Media that Traumatized/Scared/Creeped You as a Kid

[Strickerx5]

Putting this in spoilers simply so that I don't have to look at it when scrolling through stuff.

Spoiler

 

That fucker right there. To this day I have yet to actually sit through this episode. The way they animated him is just so... unsettling and that fucking voice... I just can't. Seeing that shit when I was like 4 definitely did some damage. It's probably why I still can't fully appreciate the show in general even now.

[Danj86]

Oh....

Don't let the parody picture fool you, I'm referring to the actual movie. Back in secondary school, rehearsals were taking place for a couple of hours for a performance of some kind that wasn't worth remembering. Those that weren't taking part got to watch a movie. Cool. What movie? Jaws. Not cool...

I can't recall my exact age but it must've been around 8 or 12? Either way, I had established an irrational fear to all water. Swimming pools and even toilet water made me nervous. Ironic then that the school that gave me a fear of water would also try to teach me to swim the next year. Idiots...

Though since then, large aquatic creatures always freak me out in video games. Banjo-Kazooie's Clanker and Snacker have already been mentioned but I was also scared of this guy when I was younger, too.

As I got older, I grew to appreciate his comedic appeal, brought on by his bizarre name and the fact he fights you blind in the first part due to forgetting to open his eyes.

They are many that wont know the horrors of this thing. Don't let the cutesy Disney-ish animals confuse you. Watership Down can't be for kids, it just can't! A cartoon based off a book, featuring rabbits. Contains blood, rabbit corpses, rabbit murder and a deeply depressing song that plays during the credits thing.

Don't watch it, don't look it up!

[Boomer]

8 minutes ago, Strickerx5 said:

Putting this in spoilers simply so that I don't have to look at it when scrolling through stuff.

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That fucker right there. To this day I have yet to actually sit through this episode. The way they animated him is just so... unsettling and that fucking voice... I just can't. Seeing that shit when I was like 4 definitely did some damage. It's probably why I still can't fully appreciate the show in general even now.

Woo boy this. I used to wake up at night terrified that he was stood outside my window. It wasn't even his appearance or voice that terrified me, it was how he doesn't move from that spot at ALL in the episode. He just stands there watching, waiting...

Bastard.

[KHCast]

A couple things. That Brothers Grimsby film fucked me up for months as a kid, especially the part with the kid loosing their face and it turning into the gingerbread man. 

I also watched as a kid one of the final destination films with my dad cause it was on television one night...yeah that was a bad idea

And lastly, there was this video game I can’t remember what it was called, but you were in a mental asylum and had psychological powers, and it was really unsettling and creepy. It’s probably really cheesy and dated by today’s standards, but by gosh as a kid that creeped me out 

edit: oh yeah! And that Atlantica moment in KH1 with the shark first appearing. Thanks for the resident evil callback assholes haha

[Agie]

The Game Over screens in DKC 2 and 3 freaked me out as a kid, and I would reset the game whenever I got a game over in those two. DKC3 did get a bit harder to take seriously when I realized what Dixie and Kiddy were in, and you could play around with the music blocks in the SNES version, but the doors opening and closing still freak me out.

Ironically, DKC1's game over screen doesn't freak me out as much. Probably because I played that one much, much later.

Banjo-Kazooie's Game Over screen also had this effect on me, with me being afraid of Tooty, and yes, even Grunty for some reason. Banjo-Tooie, I heard would have had a nightmarish game over screen had they not run out of time to implement it. But they did, meaning a game over was just a piece of text over the sceen before carrying on. A downgrade, maybe, but one my childhood self was very thankful for at the time.

Some games had such creepy failure screens, I looked away without even looking at the actual Game Over screens.

I was an odd kid.

[RedFox99]

Thanks for the input guys. I changed the title a bit to be more including of other scary emotions.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

2 hours ago, SurrealBrain said:

The Game Over screens in DKC 2 and 3 freaked me out as a kid, and I would reset the game whenever I got a game over in those two. DKC3 did get a bit harder to take seriously when I realized what Dixie and Kiddy were in, and you could play around with the music blocks in the SNES version, but the doors opening and closing still freak me out.

Ironically, DKC1's game over screen doesn't freak me out as much. Probably because I played that one much, much later.

Banjo-Kazooie's Game Over screen also had this effect on me, with me being afraid of Tooty, and yes, even Grunty for some reason. Banjo-Tooie, I heard would have had a nightmarish game over screen had they not run out of time to implement it. But they did, meaning a game over was just a piece of text over the sceen before carrying on. A downgrade, maybe, but one my childhood self was very thankful for at the time.

Some games had such creepy failure screens, I looked away without even looking at the actual Game Over screens.

I was an odd kid.

Speaking of bad endings from Nintendo stuff, I’m surprised the king hasn’t been mentioned yet. One of the few “non Rare” examples.

Majora’s Mask. That was downright one of the creepiest “bad endings” possible, especially due to the situation constantly building to a creepy ending. As time draws near the end on the third day, things slowly become more creepy, as a sense of dread engulfs Termina. The music changes from the usual Clock Town theme to a constantly slowing and chiming theme that empathise each ring of the bell, informing you just how close Death is for everyone in Termina. Various NPCs IIRC will have a lot more feelings of dread and fear on the third day too if you speak to them, and the chiming theme continues until...

...it happens. You get a cutscene of the Moon’s creepy face slamming into the tower of Clock Town, slowly slamming down and crashing through it, as it gets closer to the planet itself, before finally impacting and launching a massive explosion, and as if things couldn’t get worse, the final sight is a frightened Link desperately trying to shield himself from the impact, only to get launched away by the explosion engulfing the planet.

It is a major moment that shows you just how bad things will be if Link fails in his quest and honestly, given the darker and creepier nature of Majora’s Mask, it totally fits IMO.

[Kevin]

Having just re-watched Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, I’ve forgotten how both well done and disturbing it was from the gang finding out that the Zombies weren’t people in masks to the reveal of the villains and their transformations.

[NegaMix]

Of the top of my head, two things that freaked me out as a child were:

That "Red Screen of Death" on the PlayStation 2. There I am, just wanting to play some Gran Turismo (...I was a boring kid, okay?) But instead of loading the game...

...this happens. The ominous red in the distance, the creepy tone that plays... it was enough to make me dread putting in ANY PS2 or PS1 game for a while.

The other thing that I can immediately think of, is the final sequence of Spider-Man for the PS1. Basically, the last level of the game has you fight the two main villains of the story - Dr. Octopus and Carnage. So I manage to do so... and then this happens:

Seeing that... thing show up was probably the first real scare I ever had from a video game. Then there's the chase itself; the noises he makes while frantically chasing Spidey down the hallways, coupled with the fact that you couldn't afford to make more than, say, two mistakes without having to start it all over again, was terrifying to me back then.

[E-122-Psi]

15 hours ago, Emperor Robrainiac said:

Some of the things I'll be talking about, I wouldn't nessicarily say traumatized me... but they certainly moments that stuck with me. 

Admittedly, when it came to Disney movies or childhood cartoons, I wasn't easily scared. I was pretty much one of those kids Don Bluth talks about when questioned about how scary or sad his works got... As long as there's a happy ending, kid's can handle most anything. That rang true for me... I'd be scared of certain things, on my first viewings, such as the reveal of Judge Doom being a toon in Roger Rabbit, but after that I thought the combination of cartoon and real actor was the most awesome thing out there...

That being said, while still on the topic of Roger Rabbit, there is a scene that I still can't watch to this very day, and that happens to be the shoe being "dipped" by Judge Doom. 

Basically, what happens is a crate of living cartoon props is spilled in a certain scene, and the main antagonist, Judge Doom, picks up a living cartoon shoe who's nuzzling against him like a cat. About to demonstrate a way to kill cartoon characters, Judge Doom picks up the shoe, and dips him into a barrel of "Dip" which can instantly melt toons. The scene that really gets me is the absolute horror on the shoe is in, trembling and making puppy-like whimpering sounds as he's slowly dipped into the dip, until he's nothing but thinned ink and paint. Just... Gah, just thinking back on that scene gives me chills. I think it's the fact how innocent and pet-like the shoe acts that gets the reaction out of me... and if the rumors I heard are true, the shoe was initially planned to be a cartoon kitten or some other animal.

 Oof, man. As a kid I figured that this scene wouldn't disturb me as much when I grew older... There's a lot of things I'd love to tell my kid-self but, telling him that the scene is still unsettling and even a little depressing is not one of them.

Oh yeah, same here. Did they have to make the damn thing act like a puppy throughout the whole scene?

From what I heard originally it was a cartoon gopher or something, but the scene would have been offset from it having a more cartoony melodramatic personality, demanding a proper trial and what not.

 

Okay now, don't mock me for this one but, while I loved Thomas the Tank Engine as a little kid, some of those 80s episodes creeped me out. The puppetry was amazing but that was the thing, the realistic train crashes combined with the engines all being sentient (combined with the occasional uncanny valley-ness of some of their facial expressions) made it kinda harrowing at times. It didn't help that the engines kept getting scapegoated for things that were technically error by the workmen or the psychotic trucks, and generally shown no sympathy even when they were in a state of ruins (hell engines being killed for scrap was actually a thing in the series). I think this added a sense of paranoia as an infant, that if something went wrong when you happened to be around, the adults might still blame and yell at you and leave you to suffer alone.

For similar reasons, I'll add Johnny Five's dismantlement in Short Circuit 2. It's basically a graphic mob beatdown with a robot, and the closeups of each whack, and Johnny pleading and wailing in agony were horrific (the climax after was incredibly cathartic for that reason, but for obvious reasons, he couldn't quite make an eye for eye against the human villains, even if it arguably wouldn't have been much more awful than the scene they DID do).

[Danj86]

Since I'm playing Luigi's Mansion on 3DS, it seems like an ideal moment to mention this:

It was taken out of the final game but I remember seeing that moment during one of the first trailers for it.

[Vec]

Back then the videoclip of "Black Hole Sun" creeped me.

Watching it nowadays doesn't affect me...but back then it Made me feel uneasy af

[Mr Loopone]

One that I can vaguely remember was Rusty Bucket Bay from Banjo-Kazooie (wasn't scared of Clanker or any of the bosses, what's with this game scaring people?). It was inside of the ship and there was I think something that you had to destroy but something came out, it just jumped straight out giving me a palpitation. Might have been the Captain's Quarters or one of the bonus rooms, it was 19 years ago.

Was a bit creeped regarding that piano in Big Boo's Haunt in Super Mario 64, it made going around that part of the level a bit unsettling.

Actually one thing that really did scare me back in the day was analogue TV interference with those black and white lines and sometimes makes a really loud noises, they can be pretty high pitched buzzes. It is more unsettling than most media because the noises could happen very unexpectedly. For the younger audience who were lucky to not been there, there was a Simpsons moment in one of the older episodes think it was "The Way We Was" where the TV was losing its signal, Homer tries to repair it and the interference happens so Bart and Lisa scream. It was a bit like that even though said moment ironically didn't scare me. Luckily we upgraded to digital TV shortly after.

[RedFox99]

Though I didn't exactly read it, Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger traumatized me with the idea that reality is just a dream

[SgtBloxx]

“2012” definitely scared me when I was younger. It got to a point that I actually believed dad when he jokingly said that the world will end on 2012 (thank God that didn’t happen).

[RedFox99]

Just now, Bloxxerboy said:

“2012” definitely scared me when I was younger. It got to a point that I actually believed dad when he jokingly said that the world will end on 2012 (thank God that didn’t happen).

Same, but with my sister. My parents actually let me stay home that day because I was that scared.

[ShadowSJG]

On 10/21/2018 at 4:25 PM, MetalSkulkBane said:

Four words

Happy Tree God-Damn-F$#%ing Friends

I was 13+ when I seen it, but quite innocent 13+. If you never heard of Happy Tree Friends, take my advice and don't look it up.

Yet, somehow the writers of this are writing for Sonic....

[Cayenne]

"Man, I can't belive that I'm finally playing the new Zelda game on my Nintendo 64! I wonder what I will find if I go th-"

This game was E for Everyone in the 90s. Are you kidding me, Nintendo? Nowadays, they look really silly in all their lowpoly glory but I still hate their loud, annoying screams.

[GentlemanX]

I've got a few, sure.

Video game wise, first thing that comes to mind is Super Mario 64. You know.

Snacker was another one that while it didn't scare me, but especially the music always upped the tension. It's hard for me to think about any other video game stuff though. I'm sure I'd have put Zelda on here if I had played it when it was younger but I didn't. I tend to go for the colorful platformer genre and thus avoided material that would have given me a jolt.

Television and film is another matter. I can't think of too many specifics, though I'm sure there are a number of them. Some highlights.

I remember the first show on Adult Swim I started to get into was Inuyasha. I can remember seeing the first Inuyasha and Sesshomaru fight and being surprised when Sesshomaru's leg got caught off. There was blood, but it only surprised me. A few episodes later though, there was an episode where a jewel shard brought to life a noh mask.

That thing got me to stop watching pronto and I didn't watch Adult Swim again till years later when enough people on sonicanime.net were talking about FMA that I decided to give that a go. Loved it, as well other stuff airing at the time such as Eureka Seven, my soon to be favorite anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, and even some of the late episodes of Inuyasha. I love Inuyasha and the episode doesn't freak me out now obviously, but it sticks in my mind.

Lastly, it wasn't until I was actually older that I saw the Mickey Mouse short Runaway Brain. It's a beautiful short that I can't recommend enough. Despite never seeing it though, these friends of my parents had a picture of Mickey from it. So yeah, a picture of Mickey Mouse, how is that scary? Well, I first came across it while playing in their basement. My parents would usually go over to these friends' house to have an adult get together, and I happened to be the only kid so I'd play with my toys down stairs or in a bedroom. So I'm downstairs, by myself, and I happen to look in the laundry room where that's all dark except this one lit up picture of Mickey.

To me at least, at that young an age, not expecting to see Mickey Mouse (a character I was obviously familiar with) look like that has always stuck with me. Again, years later here, I love this short to death. But back then, the face was pure nightmare fuel.

[Tori Himemiya]

Hmmm... There's a lot of things that scared me as a kid since I was easily scared back then. Now? Not so much. Funny huh? Anyways here's a few things I've thought of.

This is an oddly weird but specific if not personal one but the Goosebumps show did scare me a lot. However there was a specific thing that actually scared me. I remember there was an episode of a guy turning into a pig (or at least having a pig face) after eating a lot? Its been a while so I don't remember the context. Why did it scare me? Well I woke up in the middle of the night one day and my stomach was hurting from eating too much garlic bread and I instantly remembered that. I guess I was too scared to be that pig man thing but I was oddly a memory I kept. Weird huh?

Another one is the Space Pirate Frigate from Metroid Prime. So this is going to sound weird but Metroid Prime is actually the first game I've played that was genuinely dark, well at least darker than what I'm used to playing. For some context I was pretty big on Mario and Kirby during the time so Metroid being a more realistic, alien game was a curveball. So anyways I just found the whole Frigate to be scary because it had a lot of creatures in stasis and somethings are best left to the imagination judging by their experiments. I guess the idea of aliens experimenting on something so big and so dead really freaked me out that I couldn't take it so much. However after that I did find Prime to be an enjoyable game, especially with the fact you can explore and learn about the lore and creatures of the planet. I guess I should put aliens scared me a lot when I was a kid.

However that's all I can think of at the moment. I can't remember my childhood too well. I'll ask my sister because she has better memory on this kind of thing so consider this a "to be continued" post in the meantime. Its weird that I can't remember beyond that.

[The Tenth Doctor]

I can put a name to my childhood fear. Pinocchio. The scene were the boy turns into a donkey to be prescise. His screams of terror and pain. The animation. The music. The scene before showing what happens to them, especially the defective one who can still talk. I still feel really uncomfortable just typing this, it is a horrible horrible bit of film. I saw it on one Christmas morning and it really ruined my day. The fact that Guillermo del Toro is making a film of this, as well as another Disney one alongside almost makes me break into a cold sweat.

[RedFox99]

31 minutes ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

I can put a name to my childhood fear. Pinocchio. The scene were the boy turns into a donkey to be prescise. His screams of terror and pain. The animation. The music. The scene before showing what happens to them, especially the defective one who can still talk. I still feel really uncomfortable just typing this, it is a horrible horrible bit of film. I saw it on one Christmas morning and it really ruined my day. The fact that Guillermo del Toro is making a film of this, as well as another Disney one alongside almost makes me break into a cold sweat.

I first saw that in class and it was one of few (possibly only) Disney films to actually scare as a kid.

[SgtBloxx]

When I was younger I used to be terrified of zombies on media, no matter what kind they are. I don’t know what happened between then and now, because now I’ve gotten used to fighting them in video games.

[captobvious42]

On ‎10‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 8:35 PM, DanJ86 said:

They are many that wont know the horrors of this thing. Don't let the cutesy Disney-ish animals confuse you. Watership Down can't be for kids, it just can't! A cartoon based off a book, featuring rabbits. Contains blood, rabbit corpses, rabbit murder and a deeply depressing song that plays during the credits thing.

Don't watch it, don't look it up!

We actually watched this in GRADE SCHOOL of all places. I'm assuming its the whole animation age ghetto trope in play -- they assume that since its a cartoon, its meant for kids... Kinda like how I used to find the PG-13 DC Universe Animated movies in the kids section of stores or rental places; actually let one rental place know about it just to be safe (the movie was Batman vs. Robin... the first 10-15 minutes are NOT kid friendly.)

I know there's probably a lot that I can't remember. I know the Ceti Eel thing in Star Trek II and the assassination scene in Star Trek VI took me forever to finally view in its entirety. I also know the game over music in the original Super Mario Bros. really freaked me out somehow.

[isCasted]

This was... a thing on Russian public television when I was 4. Certainly gave me and millions of other children nightmares. Looking back at it now, though, it's kinda hilarious