What did you watch as a child that scared the living daylights out of you?

The Dementors, Freddie Krueger, the Child Catcher - here's what had us hiding behind the sofa as kids

The recent release of another Halloween slasher movie has caused me to relive one of the most traumatising moments of my own childhood.

I was 11 or 12 when I watched the original 1978 Halloween for the first time, and I'm not ashamed to admit watching that at such a young age terrified the absolute bejaysus out of me. Seriously, I think it may have even stunted my physical growth a little. I had to sleep with the light on for weeks afterwards - and that music score, external still makes my blood run cold.

Next month is also the 30th anniversary, external of the release of the horror-comedy Child's Play, which introduced the childhood-scarring Chucky the Doll into my regular nightmare-rotation. AND there's also a new version of Stephen King's Pet Sematary on the way, bringing back memories of the 1989 movie adaptation, external which also rattled me to the core.

With that in mind, I wanted to find out which movies and TV programmes scared others witless when they were kids. I put the call out and people were keen to share their viewing traumas, stemming from scares in supposedly child-friendly films, to movies and TV that they definitely shouldn't have been watching in the first place.

Here are some of the responses that came in...

The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:

By far, the most responses mentioned the Child Catcher (played by Robert Helpmann) from the 1968 musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which has always had regular screenings on TV, perhaps explaining its power to scare multiple generations.

One person probably best summed it up by writing: "What kind of person would put this character in a children's movie?!"

The answer to that would be Roald Dahl, who co-wrote, external the screenplay for the movie and by all accounts, came up with the character.

The Dementors in Harry Potter:

Another popular childhood-scare favourite: those joy-sucking entities, the Dementors, which feature heavily throughout the Harry Potter series, rendered as dark, ghostly spectres.

Says one commenter: "They were enough to scare the pants off any adult, never mind a child!"

Arachnophobia:

One responder wrote of this 1990 horror-comedy: "To this day I can't sleep with any form of spider in the house, dead or alive. The scene where the spider was in the popcorn belonging to one of the characters is something that terrifies me still 20 years later. It played on every stereotype of spiders and it worked. Even though it was meant to be a dark comedy, that element was really overshadowed by the horror of those fast, creepy, eight-legged monsters."

A Nightmare on Elm Street:

"I saw A Nightmare on Elm street when I was eight," said another commenter of this immortal '80s slasher about dream stalker Freddie Krueger. "Our babysitter and all the neighbourhood kids came in to our house to watch it. I was terrified. When they decided to watch it again and I threw a wobbler, they all left, including the babysitter! I slept in my parents' bed for three months and still get petrified by That Man. Can't even bring myself to type his name!"

Unsolved Mysteries:

"There was a US TV show called Unsolved Mysteries with the scariest voiceover and backing music. One day a woman got kidnapped by a guy in a red pick-up truck while she was on a payphone. I used to dream about it and I still notice red pick up trucks and think of her!"

Scream:

"Scream came out when I was 10. The opening bit is the worst - where Drew Barrymore is in the house on the phone, and there's the patio doors with darkness outside. Then the outside lights come on to show the guy tied up. I still get scared of patio doors when it's dark outside."

Thriller:

"My sisters were older than me, so I used to catch a lot of music videos when I was young," writes another responder. "I loved Michael Jackson, and even had a poster of him on my wall. One evening I walked in when Thriller was on TV. The end bit when MJ turned around with the evil eyes scared the hell out of me! I hid behind the couch and wouldn't sleep that night until my dad came into my room and took down the MJ poster!"

The Blair Witch Project:

"I was a young teen and my parents decided to leave me home alone for the first time when they went out for dinner," says one reader. "It was on telly and I decided to be a 'big boy' and watch a scary movie. Being a youngster, I thought it was a factual documentary, not a scripted movie. I was horrified, and couldn't walk up the stairs the right way round for months."

General Woundwort in Watership Down:

"Still can't watch that all these years later."

Alien:

"I used to live in the countryside and my parents used to make me take the bins down (in the dark) to the gates. They always said that if I didn't hurry up, the aliens would get me!"

The Witches:

"They were able to smell children. And children smelled like poo. Terrifying."

The Daleks, Doctor Who:

"The Daleks terrified me as a kid. I was scared of them because they always looked like they were just about to shoot you, but when they roared 'EXTERMINATE', I would run out of the room and not come back until the show had finished. Absolutely terrified me!"

Goosebumps:

"Goosebumps. The title sequence. Enough said."

Salem's Lot:

"The vampire boy that scratches at the window..."

And finally... 999

"I remember watching an episode of the BBC's 999 presented by Michael Buerk, where a falling ember from a firework nearly blinded a kid. Spent the next few Bonfire Nights watching indoors like a scared pet."

So what do you think? Which of these viewing memories do you think is scariest?

This article was originally published on 2 November 2017.

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