Has a movie ever traumatized you?

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I was flipping through Prime and I ended up catching a split-second of a screenshot of the very thing that gave me so many freaky nightmares as a kid. I avoided it like a plague but it surprised me.


You don't have to explain what exactly traumatized you if you don't want to. But how did you deal with it and did you recover? Because mine is so minor in reality that I envy those who didn't get traumatized. But I can't just force myself to look at screenshots.



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
A Serbian Film made disturbing mental images pop into my head randomly for a week.

Mirrors made me terrified of any scenes in movies involving jawbreaking. Even during a monster fight in King Kong (1932) when King Kong started tearing into a monster's jaw I found it really hard to watch and was begging for the scene to end.
Not only that, but it also made me kinda scared of mirrors. Naturally I know nothing like that would happen, but they still started creeping me out a bit.
Thankfully these phobias seem to be gone by now. Not sure I'll ever revisit this movie in the future.



The Crow did. It was so bad I actually had to walk out of it. Didn't get my money back. No matter. I just had to leave. My time, at that point, was more important than my money. The Star Wars prequels were also so bad as to be traumatizing. It was like watching your childhood slowly die.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
What was so traumatizing about The Crow?

For me, I don't think I have that I can think of but one movie that came close was Mysterious Skin.



Yep.

The Wizard of Oz (1939) - As a little kid, parts of this movie really scared me (I think when the Witch takes Aunt Em's place in the crystal ball was the worst for me), but I remember enduring them (or just looking away until they were over) because I loved the rest of it!

The Fly (1958) - I remember seeing this on Easter Eve as a kid (it should have been a happy time)... but the "Help me!" scene terrified me.

The Poseidon Adventure (1972) - Don't ask me why, but seeing so many people horribly killed effected me as a child. However, I've watched it many times since and now adore it's shlock-value!

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972) - I was too afraid to sleep alone after watching this as a child.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) - I was supposed to go take a bath after watching this made-for-TV horror movie, but I was too scared and wanted someone to sit outside the door!

The Legend of Hell House (1973) - first time left alone in the house at night... and this is what I watched. Bad choice.

The Exorcist (1973) - I hadn't even seen it, just heard my older brothers talk about it. Years later I saw it - still traumatic.

Jaws (1975) - It wasn't the shark so much as the head that popped out of the boat - haunted me for years! I'm still wary about going in the ocean.



What was so traumatizing about The Crow?
How bad it was. I was a completionist up to that point. If I paid money to see a movie, I was going to watch it. The Crow was so bad that it flipped the polarity of my aesthetic criteria. I came out changed and have been ducking out of crappy movies ever since.

WARNING: "Thar be truths made secret to the ordinary eye here!" spoilers below
NOTE: Don't read this seriously. I am just bagging on a cult favorite.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
You don't have to explain what exactly traumatized you if you don't want to. But how did you deal with it and did you recover? Because mine is so minor in reality that I envy those who didn't get traumatized. But I can't just force myself to look at screenshots.

The worst for me was the 1979 movie When a Stranger Calls. I watched it on TV while I was babysitting, and the children were upstairs sleeping. I was terrified to go upstairs to check on them, but I had no choice.

I think subconsciously, my way of dealing with it was to stop watching horror movies because that's the genre that I avoid the most.
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OPEN FLOOR.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
The Wizard of Oz (1939) - As a little kid, parts of this movie really scared me (I think when the Witch takes Aunt Em's place in the crystal ball was the worst for me), but I remember enduring them (or just looking away until they were over) because I loved the rest of it!
For me, the scariest part of The Wizard of Oz was the flying monkeys.


Jaws (1975) - It wasn't the shark so much as the head that popped out of the boat - haunted me for years! I'm still wary about going in the ocean.
Jaws is another one for me too. To this day, I only swim in swimming pools.



How bad it was. I was a completionist up to that point. If I paid money to see a movie, I was going to watch it. The Crow was so bad that it flipped the polarity of my aesthetic criteria. I came out changed and have been ducking out of crappy movies ever since.
This is priceless. Thank you for making my morning.



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
The Poseidon Adventure (1972) - Don't ask me why, but seeing so many people horribly killed effected me as a child. However, I've watched it many times since and now adore its shlock-value!
I really love The Poseidon Adventure. I don't find it particularly shlocky it at all. It does a terrific job at making you care about the fates of all the characters, even the jerkier ones. One of the finest disaster movies ever made.
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When I was younger it was A.I. Artificial Intelligence, specially my sister. You know that joke by Lavell, a ride down-by-the-lake? My mother was like that, and my sister believed, so you guess what scene she was terrified watching? Yeah!




This is a good thread.
I feel like I should have many, but I don’t.
I remember being very unsettled by Spirited Away for a long time – it wasn’t the thing itself so much as the ending. I remember thinking that the type of person I am, I would have fallen for the trap and assumed
WARNING: spoilers below
my parents were among the pigs
. The feeling was then reinforced when I was doing all kinds of tests, especially non-humanities. In humanities the easiest thing for me was to deconstruct the question and parse the whole thing, but more technical stuff, I was always thinking, Here I am,
WARNING: spoilers below
choosing from the existing pigs.

Though I have always loved graphic horror,
WARNING: spoilers below
Ruth’s legs melting in Dante’s Peak
did give me a jolt, I’ve referenced this before. Other than that, I think The Human Centipede stayed with me for some time after the first viewing, especially the little details, the kind of thing I shouldn’t have noticed, given how over the top the film is – such
WARNING: spoilers below
as the drop of pus that appears where Ashley’s mouth is attached to the other person.
I think about it now and it’s not that I was traumatised, but it did fill me with a deep sense of unease and that I was sick to be watching it.

My mother was asleep a few feet away from me in a Paris hotel room as I watched it, so I think there as a vague sense of the whole thing being dirty and distasteful for me to have been doing. I don’t know if I’ve necessarily ‘recovered’. I keep watching extremely graphic stuff but, ironically, it’s the Dante’s Peak scene that I still find unsettling now, rather than The Human Centipede.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
I wouldn't say traumatized but Asako I & II sure triggered me.
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



I've mentioned it many times over the years on this site, but Pinocchio. That bloody fox is terrifying and I've still not gone back to finish it since I was about 9 or 10. Evil paedo fox.

If we're simply talking about thinking about a film long after you've seen it then Jaws and Psycho are so obvious that I'm sure I won't even have to tell you why.

The Entity. Good film (as I remember it) but for decades after I'd still sometimes wonder if I was going to be attacked by an invisible force. Especially the scene in the bathroom.
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Lord of the Flies (1990), specifically when
WARNING: spoilers below
a kid pushes a rock over to kill Piggy just because he didn't like what he was saying. Besides the obvious shock of a child dying, it bothered me that the killer did it so casually and nonchalantly. Granted, I was 8 or 9 at the time and shouldn't have been watching the movie anyway, but it has really made me think about the fragility of life ever since.

Also, Repulsion: the moment when
WARNING: spoilers below
Carol cuts that poor old woman's cuticle. Of all the death, dismemberment, torture, etc. I've seen in movies in my lifetime, this injury bothered me more than any other. Why? Most likely, it's because it happened to me and I know how painful it is.



You mean the 2003 Open Water? That was ****ing haunting.
lol, no I just mean open waters in general whenever I'm way too far from the shore to swim back in time before Jaws starts biting my peepee off..




lol, no I just mean open waters in general whenever I'm way too far from the shore to swim back in time before Jaws starts biting my peepee off..

Right, give that one a try then if that’s what gets you. It’s brutal.