old movies that scared you

[peanuts]

we can all remember those old b/w fifties creature feature horror/ scifi movies that scared us silly as kids which were your favourits and why ?

 

 for me the first one was "THEM " with the giant ants watched in a caravan in cromer whilst on holiday during a storm scared me silly especialy going over pelican crossings the next day 

 

last one was "Qatermass and the pit" those giant locusts and the scene with the crane at the end realy got to me as a ten year oold 

Edited June 5, 2020 by peanuts

[Allegheny1600]

I loved both of those films, especially the 'Martian' scene in Quatermass!

 

I remember hiding behind the sofa at about six or so years old, threatening to throw a magnet at the TV when Dr Who was on  - I believed it would damage the monsters but really it would only have damaged the TV!

[Ozexpatriate]

3 hours ago, peanuts said:

... for me the first one was "THEM "

"The Blob" is similar.

 

My Mum was frightened by "Psycho".

[sandwich station]

The Daleks on Dr Who used to get me, would hide behind a chair when they were on.  

[Steamport Southport]

The only time I was ever scared of anything like that was when the giant spiders were in Doctor Who. It was the first time we had colour TV which was apparently a big deal and I was only about four at the time.

 

I was terrified of spiders for years afterwards. Still a bit wary of them and we don't even get dangerous ones.

 

[rab]

Ok, showing my age now!

 

As a kid I used to watch Whirlybirds.

There was one episode where someone was flying

a helicopter around in the dark with a very bright

searchlight and something generating weird noises.

 

i can still remember not being able to sleep that night.

It seemed like every time I closed my eyes that darned

helicopter was hovering overhead.

[John M Upton]

Another one here for Quatermass and The Pit, the end in particular. 

 

Also when I was young, if it was shown (it was often cut) the weird 'hell' ending of The Black Hole if anyone remembers it.

[Oldddudders]

"I Married a Witch", a fairly lightweight drama from many years ago, did this 9 year-old no good. In centuries past two women are burned as witches. In C20 they are liberated and set fire to a hotel owned by a descendant of the man who had them burned. I didn't stop to see the ending.....

 

I seldom watch films or tv these days. 

[franciswilliamwebb]

Saturday Night Fever

[John Harris]

7 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

The only time I was ever scared of anything like that was when the giant spiders were in Doctor Who. It was the first time we had colour TV which was apparently a big deal and I was only about four at the time.

 

I was terrified of spiders for years afterwards. Still a bit wary of them and we don't even get dangerous ones.

 

 

You had better not watch "Arachnids in the UK" in the recent series, lots of big spiders, plus one giant that emerges though a wall to grab the baddy.

 

jh

[Vistisen]

The start of Children of the Stones, terrified me as a child. Actually it still does: 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Vistisen

[Reorte]

One that didn't scare me but could've - I was quite young when Raiders of the Lost Ark was first on TV. My mum was quite relieved that I fell asleep before the end where all the bad guy's faces melted off.

 

[Rugd1022]

Not a movie but a TV show - Gerry Anderson's 'UFO' was genuinely dark and creepy in places, one particular episode which gave me the heebee geebees was where Colonel Foster (the late Micheal Billington) was captured by the aliens and is seen later having the helmet removed, the green liquid coming out of it as he almost choked on it scared the crap out of me at the time...!

 

 

 

[Allegheny1600]

I loved (and still do!) "UFO", I was rather young when it first came out, under ten y.o. but I still admired those ladies in their clingy uniforms and brightly coloured hair!

 

Now, now (me) don't get carried away!

[Steamport Southport]

2 hours ago, John Harris said:

 

You had better not watch "Arachnids in the UK" in the recent series, lots of big spiders, plus one giant that emerges though a wall to grab the baddy.

 

jh

 

I would be perfectly fine now. I'll have a look for it at some point.

 

I remember when Arachnophobia first came out it was something like a 15 (or whatever the rating was back then).

 

It was on the Horror Channel in the middle of the afternoon the other week. 

 

 

 

Jason

[John M Upton]

Day of The Triffids, the BBC serialised version in the early 1980's I think was another one along with a film I cannot identify.  Seem to recall it was one of those now long forgotten Children's Film Unit productions, an old Cornish tin mine which went out under the sea and if a disaster was about to occur, these ghostly miners appeared, running for their lives.

Edited June 6, 2020 by John M Upton

[peanuts]

16 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

Day of The Triffids, the BBC serialised version in the early 1980's I think was another one along with a film I cannot identify.  Seem to recall it was one of those now long forgotten Children's Film Unit productions, an old Cornish tin mine which went out under the sea and if a disaster was about to occur, these ghostly miners appeared, running for their lives.

that reminds me of the midwitch cuckoos another adaptation of a john wyndham novel 

[Steamport Southport]

The Clifton House Mystery was another one which was terrifying.

 

A proper ghost story from the days when ITV still made decent TV programmes. It even had Peter Sallis not playing a Yorkshireman!

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369089/

 

It's available on DVD. There was also a pretty poor copy of it on YouTube. But I think it was removed for copyright reasons.

 

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

About a quarter of a century ago now, me and gf house sat for a friend who'd disappeared to Majorca for a cupla weeks, and his 13 year old boy stayed over one weekend.  We decided to get a few beers in, a pizza, and a video.  'Can we have Silence of the Lambs', says the lad.  'Would your dad let you watch that'?  'Yeah, sure' (yeah, right) 'all my mates have seen it, they say it's not that scary'.  'All right, then, but if you get nightmares it's your problem to sort out, don't come running to us'!   'Ok, I won't, honest, don't worry'.  

 

We sat down with the beers and pizza to watch the film, and, after a while, he jumped up screaming in horror.   As nothing particularly scary was happening in the film at that point, this was a little surprising, but all soon became clear.  He seen something about 20 minutes before and taken a little while to work out what had happened; 'eerrgghh, he was wearing that man's face, the guard, he cut it off and he was wearing it on top of his own face, like a mask with the blood and everything, eerrgghh'!  

 

That was the end of Silence of the Lambs for the evening.

 

Then there was Bambi.  I was 4 years old, my first trip to the cinema, really looking forward, excited, everything was wonderful, thrilled at the adverts and Pearl & Dean, the lights went down, the curtains rolled back, the magic began...

 

And Bambi's mum got shot.

 

Dead.

 

I was carried out screaming, and didn't go to the pictures for about another 8 years after that.

Edited June 6, 2020 by The Johnster

[peanuts]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

About a quarter of a century ago now, me and gf house sat for a friend who'd disappeared to Majorca for a cupla weeks, and his 13 year old boy stayed over one weekend.  We decided to get a few beers in, a pizza, and a video.  'Can we have Silence of the Lambs', says the lad.  'Would your dad let you watch that'?  'Yeah, sure' (yeah, right) 'all my mates have seen it, they say it's not that scary'.  'All right, then, but if you get nightmares it's your problem to sort out, don't come running to us'!   'Ok, I won't, honest, don't worry'.  

 

We sat down with the beers and pizza to watch the film, and, after a while, he jumped up screaming in horror.   As nothing particularly scary was happening in the film at that point, this was a little surprising, but all soon became clear.  He seen something about 20 minutes before and taken a little while to work out what had happened; 'eerrgghh, he was wearing that man's face, the guard, he cut it off and he was wearing it on top of his own face, like a mask with the blood and everything, eerrgghh'!  

 

That was the end of Silence of the Lambs for the evening.

 

Then there was Bambi.  I was 4 years old, my first trip to the cinema, really looking forward, excited, everything was wonderful, thrilled at the adverts and Pearl & Dean, the lights went down, the curtains rolled back, the magic began...

 

And Bambi's mum got shot.

 

Dead.

 

I was carried out screaming, and didn't go to the pictures for about another 8 years after that.

but you never actually see Bambis mum get shot it cuts away and here the shot very clever from Disney 

[corax67]

Some of Roald Dahl’s “Tales of the unexpected” gave me the heeby jeebys as well as “The Masque of the Red Death” starring Vincent Price.

 

 

 

Karl

[Ben B]

The 60's version of "War of the Worlds" scared the hell out of me when I was little, I used to struggle to get past the bit where the martian waddles past in the background when they've crashed at the farmhouse.  Oddly enough when it's more visible on-screen later it isn't too bad, it was that simple, slightly-out-of-focus quick pass if it that always terrified me.

On a similar note, the first "Tremors" film used to give me the screaming heebie-jeebies when I was little. 

 

You know the feeling of being so scared by something you're watching that it's the most frightening thing you can imagine, but you have to force yourself to watch it?  Mine was a TV show called "Dark Season" about a sinister computer buried under a school... I can remember something about it giving me nightmares when I was 7, and being a proper watch-from-behind-the-door program.  It terrified  me at times, but I just had to keep watching it.  Appropriately perhaps it was by Russel T Davies, it turns out, who did the same thing with the revived Dr.Who to our youngest foster-daughter years later... 

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, peanuts said:

but you never actually see Bambi's mum get shot it cuts away and here the shot very clever from Disney 

That, in a way, made it worse; the horror was all suggested rather than shown.  What you saw was the shock on Bambi's face as his world disintegrated in a matter of a second, and for a child who had just been shown that the world was not safe, it was actually terrifying and uncertain, even your parents and home could be taken away by a man with gun at anytime, the horror was just as great as Bambi's.  The sensation was heightened because this was a looked forward to treat; what were my parents thinking!  

[Steamport Southport]

Then you went home and was served Thumper for your dinner. 

 

 

 

 

Jason

[Ron Ron Ron]

It came from Outer Space.

I watched this 1950's B&W movie on my own, aged 15 or 16 years old, around 1970 or 71.

BBC2 late on a Saturday night, while my parents were out.

Terrified at the time. Seems so corny now.

 

It was an era when BBC2 showed lots of 1950's movies, of various genres, either on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, or late in the evening at the weekend.

 

 

.