home. I had nightmares for years about Freddy, chasing me in our basement around the oil heater. Fucking traumatized.....

Still scary!

Kinda late but Neverending Story.

Those laser beam statues scares me. Also when the giant turtle emerges and you get that shot of it la head slowly approaching the camera. Somehow that was super distressing to me.

The Adventures of Mark Twain from 1985 has a scene where Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Becky Thatcher enter a sort of pocket dimension and meet a stranger who is just a robe holding a mask. The stranger claims their name is Satan. Satan creates a doll sized castle and gives the children clay to make people. After the people are made Satan gives them life and all 4 characters watch the clay people for a little while. Then Satan calls them insignificant, annoying, and worthless before he smashes some with his hand, lightning strikes other clay people, and the rest get swallowed up by a sinkhole along with the castle. While this is happening Satan's face/mask distorted and twists until it resembles a skull.

I saw this movie while spending a weekend at a family member's house as a kid, maybe somewhere between the ages of 5 and 7 (it was an old movie then). I woke up in the middle of the night and this movie was put on while I was left alone in the living room. I don't remember anything else from this movie, but it definitely fucked me up

In general I never cared much about scary movies, but there is ONE SCENE (in an otherwise crappy movie) that left a strong impression on me.

In the movie "Signs", there's a moment when the news are showing footage from an alien sighting in Brazil. Usually, whenever a US movie tries to depict another country or culture, it ends up being so poorly done it's almost like a caricature. But not this one...

The scene is from a birthday party, and every little detail is so authentic that, as a Brazilian, it's immediately obvious that it was actually recorded in Brazil, at someone's actual house.

It's shaky footage from a camcorder (remember those?). There's the party decorations, the kids' hats, the car outside, the voices (which are intelligible Brazilian Portuguese, not gibberish). Everything felt so real and familiar, I could swear I have been in that exact party at some point in my life. And then the alien shows up and HOLY SHIT did that scare me!

Sybil 1976 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075296/ The Entity 1982 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082334

Both supposedly based on true stories. I was watching them around 5 years old. After The Entity I started at the ceiling all night and at times could have sworn I saw electricity arcing. I was dumbfounded by Sybil and how someone could do that to their child had some weird nightmares from that for sure.

Watership Down

Was fucked up for a child to watch. My parents thought it was going to be a harmless animated movie for children. I watched it again as an adult. It is still fucked up.

The Dark Crystal. Creepy fucking muppets.

for some reason, i was terrified by the 1989 batman vhs sleeve as a kid. not the movie itself, just the sleeve the tape was in. i don't think i'd even seen the movie at that point. looking at it now, i cannot figure out what i found so scary about it.