Hiding behind the sofa...

[Jac]

The kid that drowned in Grange Hill was Jonah's yukky cousin from Rodney Bennett, wasn't it?

I was terrified of [url]us.imdb.com/Title?0072484[/url] "The Changes" (based on a Peter Dickinson story), and wouldn't go near electric pylons (I hid when we passed them in the car, apparently).

My brother was terrified of Worzel Gummidge, mainly because he could take his head off... - imagine the horror on my brother's face when he first saw our mum's scar from her thyroid surgery! In those days they basically made an incision that ran from ear to ear, and stapled it back together afterwards, so when we visited her in the hospital it was quite scary anyway, but he was totally convinced they'd cut her head completely off and sewn on another one! Now they do it through keyhole surgery most of the time, of course. He might only have been 4 but I have never let him live down the moment when he asked mum to nod her head, and then asked why it didn't fall off.... his best man's getting that for his wedding speech.

[gribbles]

Oh, and one word - THREADS.

Oh god - don't get me started on that mid-80s-we're-all-going-to-die-horribly-from-radiation-poisoning thread.

Oh all right then. When the Wind Blows. That protect and survive jingle. In fact Protect and Survive was bloddy scary anyway. I remeber reading the blurb and thinking "Basically it's saying we're fucked"

http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/atomic/

If you cannot reach home in ten minutes take cover in the nearest building. If there is no building nearby try to find some solid cover. If there is no solid cover, lie flat in a ditch or a hole and cover your head, face and hands as fast as you can with some of your clothes.

[Jac]

From a British Army field manual, 1949: "The best place to be in case of a
nuclear explosion is as far away from it as possible."

Personally I was never scared by Threads, mainly because they made us watch it in school and everyone knows that everything you watch in school is BOOOOOOOORRRRINNNNNNNNNNG.

No, I think I wasn't scared by it because I was a cynical teen who'd already read Riddley Walker and On The Beach and lots of nihilistic everyone's going to die teen fiction. It couldn't really get much worse than that.

[gribbles]

I was terrified of [url]us.imdb.com/Title?0072484[/url] "The Changes" (based on a Peter Dickinson story),

Oh God YES!

All the modern stuff (trains etc), stopping - or rather pausing - used to freak me out as well...

ISTR remember being really disappointed whern Merlin came into it - it took all the edge away. Or am I thinking of something else - it seems a looong time ago

[Jac]

Nope, you're remembering it correctly.

[Sickboy]

everything you watch in school is BOOOOOOOORRRRINNNNNNNNNNG.

Pfft. Words & Pictures? You & Me? Classics.

And we watched a fantastic, overly-detailed 'sex education' doc, once, and one of the girls was sick.

[spinlizard]

The Incredible Hulk used to scare me witless. I would watch it every week from our hallway, peering through the crack between the door and the wall. Funny though how despite the absolute terror (I was genuinely scared by the program) I would still watch it religiously every saturday afternoon.

Lou Ferringo (big guy who played the hulk) I discovered in later life didn't look a whole lot different to his green screen persona.

My brother was terrified of Worzel Gummidge

I used to find WG fairly nightmarish too. I hate puppets as well. Bloody sinister little things if you ask me.

[spinlizard]

Words & Pictures? You & Me?

True. There was always lots and lots for us to do.

[mamemeister]

I can recall a program on in the early seventies called 'Thriller' I think. It used to be on on a Thurs / Fri night and was in the same vein as 'Tales of the Unexpected". The opening credits had a white house circled in a soft focus kind of way. The tune that played between adverts was a kinda "Dowwoooooo Hoooooo" noise. I remember an episode where all the customers at a hotel were getting killed off one by one and a detective opened an oven and there was this head rotating on a spit. Seeing it now it would probably look shite but when I was only 5 or 6 it scared the shit out of me!

Jesus Christ. That's upset me a bit *now*.

everklear - I remember being a bit spooked by that episode of Space 1999, where the monster got on board the ship and they had to change the doors to voice-activated and that woman who could change shape turned into a fly and flew into its ear.

Oh, and one word - THREADS.

Sorry.SB, dont worry the head was made of papermache and it did say afterwards that no papermache heads came to any harm during the filming.

[mamemeister]

Those giant maggots on DW.

And in an episode of the original Star Trek there was a large 'face' with funny eyes that was then included in the end titles for the rest of the series.
Will try to dig out a piccie.

Oh, and the TV mini series of Stephen King's book Salem's Lot.

Yeah, it was a big white, alien type face. And the bit in Salems lot where Barlow sits up just as David Soul drives a stake into his heart is still terrifying, even now!

[Firefox]

And in an episode of the original Star Trek there was a large 'face' with funny eyes that was then included in the end titles for the rest of the series.
Will try to dig out a piccie.

Here it is:



*gulp*

Yeah, that thing used to absolutely scare the crap out of me! Jeez!

[tryptamine]

And the bit in Salems lot where Barlow sits up just as David Soul drives a stake into his heart is still terrifying, even now!

That scene's pure comedy - The Master's head looks like it inflates rather than him sitting up!

"Don't look at him!" - David Soul pushes kid into table (which incidentally is arranged differently than in the previous scene), kid goes flying.
Master's head inflates.
Comedy.

And the bit where they fall into the cellar, firstly you think its about a 10 foot drop, then you get down there and see its about the height of a milk crate.

There was ten of us in a mates bedroom just rewinding that scene and almost dying of laughter for about 20 minutes - the kind of laughing where you can't breathe, tears are just streaming down your face and your lungs and the back of your head hurts from laughing so much. I'm getting the giggles just thinking about it... Guess there wasn't much in the way of comedy when I were a lad...

Same guy did the same thing with The Foot Bit(tm) in Misery, nobody was laughing then

[everklear]

And in an episode of the original Star Trek there was a large 'face' with funny eyes that was then included in the end titles for the rest of the series.
Will try to dig out a piccie.

Here it is:



*gulp*

Yeah, that guy was pretty freaky alright.

[haniff]

Diving behind the sofa, as he sees the Cybermen and Davros....

[PVB]

Those giant maggots on DW.

And in an episode of the original Star Trek there was a large 'face' with funny eyes that was then included in the end titles for the rest of the series.
Will try to dig out a piccie.

Oh, and the TV mini series of Stephen King's book Salem's Lot.

Yeah, it was a big white, alien type face. And the bit in Salems lot where Barlow sits up just as David Soul drives a stake into his heart is still terrifying, even now!

The most frightening bit for me was Geoffrey <wossname> as the gravedigger, jumping into the grave of the boy, opening the coffin, then the camera view (shot from behind him over his shoulder) as the boy sits up and sinks his teeth......

I feel a nightmare coming back tonight.