Question of the Day

That reminds me of babysitting when I was 12 or 13 (mid-80s). A couple hired me every Saturday night to watch their son while they managed their restaurant/bar until closing. So after he went to bed, I'd be watching whatever was on cable TV.

One night I watched When a Stranger Calls and Halloween back to back. That was a bit intense especially in a stranger's house.
Eep

I watched all kinds of things I shouldn't have in the 70s and early 80s, but three of the most memorable things were...

1) Some kind of cheesy-but-scary-to-a-kid-aliens-attack-a-village movie I saw when I was *very* small (I've never known the name of it, though some research points me to Island of Terror from 1966)

2) The third short in the 1975 made-for-TV 'thriller' movie Trilogy of Terror -- I just watched it for the first time since 1975 and it is STILL terrifying.

3) Alien -- the face-hugger and the chest-bursting of course, but I remember being really affected when Ash has his head beaten off and he continues to dance around. Yikes...

Oh yah that reminds me of one more I saw WAY too young: The Thing. Holy hell that scene when the guy is about to use the paddles on the other guy …

One of my very favorite movies. :)

(Along with Alien!)

I watched the Thing for the first time maybe five years ago, and literally jumped out of my chair at that scene. Phenomenal. This is why practical effects work, people!

I saw the Shining when I was about 7, and when it finished I went down to the basement where my father was working to talk about it. He jumped out at me from behind a door with an axe. Ahhh, parenting.

Honourable mention to one of the Robocop sequels I saw around the same age: there's a scene where the psychopathic drug dealer villain is torturing some corporate stooge by strapping him to a medical gurney and cutting his chest open with a scalpel. I can still hear the sound of the blade cutting through canvas and flesh when I close my eyes.