The Scariest Movie Any 12 Year Old Has Ever Seen...

[SteyrAUG]

My nomination, Jurassic Park: The Lost World.

Looking out your back yard and seeing T Rex, especially after it just ate the family dog, is truly the stuff of nightmares.



I think Spielberg hates kids.

Thank god I was in my late 20s when this film came out, I had nearly that exact nightmare as a kid. I was inside the house running room to room and there was a dinosaur outside going from window to window to try and find me. If I saw that movie when I was 12, I'd have probably stroked out.

Runner up would be Poltergeist. Between the tree that grabbed the kid through the window and that f'ing clown, I'd have lost my shit.

[CRAMBONE]

Not gonna lie the first Jurassic Park scared the crap out of me. And screwed with my mind every time I went into the woods for a while.

[titsonritz]

The original Night of the Living Dead scared the shit out me when I was a little kid.

[flenna]

The Legend of Boggy Creek. Saw it when I was 7 or 8 years old and it made going in the woods a harrowing event. Also, whenever I was sitting on the toilet I would stare at the window just waiting for a big, hairy arm to come through it.

[The Dumb Gun Collector]

My brother made me watch "Phantasm" with him when I was about 9. It freaked me out. BUUUT I have been a horror fan ever since.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Six years old, all by myself in the basement and they turn off the lights, watching a rerun of the Wizard of Oz.

[Alpha-17]

I was in grade school for both of the original Jurassic Park films; neither were overly scary to me. More "cool, dinosaurs!" to me than anything.

Jumanji was far more terrifying to me.

[Alex V]

I remember when we first moved to the US in 1990 and Channel 11 in NY would have "SHOCKTOBER" the whole month of October leading up to Halloween.

They would play all the older horror movies like The Thing, The Fly, Return of the Living Dead, They Live, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, shit like that. None of them ever scared me as a kid. You know what did? The 1988 version of The Blob. I have no idea why, it's so dumb.

My brother made me watch "Phantasm" with him when I was about 9. It freaked me out. BUUUT I have been a horror fan ever since.

I was that movie in the Soviet Union. One of my parent's friends had a VCR. OOOOOOO. Took me forever to find the name of the movie once I got here. I would describe the flying spheres with blades to everyone and no one knew WTF I was talking about.

[SomeOtherGuy]

I saw Jaws 3-D in the theater when I was c. 7 years old. Not sure it was a good choice for that age. 3-D glasses and all, I clearly remember a severed femur flying out of the screen into the audience.

I think Spielberg hates kids.

He does, and a lot of his movies have horrible stories and messages if you dissect them. But they have mostly good directing and production values, and have been massively promoted, so they became classics.

"Batteries Not Included" is another of his films that was marketed as wonderful and touching, but is really utter crap when you look at it from a detached perspective.

Oh, and while Spielberg hates kids, there is a lot of reason to think he also "loves" kids, in a bad way.

[HCrum87hc]

This reminds me of a great story my childhood best friend's dad likes to tell. My friend was 5 when the first Jurassic Park movie came out. He and his dad were dinosaur nuts at the time, so his dad was going to let him see the movie when it came out on tape. His mom was against the idea, as she thought it would terrify him. His dad said nah, he'll be fine.

Well, movie night comes along, and everything is going fine. Then it comes time for the night time t-rex appearance, which was the scene they were concerned about. So, we all know the scene: the water in the cup on the dash vibrates, and we hear the ominous steps. When the camera cuts to the t-rex, and it roars, my friends jumps to his feet windmilling his arms around shouting, "T-Rex! T-Rex! He's finally here!"

His dad looks to his mom with a grin and just says, "Look, he's terrified."

For me, the horror movies didn't bother me too much. It was the weird stuff that gave me the heebie jeebies; Wonka, Oz, etc.