Following on from the fictional death that affected you thread...
How about tv moments that were terrifying?!
I still have mental scars from the last episode of the Goodies where the world was about to end and a giant kitten was roaming New York, destroying skyscrapers....
Similarly affected by various episodes of Tom Baker era Doctor Who.
The BBC version of the Triffids, when I was aged 5-8. I remember being very upset. not by the Triffids themselves, but by the scenes of cities full of blind people roaming the streets and wailing.
Not really a "TV moment" (although I first saw it on TV) - when the head suddenly falls out of the bottom of the abandoned boat in Jaws.
Yes, agree, the triffids. I was also affected by the plants themselves....
Got to be the one eyed head that pops up in Jaws! When you’re watching it for the first time as a 7/8 year old it was terrifying!
Oh and the Shining always gives me goosebumps, even as a 47 year old!
The Tom Baker Dr who where some bloke turns into a giant plant and eats a stately home (complete with alien rip off egg shocker} sh*t my wee pants I did.
The undulating cables, flying objects and rippling ground in the BBC's 'Quatermass and the Pit'.
The whole series was one of the high points of BBC science fiction IMO.
Dave
Salem's Lot TV series. I was about 10 and it scared the Bejeezus out of me. Fast forward 40 years and the most horrifying aspect is revealed to be David Soul's acting.
Watership down (original cartoon film) even the name gives me the creeps.
Ok, it's a film I first saw on TV aged 7 or 8, but the ending of Night of the Demon scared the hell out of me - still does!
> The Tom Baker Dr who where some bloke turns into a giant plant and eats a stately home (complete with alien rip off egg shocker} sh*t my wee pants I did.
Thanks, I'd managed to block that out. Can't recall much about it, but watching that as a child I do remember that there was something sinister about it that really freaked me out
Saw a guy last weekend wearing an “it’s in the trees, it’s coming” T shirt and said to him “Night of the Demon, nice one” and he looked baffled. Maybe it was a Hounds I’d Love t shirt and he didn’t know where the sample was from
EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE
Hid behind sofa age about 6.
Now I've a project to make one as a fast composter; may have to come up with some electronics/sound gear for when the lid is closed.
> Saw a guy last weekend wearing an “it’s in the trees, it’s coming” T shirt and said to him “Night of the Demon, nice one” and he looked baffled. Maybe it was a Hounds I’d Love t shirt and he didn’t know where the sample was from
Sodding hipsters. There are now far more people that own Ramones T shirts than people that own Ramones albums.*
*(at a guess)
Hounds I'd Love is yet another example of pugnaciously aggressive "autocorrect"
although it's given me an idea. Type album or song titles and let autocorrect do its stuff, and post the results!
Hounds I'd Love sounds like a Butthole Surfers record
Speaking of which....off to another thread for me...
When Lou Feringo turned green I ran for it!
The moment Ant & Dec appear on the screen. Absolutely terrifying!
Bojack Horseman had a character wearing a Misfits logo T shirt, except it said ‘Misprints’. I liked that, on lots of levels.
As a small boy I watched the Bradford City football ground fire live on the TV. Anyone who saw that must have been affected. A few years later and I was in Liverpool city centre when Hillsborough happened and it was on TVs everywhere. I still can't cope with crowded places very well.
> The moment Ant & Dec appear on the screen. Absolutely terrifying!
Hehe, agree, though it is not so much the terror as the "Why?", and they win awards too!!
Dave
Walking into the house and finding my father dressed in stockings and suspenders.
Another vote for the triffids. Glad it’s not just me that used to regularly shit my pants when that came on. Absolutely f&cking frightening.
The first appearance of the Daleks after the caveman episodes of Dr Who. Likewise the original Mondas Cybermen at the end of the Hartnell era.
Live transmission of reentry of Apollo 13 when the faces of Patrick Moore, James Burke et al all thought the silence meant the worst when they failed to make contact on time after the ionisation blackout. So overdue I jumped with relief at AOS.
HMS Sheffield, Coventry etc in 1982, not to mention San Carlos
Some of the episodes of Question Time in the last few years have been pretty scary!
The Singing Ringing Tree. <shudders>
> Walking into the house and finding my father dressed in stockings and suspenders.
ISWYDT
that scared the shit out of me too-how the hell did that get made with kids in mind?
The Nightmare Man. Early 80s BBC horror. Fog bound island. Invisible monster, only occasion glances of it. Sinister govt. Agents up to no good. Absolutely terrified me
Im sure it made sense in the original language. Old Enochian?
Tom Baker Dr Who - I used to hide behind the sofa.
I think it was a Chrtistmas ghost story on BBC called "The Stone Tape" brilliant and terrifying but I cant actually remember any of the plot. Someone used the name for a route on Shepherds I think so ,aybe it left an impression on someone else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_and_the_Pit
Didn't sleep for a week or more.
Er, could you explain?.....
Agree with ‘singing ringing tree’, scariest thing ever. I seem to remember tales from Europe by he tinderbox about the same time.
Likewise. Always sent me into hiding, especially when they showed the eyes turning. That and a book of horror films with a giant picture of Boris Karloff's as Frankenstein's monster absolutely terrified me. My older sister used to chase me with it!
Tripods!
Ha ha, I had worked out what ISWYDT meant but couldn’t relate it to FactorXXX’s statement. However it has now just dawned on me... 😆
I was going to mention this one. Gave me the horrors as a kid.
There was an episode of the Moomins - the stop-motion cut-out version - that scared me quite a lot. Winter freezing a squirrel, I think. And the Groke generally (in the books too)
This. At 8:30 on a weekday evening in 1978. I was (I think) 7 years old.
youtube.com/watch?v=AwHA4Q8pFzU&
At a conservative guess it took me a decade to get over it.
Wowzers. Never seen it, have just seen that short clip in your link, totally out of context and as an adult, and even just that has proper shit me up already! Not surprised it stuck with you!
> Tripods!
Yeah I actually never really got into it (I think I was a teeny bit young to understand "post apocalyptic" and it just seemed slow to me, however I did see bits and the shots of tripods walking and more notably the "capping", were scary in a creepy and sinister way.
This is an odd one but I used to find the silhouette dancer at the start of Tales of the Unexpected creepy rather than sexy! Not sure if that was the intention.
Also never liked that glass skull at the start of Arthur C Clarke's World of Strange Powers, which leads me to....
at the age of around 11, when being presented with some of the still images of the girls involved in the Enfield Poltergeist case, on the aforementioned Clarke programme which pretended to be a serious programme and pretended that it believed the girls, it was a tad full-on (the bedroom levitation photos etc).
None of these were "terrifying TV moments" as such, though. More "unsettling". I'll have to ponder this one. Good thread.
An episode of Ulysses 31 scared me as a young boy. It crystallised the concept of eternal punishment to my developing brain: a concept I was already primed for, having been raised in the church. It disturbed me at the time and has stuck with me to this day. Judging from the comments on YouTube I wasn’t the only one.
> The Tom Baker Dr who where some bloke turns into a giant plant and eats a stately home (complete with alien rip off egg shocker} sh*t my wee pants I did.
Blimey Eamonn - that's the first thing that came into my mind when reading this thread too! Terrifying. Must have stayed behind the sofa for days after that!
Bare with me here.........
I remember (it's burnt into my mind) a spoof announcement coming on the TV when I was around 8-10 years old .
I think it was I later found out in the middle of a comedy program of some description , although I didn't know this at the time.
Anyway the program cuts away to the old sort of BBC blue screen image of the earth rotating around and the announcer states solemnly that Russia has launched nuclear missiles at the west and we were going to get a nuclear strike in about 30 minutes and we should prepare for it.
I was fu@king horrified by this, as although I was a child I was pretty aware that this was the end of life as I knew it.
I'll never forget the feeling , It was cruel and in very bad taste.
I've struggled to find any reference to it myself recently .
Does anyone else know what I'm on about ?
I haven't imagined this.
TWS
Except for viewers in Scotland!
I remember it, that was the punchline!
> I remember it, that was the punchline!
Ahhhh. Excellent , I'm actually really glad someone else knows of it .
I couldn't remember anything else but being horrified.
Actually its seems very funny that punchline now !
> that scared the shit out of me too-how the hell did that get made with kids in mind?
There were a lot of public education films specifically designed to scare the shit out of kids back then. Happy days. Anyone else remember the 'Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water'?
It was always exciting when the big telly on a trolley was wheeled into the classroom, then one day at primary school they wheeled it in and sat us all down to watch 'Apaches' (a public education film about farm safety) and traumatised the lot of us. Jeez. It was like 'Final Destination' for kids - a group of children are playing around a farmyard and get killed off in various horrible accidents, each time one of them dies the rest just carry on like nothing happened.
> I still have mental scars from the last episode of the Goodies where the world was about to end and a giant kitten was roaming New York, destroying skyscrapers
Except it wasn't the last episode, there were several more series after Kitten Kong. And it was London not New York.
I guess it's hard to tell from behind the sofa
> I remember it, that was the punchline!
I don't suppose you know what this was from do you ?
I'm trying to find out about it but get nowhere .
Ha! Apaches! F*cking classic-the screams of the girl who drinks something dodgy in the farmyard were a bit too convincing. this one I only saw much later as an adult-whoever came up with this is clearly a bit sick in the head-https://youtu.be/slJyhOEo-SY
Anyone else remember the 'Green Death' (slimy maggots) another Dr Who frightener.
I used to (try to) go to sleep imagining they were slithering around under my bed (I shudder even now at the memory)
Not TV but I remember chainsmoking my way through The Exorcist in 1974, aged 12
> Ha! Apaches! F*cking classic-the screams of the girl who drinks something dodgy in the farmyard were a bit too convincing.
As an adult watching it just now, deffo - that was probably the thing that most got to me.
Back then the what really stuck with me was the boy who drowns in the slurry pit, something about the way he falls in and just sort of disappears without trace - there were definitely a few nightmares about that and it was the one thing I still remembered clearly about the film from 40 odd years ago before I found it again on youtube this morning.
The autons from Dr Who - must have been a re-run as they first appeared 10 years before I was born.
Ooh yeah apaches! I used to spend summers at an uncles farm and was pretty scared of the slurry pit after that.
> Anyone else remember the 'Green Death' (slimy maggots) another Dr Who frightener.
Yes!
I think that must have been the one mentioned above:
"The Tom Baker Dr who where some bloke turns into a giant plant and eats a stately home (complete with alien rip off egg shocker)"
Except that it wasn't Tom Baker, it was towards the end of Jon Pertwee's time as the Doctor. (And well before Alien of course.)
I'm not sure if it's just because I was younger, or partly because he was less jokey with the jellybabies and wotnot, but I found Jon Pertwee's Doctor Who much more frightening than it was in Tom Baker's time. (Not that I was above hiding behind the sofa from time to time then too.)
E2A:
Oh, and the two Doctor Who films as well! (The ones with Peter Cushing as the Doctor.)
Must have been repeats on the telly because I wasn't born yet when they first came out.
Funny, I just remember the one film, but I must be smooshing them up together because I could have sworn Roy Castle and Bernard Cribbins were both in it. (Wikipedia tells me they did one each and weren't in the same film together.)
There was something about the two counter-rotating rings around the Dalek spaceship that made it *really* scary. Looking at photos of it now it's slightly ludicrous, like a blend of a classic flying saucer, a Lancaster bomber and a Bedford van!
I was watching the film version of the Day of the Triffids at home one evening late at night. When they used to have a Hammer Horror slot on a Friday evening. There was one scene where the triffids broke into a house by smashing through the windows. At which point my parents, back from a night out, tapped on the window.
Jump? I nearly shat myself
Whistle and I will come to you my lad
M R James Ghost story form 1968
youtube.com/watch?v=mYjtxHHjZ00&
from 30:51
Try another bbc M R James adaptation 'the Ash tree' end of that makes me shudder to think of it.
Yes - I totally agree. Scariest moment in any film ever
Still catches me out.
as we seem to be allowing movies to creep into this (as long as they were first seen on TV), I will say that Dr Hans Zarkov's brainwashing REALLY creeped me out in Flash Gordon, as his memories are shown in reverse all the way back to stock footage of a foetus and beating heart soundtrack. It freaked me out and I stopped watching, and stayed away from that film for far too many years. Now, it's "nothing" but there was something about it, when I was....mmmm I don't know how old I was actually.... that I really didn't like. Perhaps the use of grainy stock footage for his memories, which made it feel really REAL in the context of the campy space sets and lurid colours and costumes of that film.
> Walking into the house and finding my father dressed in stockings and suspenders.
Why, had he borrowed yours?
The Stone Tape.
Yes I agree scared the living daylights out of me,being so young God knows how I got to see it but back in the 1970s the TV was awash with many terrifying series of plays depicting ghosts and monsters and ominous scary weird settings, it was seen as normal and on top of all that you had this Yorkshire ripper running about for years that they couldn't catch and children going missing all the time. I remember one play that was on in the afternoon with the ghost of a Hussar in a mirror, I was scared to look in a mirror for ages after that. And another about a white horse, I used to wake up with nightmares of a white horse at the foot of my bed. No wonder we all had recurring nightmares for years but we loved to watch that stuff for the excitement of being terrified.
Been looking for it on you tube, would love to see what the fuss was about after all these years
I’ve been trying to find it, but no luck. Possibly Naked Video!
The early Dr Who's had a scare factor generated by classically trained actors milking the most out of 4th grade special effects.
This one sticks in my fright-locker. Good ol' Colonel Masters........
youtube.com/watch?v=vXrAK6sUZ_0&
Never felt easy sitting on anything Vynyl since........
> Why, had he borrowed yours?
I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear Papa...
Yes! Jon Pertwee seemed so stern (he's not going to take any nonsense). It was actually called The Green Death
The Peter Cushing one I remember featured Mober Men(?) and a post apocalypse London (probably a quarry/demolition site)
> Got to be the one eyed head that pops up in Jaws! When you’re watching it for the first time as a 7/8 year old it was terrifying!
> Oh and the Shining always gives me goosebumps, even as a 47 year old!
You were allowed to watch it as a 7/8 year old???? I thought it was bad enough when I was 12 (although seeing it at the cinema may have enhanced the effect)
Jaws was a PG when it was released, this was changed to 12A (a classification that didn’t exist in 1975) for its 2012 cinema rerelease.
I’m sure I remember seeing Jaws on TV at 8 or 9 with no fuss from parents. Maybe back in those days (early to mid 1980s) it was just assumed that if it was on television before bedtime, it would be ok. Or parents just weren’t bothered about creating a violent desensitised youth culture
Does anyone else remember the 1969 children's TV adaptation of "The Owl Service" by Alan Garner.
Possibly the most creepy and disturbing thing I ever saw on kid's TV.
I'm pretty sure the Jaws films were shown in the afternoon on TV in the 80s (and for all I know numerous times since) which surprised me at the time but maybe there was a TV edit.
CTRL - F "THREADS"
This.
It had me properly shaken up for weeks after watching it.
Robo-men?
It basically followed the same plot as the BBC Dalek invasion of London which caused a stir when the Daleks made their first return appearance coming out of the Thames
Wasn't it a something called a Vodyanoi or something? A Russian submariner mentally bonded to his one man craft and demented as a result?
Anyone seen Culloden or The War Game from the 60s?
Great thread.
My nan owned a video shop and my parents had rather a liberal approach to horror films so I'd seen most horror movies by a very young age. Consequently I became rather desensitised to horror and almost nothing scared me, other than a few films/tv.
Someone else has already quoted Salems Lot and the rocking cgair scene. I watched this full tv series when it came out - Im 43 so I guess I was pretty young - it terrified me for months. Some of the American Warewolf in London scenes freaked me out a bit too but having watched it recently, what a great film. Plus theres Jenny Agutter with her kit off.
I was also brought up on a diet of Hammer Horror films. Most were pretty funny, even as a kid but there was one which I cant remember the name of. It had a hitch hiker in a raincoat with a weird elongated middle finger nail and had a car crash. It terrified me. If anyone can help me find this episode I would be hugely grateful as Id love to watch it now and most likely find it wholly ridiculous now.
> I’ve been trying to find it, but no luck. Possibly Naked Video!
Been looking into this and your right it must be naked video, I seem to recall strangely that Rab C Nesbit character being part of the program and low and behold he's in the listing for naked video .
> Wasn't it a something called a Vodyanoi or something? A Russian submariner mentally bonded to his one man craft and demented as a result?
yes that was it.
There was a public information film about kids dying in imaginative ways on a farm. That put the heebies up me for days afterwards
I must have got lucky with my Google-Fu!
Sounds pretty scary actually
http://hammerhouseofhorrorguide.co.uk/the-two-faces-of-evil/
> There was a public information film about kids dying in imaginative ways on a farm. That put the heebies up me for days afterwards
A few people mention this upthread. Relive your heebies
youtube.com/watch?v=UAQZaUixmpA&
Sapphire and Steel. I don't actually remember any of the content, but the opening sequence always gave me The Fear.
> I must have got lucky with my Google-Fu!
> Sounds pretty scary actuallyhttp://hammerhouseofhorrorguide.co.uk/the-two-faces-of-evil/
Holy shit! If anyone was going to find it, you would. That's the one. Freaked me out no end and bravo to you for the find.
Was probably too scared to watch any more episodes....!
Without looking, I guess this is the Sisyphus episode?
> I still have mental scars from the last episode of the Goodies where the world was about to end and a giant kitten was roaming New York, destroying skyscrapers....
So affected that you forgot that it's roaming London (toppled the BT comms tower at one point).
No.
The Seeds of Doom was Tom Baker and the man turning into a plant. Seem to remember there being a big mulcher where people were fed into it for compost.
The Green Death was the maggots and that was John Pertwee.
The Brain of Morbious was my favourite one. That was Tom Baker and I bought it in DVD along with The Hand of Fear about 10 years ago. They’re ok, but not quite how I remember them.
Ah, gotcha. I was an avid fan of Tom Baker's Doctor at the time, but don't remember the Seeds of Doom at all. Might have to have a rummage around youtube in a bit to see if there are any clips of it..
Did the guy also get eaten by the sofa in the green death?. I had hysterics at my "posh" aunties cos they had a leather sofa i was supposed to sit on.
> Did the guy also get eaten by the sofa in the green death?
Ah, no. That was mentioned a bit further up the thread - Terror of the Autons: youtube.com/watch?v=vXrAK6sUZ_0&
Aah. I may even have that in the attic on VHS
> Without looking, I guess this is the Sisyphus episode?
Correct. Messed me up. Deep stuff for a kids’ cartoon.
Unrelatedly, I climbed a boulder problem called Sisyphus recently...
> Unrelatedly, I climbed a boulder problem called Sisyphus recently...
Presumably you kept falling off it endlessly and never managed to top out.
That’s how most of my bouldering goes...
O god, it’s all coming back to me now.... 😱
There's a page about the mirebeasts here and even a picture of someone being eaten alive with people trying to pull him from the engulfing beast.
https://moviesandmania.com/2014/02/09/mire-beasts-doctor-who-monsters/