I, like many kids was prone to nightmares as a child. I had such an imagination that i would have visualizations even when i wasn't asleep of creatures that were in my room and what not. I can't say for sure that I actually wasn't actually asleep and just dreamed my own bedroom into the dream as well, but it sure as crap seemed real to me. I believe it is called sleep paralysis and it can happen to people right before they fall asleep or just as they are waking up. Some of these events from when i was very young still send chills down my spine today.
I was very aware of my "condition." Yet, In my continual pursuit of self destruction, i still insisted, despite these horrible nightmares, on watching films that I knew were going to give me a bad time in the bedroom. Here are some of the ones I remember vividly as contributing to my own night terrors.
Dreamscape
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Now why on earth would a walking scary-as-hell snake man give a 6-year old nightmares? I can't imagine why? The only reason that I had access to this film was because one of the neighborhood kids had a father with a massive betamax (you read that right) collection. I was intrigued by the cover art. I was haunted by the "snakeman" for months afterwards.
I recently went back and watched this film and even though it had a relatively impressive budget for 1984, it looks like hell and is very boring. It even had a young Dennis Quaid in it.
This was only the second rated PG-13 movie to hit theaters but this is only a factor because the rating system wasn't a thing prior to around that time.
The Dark Crystal
Not a great deal of this film is actually very scary. However, there was something very haunting about one particular Skeksi named "Chamberlain" (I think.) He had this sound that he would make ... "hMMMmmmmm" and he wandered around and for some reason that resonated into my dreams. Because this was a Henson production, my parents thought it would be safe for the overactive imagination of their "nighttime troubled" son. Oh, they were terribly wrong about that.
Chamberlain haunted me for quite some time after that.
Consequently, The Dark Crystal is one of my all time favorite films and as I am sure you heard, the recently released an entire Netflix series, which is just epic and you should check it out.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
This one is probably a bit more understandable seeing as how the entire premise of the film was that a guy attacks and kills you in your dreams. It's a rather brilliant storyline actually... one that they took too far over the course of the next couple decades as they proceeded to make 9 of these damn things. This was definitely not parent approved, but the kids at my school would reference it and I found it in the ol' Betamax collection and I just couldn't help myself.
The scene where a bodybag is being drug down a school hallway by apparently nothing at all, is one of the creepiest scenes in all films ever (it's on many top-ten lists on the interwebs) and that one still kind of haunts me today.
Oh, by the way, this was Johnny Depp's first film ever.
There's a number of other ones such as Serpent and the Rainbow, The People Under the Stairs, IT (with Tim Curry), and one particular flashback scene in Pet Semetary
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you're only in the movie for like 25 seconds... thanks for the nightmares
I now watch scary movies all the time and the only time in recent years when i had to turn a movie off in the past decade or so was with Ju-On. To my credit I did live in an isolated house in the middle of the jungle at the time and it was pretty damn dark outside so well, we have to make exceptions.
I would be interested to know the movies that properly scared the crud outta you. I'm not talking about recent films, but movies that you watched at probably too young of an age to be able to process it properly.