I was WAY too young when I watched that movie.

[Tylerocks 2,553]

Was probably somewhere around 10-12 when I saw Faces of Death....and all the following iterations

I'm certain the parents that rented it just thought it was just a horror movie

[Bama Llama 1,450]

The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)

My demented 9-year old girl cousin presented me with what I perceived as a fantastic gift on my fifth birthday: she treated me to a free double feature air conditioned matinee, with free orange soda over crushed movie ice!  The only catch (or so my naive young brain thought at the time) was that we had to walk and the theater was ten blocks away and it was the middle of August in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
 

My mother had thoughtfully replaced last year’s rotten sneakers  with snow white Keds still new in the box.  I laced them up and off we went.

I wouldn’t allow two little kids to walk anywhere in Tuscaloosa today, much less ten blocks to the movies.  Before we had gone four blocks, I was sweating and my new shoes were cutting into my ankles.  By the time we got there the blisters were serious and killing my sockless feet.  Why no socks?  Five-year old.

Glorious frigid air, a rarity in the fifties, welcomed us into the Druid Theater.  We loaded up on orange drinks, in big wax cups with crushed ice, buttered popcorn, Goobers and Milk Duds.  Then we entered the cool, dark sanctuary and settled into our seats.  
 

That was when I discovered this wasn’t a feel good film about cowboys or pirates or Disney characters.  Ohhh, but no, it was a post-bomb, atomic nightmare, scare the shit out of your cousin who yesterday was four fucking years old, giant centipede monster HORROR MOVIE!

I watched at most 10% of that shit peeking through my fingers until st last it was over but not before I saw the monster pick a lab assistant up with his giant pincers, hold him ten feet up gyrating snd screaming in the air and pop his skull like a big pink grape and not before I saw the aftermath of the monster’s rampage through the lab, where all the innocent fuzzy rabbits and guinea pigs were slaughtered, guts threaded over broken beakers and busted microscopes, with monster glop and goo jizzed all over everything.

I asked if we could wrap it up and head back home but my cousin scolded, “Nooooo! Thst was only the first movie!  I paid for a double feature and you’re going to watch.  Every.  Minute of both movies!”  I soon sensed something I wouldn’t know the name of for many years - sadism.

Feature two was “The Vampire.”  Only it wasn’t a Bela Lugosi Stoker vampire.  It was a freindly neighborhood family doctor whose office looked exactly like the repurposed suburban home MY doctor practiced in and I had to visit from time to time.  THIS doctor was bitten by a bat and before long his patients were being sucked dry and their drained husks chucked into the basement furnace.

I don’t remember walking home.  I only knoe I slept in my parents’ bedroom that night snd several nights thereafter.  My father had a “talk” with his older sister, my cousin’s mother.  Seems neither oc my parents had any idea where my cousin was taking me that day.  
 

i never trusted that bitch again.  Years later she had to spend the afternoon of her wedding day mopping up the blood and guts of her mother’s pet spider monkey, which her and her husband’s white German shepherds had opened a door in her mother’s home to get.  Served her right.

[WBT 20,559]

6 hours ago, rage-a-holic said:

Like that guy in Anchorman?

[Agent 13 314]

Age seven. The days before ratings. Nekkid Jayne Mansfield in Promises! Promises! What are these new feelings?

[Biff Tannen 45,661]

8 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

The Shining.  Only movie that ever scared me.  Also watched it at a sleepover in middle school.

Yep. Saw it when I was 12 and took a decade to be able to handle it. Now it’s in the Halloween rotation, but I still can’t watch the bathroom scene. 

[BurgleBro 787]

Too many to count.  My mom was crazy..

Lost Boys, Robocop, Predator all come to mind, was probably around 8 or so. 

Child's Play around that age too, now that one REALLY fucked me to bc my dad scared me from behind the couch.   Was afraid of My Buddy dolls for life after that. 

[Butch Had Not 2,969]

The Fly. So gruesome for my young mind. 

I've seen too much. 

[ChickenSandwich 9,824]

Heavy Metal, Faces of Death

[billfromlaketravis 11,444]

7 hours ago, Classic Rock said:

Watched Rosemary's Baby when I was 7. Not sure of my mom's thought process on letting me watch that.

Jesus. I watched it when I was a 21 or 22 and I couldn’t sleep for 3 days. That must have been rough for you. 

[MrBig 5,368]

I saw Scarface when I was 8. I remember the double VHS sleeve it came in. The chainsaw scene in the beginning sticks with me even though it wasn’t very graphic. The weird scary shit from the movie Phantasm is what really stuck in my mind as a kid. 

[mininghorn88 2,275]

I was around 8 years old and it was the weekend and I was staying up to watch the Late Movie that came on TV on the weekend after the local news. This particular summer night (~1974) they aired The Gargoyles. Scared me to death. To this day, some 50 years later, that is the only horror movie that I have ever seen start to finish.

[TwiceHorn 31,434]

So, this was an ABC Movie of the Week in 1970.  

That would have made me four when it first showed.

I don't think I was that young when I saw it, but I did see it with a teenaged babysitter from down the street and it scared the crap out of me.

Lady above inherits a farm with a history of, and ongoing witchcraft.  

In one scene in particular, she "hallucinates" having a barn door placed on her and Puritan types stacking rocks on it.

I mean, it was the ABC Movie of the Week, it's not like the babysitter was out renting inappropriate shit.

[SimonBolivar 10,957]

What Dreams May Come at 9. 

 

Hell was scary as fuck.

[dcbc 14,464]

17 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

The Shining.  Only movie that ever scared me.  Also watched it at a sleepover in middle school.

In the early 80s, TMC used to have the movie of the month and played that movie several times each day. On the month the Shining had that honor, I (age 6/7) watched it over and over, to the extent I snagged some of my mom's lipstick and wrote "REDRUM." on the bathroom mirror as a joke.  And while I was scared by aspects of the movie, I joked about other aspects of it with my parents.

12 hours ago, David Dennison said:

I saw Airplane when it came out because it was rated PG.

I was 8.

Boobs.

Same.  Saw it with my mom and sister in the theater when it came out.  'Twas my favorite scene at the time.

 

I had cable in my room and saw a ton of good (but probably not so appropriate) movies from age 6 on.  I turned out okay (subjectively).

Edited October 22 by dcbc

[seven 1,367]

At the video store around age 10, my mom picks up porky's and is like oh this one is funny you'd like it. I did indeed like it. 

[closetohumping 17,431]

Rambling rose with Laura Dern.  Yea.  Uhm no

[South Austin 52,431]

In terms of nudity, I remember when Tarzan The Ape Man came on HBO when I was maybe 6, and it was one of the first times I can recall seeing full nudity.  This was me watching Bo Derek -- 

 

Edited October 22 by South Austin

[NorthLoop 14,180]

I was just about to say

 

Revenge of the Nerds - I was probably 5. Kid down the street had a mom who DNGAF. 

 

I saw most of the horror movies listed on this thread before I was 10. Again, mostly friends' parents that were oblivious or just didn't care. 

 

Some others that haven't been mentioned: 

Communion

Puppet Masters 

Heavy Metal 

[smuggs 9,350]

19 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Dark Night of the Scarecrow was a tv movie that aired in 1981, which would have made me 3 when I watched it.  I’m sure it wasn’t super scary but to me it was terrifying. 

Seconded. I was 5, scared the shit out of me. I have it on DVD. It still holds up - the grain elevator scene is legit.

Dark Night and the OG Salem's Lot are the scariest made for TV movies of all time, imo.

 

[NorthLoop 14,180]

2 minutes ago, smuggs said:

Seconded. I was 5, scared the shit out of me. I have it on DVD. It still holds up - the grain elevator scene is legit.

Dark Night and the OG Salem's Lot are the scariest made for TV movies of all time, imo.

 

IT was pretty fucked up too for a made for TV movie

[South Austin 52,431]

20 minutes ago, NorthLoop said:

IT was pretty fucked up too for a made for TV movie

Maybe 8th or 9th grade for me.  Overall not as scary at the time, but the scene of Pennywise coming out of the shower drain made my pull my sheets in closer that night when I went to bed.

[LonghornSean 3,989]

American Werewolf in London, first grade (6 years old).

 

My dad was born London and loved this movie but clearly didn’t quite remember everything from when he saw it in his twenties, so rented it for us one weekend. Pretty sure I remember him being surprised at the video store that it was rated R.

But we put in on—mom, dad, and me (don’t think four year old brother was there). Had to fast forward through the extended love scene (to Van Morrison’s “moon dance”). Then when the first transformation scene hit, that’s when I couldn’t it handle it anymore. Guess I made it through the initial attack and some of the crazy dream sequences OK.

Edited October 22 by LonghornSean

[TwiceHorn 31,434]

4 minutes ago, LonghornSean said:

American Werewolf in London, first grade (6 years old).

 

My dad was born London and loved this movie but clearly didn’t quite remember everything from when he saw it in his twenties, so rented it for us one weekend. Pretty sure I remember him being surprised at the video store that it was rated R.

But we put in on—mom, dad, and me (don’t think four year old brother was there). Had to fast forward through the extended love scene (to Van Morrison’s “moon dance”). Then when the first transformation scene, hit that’s when I couldn’t it handle it anymore.

Funny story on this one.  When I was in middle/high school I had a 13" TV on my desk, which was actually a card table, so not that small.

Nevertheless, the TV was a bit close.

I was doing my homework one night and watching American Werewolf (pretty sure I had seen it before) and one of those scenes of Griffin Dunne in his various states of decomposition came on.  I happened to look up and saw pretty up close and nearly barfed.  My gorge rose as the literary types might say.  Nothing on screen has come that close to making me barf before or since.

Edited October 22 by TwiceHorn

[CooterBrown 18,001]

I forgot I also saw The Shining in the theater when I was 8.  My parents weren't very good at that parenting thing.

[UpperWestside 6,159]

19 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

Jaws when I was 11. Led to pretty much a lifelong fear of the ocean. 

I was pretty young when I watched this with my parents for the first time on VHS. I had to have been maybe 7 at the most when I saw it. I loved the movie and it led me in the opposite direction. I love the ocean and have swam in the open ocean with sharks as well as a lagoon with reef sharks. I was actually just showing some folks a video of that yesterday. 

As an aside I used to work at a restaurant Roy Scheider frequented when he had doctor appointments for cancer treatment. Heard he was a really nice guy.

[EvilCaseMcCoy 691]

19 hours ago, LCHorn said:

I bet I was six or seven when I first saw Excalibur and the sex scene between Uther in full plate mail and Igraine.  It was a long time before I realized that’s not really how one performs the act.  
 

Also had parents who didn’t really police watching HBO back when it was the only premium cable available and saw pretty much all of the late 70’s/early 80’s horror before I was in second grade.  

We watched that movie in 9th grade English class.  

[TwiceHorn 31,434]

Jaws had its world premiere at Medallion Theater in Dallas, which was near where I grew up.

Between that and Jaws tshirts, which were all the rage, I saw it pretty young.  It was scary, particularly that opening scene and when Quint got munched.

I suppose I have seen it so many times since and focused on other things (doll's eyes, bigger boat, etc.) that its impact is blunted.

[Gene Parmesan 4,002]

I didn't know this until I was adult, but PG13 didn't start until the mid 80s which is when I was born.  I remember watching movies like Jaws and Poltergeist thinking how in the hell is this a PG move

[NorthLoop 14,180]

3 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

I didn't know this until I was adult, but PG13 didn't start until the mid 80s which is when I was born.  I remember watching movies like Jaws and Poltergeist thinking how in the hell is this a PG move

Barbarella was a nice surprise. 

[kevwun 15,757]

I watched Robo Cop when I was about 7 or 8.  That was a little too gory.  I remember not being scared as much as feeling sick to my stomach. 

[BHMCruiser 1,813]

Jaws is the answer

[BlueGreySky 1,002]

By 8 or 9:

Horror - Exorcist and Poltergeist (that one fucked me up)

Language - Top Gun

Nudity - Revenge of the Nerds and Caddy Shack

[mchookem 16,318]

my parents took me to see Deliverance when i was like 2-3. i don't actually remember it other than a vague memory 'picture' of my mom forcing my head down below the seat backs and 'hearing' noise lol

[T’Boo Ted Marshall 2,731]

Something Wicked This Way Comes at age 8.  

[Frieda’s Boss 181]

Like a lot of others, Porky’s. Other one I haven’t seen mentioned was Fast Times. I was probably 7 or 8 when I saw that for the first time.  Pretty much any horror movie on premium cable. 
 

Whoever called out Dark Night of the Scarecrow, wow I had forgotten that one. I don’t remember much about it, but remember not being able to sleep after watching at a friend's house. 

[Kel Varnsen 8,458]

At 10 or 11, I found a vhs tape in the top of my uncle's closet that I most definitely shouldn't have watched. 

[Underdog 28,544]

20 hours ago, mchookem said:

i never even saw this movie, but the previews on tv gave me absolute night terror...

 

Saw it in the theatre, a guilty pleasure or mine. 

20 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

Holy shit I saw that in the theater too (my cousin and I would always get people to buy us tix to movies we weren't old enough to see).  Damn, I don't recall what it was even about, but I remember running out of the theater.

The exploding sleeping bag when the creature swatted it and there wasn't any blood, the guy that tried to peep if the creature left when they were hiding underground but it hadn't and his face got mauled. 

[Underdog 28,544]

14 hours ago, mininghorn88 said:

I was around 8 years old and it was the weekend and I was staying up to watch the Late Movie that came on TV on the weekend after the local news. This particular summer night (~1974) they aired The Gargoyles. Scared me to death. To this day, some 50 years later, that is the only horror movie that I have ever seen start to finish.

Another good early 70s tv movie that freaked me out was Don't be afraid of the dark with Kim Darby/Jim Hutton, about a couple moving into an old home and the wife starts seeing little creatures after opening up a barricaded room.  Was only recently that I learned Bernie Casey was the Gargoyle. 

[Jerry Callo 8,694]

It was mentioned in another thread, but when I was about 9 the Salem's Lot mini-series came out.  I don't remember watching the whole thing, but I distinctly remember that kid floating outside the other kids window.  Freaked me the fuck out.

Also, when I was about 32 and a half, I saw The Ring in the theater.  That freaky ass girl came out of something and I screamed out loud.  My wife and some rando lady next to her busted out laughing.  My wife is much more careful about the movies she lets me watch.

 

[ScottS 1,061]

On 10/21/2024 at 1:51 PM, Dbeasy said:

Jaws when I was 11. Led to pretty much a lifelong fear of the ocean. 

It was a long time before I would even go in the deep end of my grandparents' swimming pool after watching Jaws as a young child.

9 hours ago, LonghornSean said:

American Werewolf in London, first grade (6 years old).

 

My dad was born London and loved this movie but clearly didn’t quite remember everything from when he saw it in his twenties, so rented it for us one weekend. Pretty sure I remember him being surprised at the video store that it was rated R.

But we put in on—mom, dad, and me (don’t think four year old brother was there). Had to fast forward through the extended love scene (to Van Morrison’s “moon dance”). Then when the first transformation scene hit, that’s when I couldn’t it handle it anymore. Guess I made it through the initial attack and some of the crazy dream sequences OK.

I saw this movie about the same age you did, maybe a couple of years older, don't remember exactly.  All I do remember is going to bed that night and being too afraid to make even the slightest movement in bed because I was convinced my bed was surrounded by werewolves that would eat me if I made even the smallest of moves.  Probably a big reason why I have never developed much of an affinity for horror and similar type of movies. 

[Texzilla58 4,731]

Age 7.  First grade.  Mom takes me to the drive in as dads out of town.  In Cold Blood.  Fucking In Cold Blood!  Nothing reinforces joy in a child like seeing a family murdered in their home with a shotgun by a pair drifter losers.  Yikes.

[Deej 76,750]

On 10/21/2024 at 5:15 PM, Butch Had Not said:

I watched Teen Wolf and The Howling the same night with a friend when I was probably 9. The Howling was pretty scary for me at that time. 

Michael J. Fox playing basketball was pretty terrifying.

Although he'd be a top 5 WNBA player.

Edited October 23 by Deej

[Deej 76,750]

3 hours ago, Jerry Callo said:

My wife and some rando lady next to her busted out laughing.

Worst threesome ever.

[MissingInAction 25,002]

On 10/21/2024 at 1:24 PM, Red Five said:

The Exorcist. Probably about 10.

I was 4.

May explain some things.

[Deej 76,750]

4 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

At 10 or 11, I found a vhs tape in the top of my uncle's closet that I most definitely shouldn't have watched. 

You didn't know he had filmed you?

[Sandman 3,403]

On 10/21/2024 at 6:28 PM, Sbbruin said:

Also saw Amityville Horror when I was about 12.  I stayed up the entire night that night.  I was a wreck from that.

When I was 7 or 8, I saw an episode of that Leonard Nimoy show "In Search Of..." about Amityville and it fucked me up good. I never did watch the movie because of it.

We got our first VCR in 1981 and the first two movies my dad rented were "Mommie Dearest" and "The Elephant Man", the latter gave me horrible nightmares and I can't even look at a pic of that fucking guy to this very day. 

[Mez2 4,023]

A Serbian Film, I was about 40.

Real talk, all the Porky movies by the time I was 8. My dad is awesome 

[Butch Had Not 2,969]

12 hours ago, EvilCaseMcCoy said:

We watched that movie in 9th grade English class.  

Same here. Probably not even close to the same HS though.  Where you go?

[Beantown Express 2.0 6,559]

I can’t believe all of the Porky’s responses but a friend and me convinced our mothers to takes us to see that in the theater when we were 11 years old.  The mom’s had no idea what they were taking us to.  That same year my older sister who worked at the movie theater snuck me in to see Stripes also at age 11.  To this day I still have dreams of being a loofah. 

[Knoxtnhorn 5,971]

I thought of one out of left field.

I was about 7.  My younger brothers and I were being babysit by the daughter of my parent's friends while they all go out.  As usual, I cant sleep, so I sneak down the stairs to see what she's watching on tv.  Sweet!  It's a cartoon.  I find a spot to sit where she can't see me.  Turns out, the movie is something called Wizards which has cartoon boobs and lots of pretty violent cartoon deaths.  I was pretty traumatized for awhile.