Horror fans are having a great year, with numerous new horror movies taking over the box office and dominating the 2025 movie release schedule. Many enthusiasts trace their love for horror back to childhood, often sparked by too much unsupervised screen time. Some even recall movies that “traumatized” them as kids, making it hard to watch them as adults. Sure, there are a ton of surprisingly scary scenes from ‘80s kids movies, but it turns out that a ton of fans were raised on horror!
In a recent Reddit post, users named the movies that have imprinted themselves in their gray matter, and it was no surprise to see some of the best horror movies ever, like The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and The Ring, popping up all over the place. One user, u/-Passenger, joked:
I never watched the full video in The Ring. When I watch the film at one part I'll still close my eyes… My phone won't ring mfers.
Others chimed in not just with fear of the movie itself, but how the film’s marketing made it nearly impossible to avoid the terror, especially in the early 2000s when creepy late-night TV ads ran with zero warning. User u/BadMantaRay wrote:
The early ads for this movie would just show the entire The Ring’s video as its own commercial, with no context at all. It was extremely jarring and frankly frightening… I remember being absolutely fascinated by it.
The Grudge is definitely another one of those 2000s horror movies that really got under people's skin, especially for those who watched it way too young or thought it would be a good idea to check it out during a sleepover. Poster u/AnakinSexworker pointed out:
When I was about 11 we were having a sleepover at my friend's house and decided it would be a good idea to watch his older brother's Grudge movies… That crackling sound still haunts me to this day.
Of course, millennial nightmares wouldn’t be complete without a few formative viewings of Poltergeist. One user mentioned that the movie completely messed them up as a kid, and then they were retraumatized thanks, once again, because of The Ring. The user u/eurekadabra said:
I was traumatized by Poltergeist when I was real little and was terrified of TV static for years. As a teen, I was finally getting over it and then The f’ing Ring came out.
Fair enough. Television static is definitely creepy in its own way, but when it comes to Poltergeist, it was the scene in the bathroom where the paranormal investigator peels his own face off that really stood out. How was that movie appropriate for kids? It's one of those classic movies that would never be rated PG today. And that bathroom scene, which I still think about, would easily push it into R territory.
The Ring and Poltergeist definitely stole the spotlight, the discussion quickly turned into a fun mix of deep cuts and cult classics that messed with people in all sorts of ways. Check out these fan responses that show how no decade was safe and no genre could escape childhood trauma:
- “The Fly works so well because it's a tragedy and an opera at the same time… Beautiful film just gross beyond imagination yet tangible in the horror.” – u/GODZILLA-Plays-A-DOD
- “The first Nightmare on Elm Street, still can’t watch it to this day.” – u/Scheininho
- "I saw Signs in the cinema around the same time time. "Move children! Vamanos! -OH!!" resulted in a similar nights sleep.” – u/budget-lampshade
- "The descent. Fuck caves, and I can't stand scenes with thumbs through eyeballs." - u/MamasCupcakes
- “Thirteen Ghosts. The damn Jackal just frightened the hell out of me as a kid.” – u/sizzlinpapaya
From creepy VHS tapes to scary clowns and crazy nightmares, the vibe from this thread is clear: a lot of us thought we were just watching movies, only to realize years later we were basically collecting trauma in surround sound.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
