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Do You Remember Your First Time? Tell Us About Your First Horror Movie Experience

Several weeks ago I was on our Facebook page, and I proposed a question which evolved into a very popular topic. The question asked was - "Do you remember your first horror movie, and how old were you when you seen it?"

The question resulted in about 100 comments - I couldn't believe how many people actually got their first taste of horror at the age's of

5 - 7, I was sure that I was going to be the youngest, but there was one person that said 3. Crazy right?

So for anybody who wishes to know, this is my story...please share your story with us in the comments section below.

Every nce I was a little kid I've always loved movies, even if I was too young to really know what was going on I pretended that I did. I guess I was about 6 at the time, and this was long before the days of having 300+ channels of shit to watch. We had 13 channels, and believe me it was slim pickings, but still I can recall always having such good shows to watch - funny. It was the summer of '77 - and unbeknownst to me, my world was soon to change.

It was a typical summer day in the east coast, sunny - very hot, probably even humid as hell, and I was outde for a bulk of the day doing the usually things that a 6 year old would do back then. (Which meant no video games, or playing on the computer.)

I was playing outde - probably in the front yard, when a white van approached our house. A man dressed in work clothes made his way down our dewalk, up our stairs, and then proceeded to knock on the door. My mom let him in. I just went about my buness, after all - playing outde was top priority. The man eventually left, but not without leaving us two little black boxes on the top of our floor model TV set. The boxes which sat on top of the right and left de of our set had little lver turn style knobs on them. I asked my mom what these mysterious black boxes were. "Cable boxes" she said, "We can watch all sorts of movies on them." I felt at that moment like I was the luckiest kid in the world. No lie. Now I'm not sure how many people remember these boxes, but one was for HBO programming, and the other one was for PRISM programming. (Prism was later purchased by Comcast) The way the boxes worked was quite mple(although the decion to chose either HBO or Prism viewing wasn't such an easy task) You turn your TV dial to channel 3, and switch the cable box dial from left to right, and presto - you got movies, all sorts,just like now - except the repetition wasn't as prevalent.

I must have watched all sorts of movies that summer at all hours of the day, but one movie in particular turned me into the horror loving freak that I am. It's name was the Exorcist and to my knowledge this was my first introduction to horror. Now I know what your probably thinking, but my dad was pretty cool, and like I said, some of the scenes like the "cross to the crotch" - I didn't understand anyway. I still have vivid recollections of this experience. I can recall tting through the who movie, completely glued. I'm not sure if it was because I was to scared to do anything else, but I sat there and stared in horror. I guess I was super brave, because I didn't close my eyes once, nor did my dad make me. Good times. I was so scared that night- and I knew nightmare's were a definite, but I didn't care, after all I shared a room with my older brother.



The next movie I watched, which wasn't until weeks later was Carrie, followed by The Amityville Horror. I was hooked, and the rest was history. I feel fortunate to have grown up in the later 70s and 80's, so many great movies came out back then. A lot of which I actually saw at the movie theater. It's a shame that this awesome genre has lost it's ability to touch our emotions, regardless I stand by my addiction and I will never stop loving it. With that being said, Does anybody else have any stories to share about their first time?

I have two memories, and I can't say for certain which came first, but...

I must have been in 1st grade, so around x...

I watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre through a keyhole in my bedroom door. My bedroom fixed to the front room directly, and from my doorway the TV screen was a near straight shot. I hunched over for the entire flick. It terrified me, despite the awkward vantage point.

I of course was plagued by nightmares for a few days and I finally confessed to having watched the movie from my room. My parents werent happy, but they were both pretty laid back, and after my confeson my father pretty much left the decion to me: watch horror and deal with the nightmares like a big boy, or don't watch. The choice I made was obvious.

The other memory I have is of watching Alien the first time. i remember my parents didn't sweat the movie in the slightest, and informed me it was a "sci-fi" flick. Holy shit was that not true! The movie scared the hell out of me, and after Kane had his chest torn to shreds from the inde out, you'd think the plug would have been pulled - but I was allowed to watch the entire thing with my old man. Scared the piss right out of me, but a great memory was made!

When I was about four, my dad let me, my older brother, and my older ster stay up to watch Child's Play 2. Needless to say, I had my head firmly planted under the blanket nearly the entire running time. I was afraid to go down the horror aisle at the rental store for the next three years, because I could posbly see Chucky on the cover of Child's Play. When I was 7, I decided to face my fear and my dad let me watch the first two Child's Play movies. This time around, I loved them. After that, I've pretty much been a horror junkie for the rest of my life. Of course, my tastes have changed radically over the years, but that's how I got my start.

At a young age, I also viewed From Beyond the Grave, Creepshow, and Halloween II. I was also an avid reader of the Goosebumps books.

I have 2. The first was watching Dark Shadows every day at 5PM with my ster. We would both be scared and look for our Dad to come home from work at 5:30 to save us! I was about 5. My ster was a couple years older.

The other was the original Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. My ster and I wanted to watch it on TV but our Mom said that we couldn't as we would have nightmares. Of

course we could not be stopped. I was about 6 I guess. We decided to go and watch it at our elderly aunts house because they wouldn't realize we weren't supposed to be watching it. Our plan worked to a T. However, after the movie, we were both to scared to walk home!! We lived in the country and had to walk 1/4 of a mile thru fields and by the woods. We had to call our Mom to come and pick us up and she knew that we had watched it. Busted.

Horror fan ever nce.

When I was little, i used to be obsessed with Ghostface from i guess seeing commercials and stuff, and like costumes and GF masks around Halloween, so my first was Scream, i was super scared but a the same time LOVED it!

Well when i was about 5 I had watched A Nightmare on Elm Street and Child's Play one night and was terrified of horror movies until i was about 7 or 8 I started getting into older horror movies and have been a huge horror movie fan nce.

I remember my first experience with horror.... It was 1983 in Las Vegas. My dad had a bowling tournament, so my mom decided we were going to say at the hotel and watch some movies. I was about 5 and the film my mom wanting to watch was Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th was the first horror film I ever saw and I have never looked back. I also saw Star Wars for the first time during that week. Because of my mom, I got to see a lot of horror films that I probably should have not seen at that young of age. But that was a different time back then.... I got to see Faces of Death during it first release on vhs during the early 1980's. I remember later in Jr High, Faces became popular again and all the kids were talking about it. I told them I saw that along time ago, where have you been.

I remember watching Halloween 2 in the reflection of my glasses. I have two little monsters and I'm trying to decide what would be the right age for them to see these great films. My 4 year old loves the Universal Monsters, but I'm not ready for him to experience horror films yet. What do you guys think?

Go for it bro, start them off with something tame and see how they handle it. The Lady in White might be a good choice.

I honestly don't remember my first horror movie experience.. Thus I probably thought it was crap.

Either JAWS or THE MUMMY... my first Slasher was HALLOWEEN when i was about 12

I know it's not really a horror film, but when I was in either kindergarten or 1st grade I made it my mison in life to see Jurasc Park. I LOVED dinosaurs (that has never changed) and I BEGGED my mom to take me. I remember pestering her as she read the book, wanting to hear even the smallest bit of info about the movie. Finally, one rainy afternoon, she finally agreed. I remember being terrified from the opening moments of the movie, with the raptor being brought into the park. The more I watched, the more terrified I became. Finally, when the T-Rex attacked the car, I couldn't handle any more and dragged my mom from the movie into a safer showing of Dennis the Menace.

The very first horror movie I saw was "Phantasm". I was probably 6 or 7 at the time, and didn't really understand it. I remember laughing at the scene where The Tall Man's henchman's severed finger was found moving around in the box, oozing embalming fluid. I thought it was mustard, and found it preposterous. And the scene were it took 2 people to take hold of the jacket containing the evil flying insect...had me rolling on the floor laughing. And at the time, I thought "Michael is a very strange name...for a girl." Yeah, that movie flew right over my head at the time.

2nd horror movie I saw was "Salem's Lot", and that actually scared the DICKENS out of me. The scene with the floating vampire kid outde the window... That kid looked exactly like another boy in 2nd grade, and for months I was convinced he and his ster were vampires, told the teachers, told the principal...they took me in to be evaluated by the "Child Study Team" and proceeded to call DYFS on my parents, thinking they were allowing me to watch inappropriate content (which they were...) which may have resulted in child abuse.

My Grandma actually loves horror a lot and I remember watching a bunch of movies with her so I developed a thick skin to horror. The one that sticks out the most would have to be when my mom and aunt for some reason thought it would be a swell idea to take then 5 year old me and my couns 6 - 10 years old to see Candyman in theatres. I was traumatized and couldn't use the bathroom by myself for about a month. It was pretty metal.

Psycho.. i had to be about 8 or 9 years old. My only memory from it was hiding my head under the covers multiple times.