My parents let me watch a lot of wild things when I was basically age 5+: Alien, Gremlins, Friday the 13th, etc.

But I have a VERY vivid memory of watching the Xtro birth scene at one point. If you have never seen it, I'd recommend NOT seeing it.

Gremlin in the microwave in Gremlins is also up there.

The Exorcist still gives me chills.

My parents took me to see Starship Troopers in theaters when I was three years old. They didn't know just how violent the movie was. I vividly remember the hole in that one marine's head, and the close-up shot the movie made sure to have. They spent most of the time trying to make sure I wasn't looking at the screen.

To this day, I still cannot watch that movie comfortably, even though compared to modern violence standards, I've seen much worse since.

My parents took me to see T2 when I was NINE YEARS OLD. They knew I loved film and wanted me to see James Cameron's revolutionary use of CGI on the big screen. DUDE. The T-1000 scared me for years afterward. For the first six months after the film, I literally avoided my mom whenever she was in the kitchen, b/c I was convinced she would reach out and possibly impale me if I wanted to grab something from the fridge. I couldn't trust ANYONE for the first few weeks; I was convinced they were all possible liquid metal killing machines.

Around the same time, my mom took my little brother and me to see Die Hard 2, w/o us having the faintest clue about the original film. I realize now she WAS that lady in the theater with the kids you look side-eyed at.

🤦🏾‍♂️ First scene: villain doing karate nude in the mirror. Rest of the film: gunshots everywhere, one guy getting an icicle through his eye; planes exploding or crashing, it was a crazy vibe to be on. Needless to say, I never really gravitated toward air travel after that.

I saw Signs in the theater when I was 10 and was so profoundly disturbed to the point where I am glad I do not remember exactly what I did because I'd probably die of embarrassment. Why I covered my eyes at the end of Under the Skin can undoubtedly be traced back to how much Signs got to me. Maybe it's the uncanny valley effect, but there's something about aliens that I find way more disturbing than anything else.

On 10/10/2025 at 10:06 PM, Ben Kendrick said:

My parents let me watch a lot of wild things when I was basically age 5+: Alien, Gremlins, Friday the 13th, etc.

But I have a VERY vivid memory of watching the Xtro birth scene at one point. If you have never seen it, I'd recommend NOT seeing it.

Gremlin in the microwave in Gremlins is also up there.

LOL I showed XTRO to friends a couple of years ago, and that is a capital M Movie, let me tell you.

2 minutes ago, KOutlaw said:

My parents took me to see T2 when I was NINE YEARS OLD. They knew I loved film and wanted me to see James Cameron's revolutionary use of CGI on the big screen. DUDE. The T-1000 scared me for years afterward. For the first six months after the film, I literally avoided my mom whenever she was in the kitchen, b/c I was convinced she would reach out and possibly impale me if I wanted to grab something from the fridge. I couldn't trust ANYONE for the first few weeks; I was convinced they were all possible liquid metal killing machines.

Around the same time, my mom took my little brother and me to see Die Hard 2, w/o us having the faintest clue about the original film. I realize now she WAS that lady in the theater with the kids you look side-eyed at.

🤦🏾‍♂️ First scene: villain doing karate nude in the mirror. Rest of the film: gunshots everywhere, one guy getting an icicle through his eye; planes exploding or crashing, it was a crazy vibe to be on. Needless to say, I never really gravitated toward air travel after that.

On the flip side: my mom also took us to White Men Can't Jump way too young, and inadvertently opened my eyes, and horizons, to a ROSIE PEREZ world. So I typically say mom was 50/50 on the cost/benefit of those questionable parenting decisions.

Edited October 13, 2025Oct 13 by KOutlaw

There's a really weird version of Alice in Wonderland that I think may be Swedish (I'm not entirely sure, I was a kid) but I distinctly remember watching it when I was like, six or seven and the Jabberwocky gave me nightmares for MONTHS.

I absolutely loved it... and was terrified in equal measure.

I wasn't actually allowed to watch movies as a kid cause we were super religious and weren't allowed. The first movie I went to was after I left for college, and I never stopped after that.

However, there was a TV show that messed me up as a kid. It was an episode of The Incredible Hulk where he fought Del Frye. Man, there was something about Del Frye's design when I was a kid that was nightmare fuel. I watch it now, and it isn't that bad, but when I was a kid, it messed me up.

I saw The Ring at a sleepover in middle school. My first and nearly my last horror movie, because it absolutely terrified me. But the one that really convinced me horror movies weren't for me was Stay Alive. As a big gamer, the whole "video game kills you in real life" premise was too much. I couldn't sleep for weeks after that one!

Jurassic Park had me running out of the room scared as a 4 year old (specifically the Dilophosaurus scene in the rain). But by the time The Lost World came out, I was older and over it and all in (got it on VHS for my birthday that year and I was so excited).

I'd love to see Steven Spielberg make a return to a dinosaur-adjacent movie by helming an adaptation of Michael Crichton's Dragon Teeth. More of a western/period piece than a dinosaur movie, but the novel was a fun read. I think Sony got the rights with NatGeo to do a TV movie many years ago, but that was pre-Disney acquisition of NatGeo so who knows where it's at now.

1 hour ago, Amanda Kay Oaks said:

I saw The Ring at a sleepover in middle school. My first and nearly my last horror movie, because it absolutely terrified me. But the one that really convinced me horror movies weren't for me was Stay Alive. As a big gamer, the whole "video game kills you in real life" premise was too much. I couldn't sleep for weeks after that one!

I saw The Ring in college, but it was in a theater where I was one of the only people there that day, and it freaked me out.

I began watching horror movies when I was around 6 or 7 years old. I even learned to read faster because horror movies were only available on subtitled VHS tapes (damn, I'm getting old...). Parental negligence aside, I was usually chill watching horror movies. The first time I got traumatized was watching Castle Freak. The scene where the creature chews off a woman's breasts was too much for me, and that image got scarred in my mind for years. I rewatched the movie when I was older, and it's not even that scary. But for some reason, that scene was one of the most terrifying movie experiences I ever had.

Too many to list haha! There were no restrictions back then and quite a few gave me nightmares growing up. So many of the 80s horror movies back then were gory, definitely too much for children, but we watched them anyway. It's funny when you rewatch them as an adult and they're not scary at all.

10 hours ago, FantasticJerome said:

There were no restrictions back then.

A couple of years ago, I was talking with my girlfriend about how I watched Sleepy Hollow in theaters, alone. It was the first horror movie I saw in theaters. She did the math and pointed out I was 10 years old when the film premiered in Brazil (where I grew up)... How the heck was I even allowed into the theater, alone, to watch a horror movie with so many decapitations?

The Exorcist. I don’t think I slept for a month

Mine wasn't a movie persay, but rather the trailer. It was the trailer for the original movie of Suspiria. You saw this girl brushing her hair and singing, then turn around to reveal a skull under that head of hair. I was like 4 or 5 when that came out. I had nightmares of it well into my 30's. That is until I went and bought it then watched it. Haven't had one nightmare of it since.

The BFG from 1989 gave me nightmares for months. I'm not even sorry — he's terrifying.

Very left field answer here, but Muppets from Space. I saw that in theaters when I was a kid and I legit thought Gonzo was going to leave the Muppets at the end and I started sobbing