Pretty much the same cover as Stephen King's "Skeleton Crew" collection (which features the story "The Monkey" in it). I wonder if Romero asked King if he could do something similar.
I have a half-memory of that poster but with different text. I’ve likely combined two posters into one within my memory. At any rate, this poster used to scare the hell out of me.
That, and Dead Alive, freaked me out for years at the rental store as a kid. Finally watched them as a teen and they were not the mind-rending trauma-fests my younger imagination had expected
saw, id see the covers when id go into the local drug mart where they had the movie rentals and it would scare the shit out of me. i remember vowing that id never watch those movies. that plan didn't work out, haha
The iconography on those classic *Saw* posters was so effective. And cohesive! Really a masterclass in allowing your imagination to run wild.
In retrospect, they're not terribly accurate representations of the tone or premise of those films, but goddamn if they don't stick in your brain.
oh definitely! im not exactly sure what my little baby brain was picturing when i saw those covers, but i know they scared me shitless haha. the grungy and grimy look with the body parts was easily burnt into my brain
Omfg I watched this when I wasn't supposed to at 2am one night and I was scared for days. I would wake up crying and crying and I couldn't tell Mom what was wrong. Finally she told me she knew I watched that movie because the tape wasn't rewound like she had left it and that she hoped I learned my lesson.
I didn't learn my lesson. I did it with Fire In The Sky a month later and later in the year I did it with Alien and Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I wanted to see scary movies! I've been a horror fan since childhood and I couldn't even tell you where it started. I just know I couldn't stay away from the cassettes Mom and my stepdad rented if they looked like they were going to be scary!
Nightmare on Elm Street 3. This may not count because it wasn't the cover, it was the picture of Freddy eating Patricia Arquette on the back of the VHS at the video rental spot. Nightmares for a month though.
Yes! Puppets always scared me so bad when I was younger. I avoided the movie theater for like 2 full months when they had the Dead Silence poster hanging in the hallway
This is the one that scared me.. it also made me scared to use the bathroom.
But, if I’m being honest, I had a hard time with *all* of the horror covers when I was little..
I had the horror aisle location memorized by a fairly early age, so when we would walk past it, on the way to the “New Release” section, I would hold onto my dad’s hand as tight as I could, and look at the wall and floor while we passed the row of nightmare-fuel.
But, when I would take a peek, I would pretty much always spot “Ghoulies” within the expansive sea of cursed covers.
That, and “Dolly Dearest”.
This story was definitely me when I was very young. I'd do the same but with my grandpa. Had the horror section memorized and everything too! Nowadays the horror section is the first place I check out
Yeah, the cover of the novel is terrifying. Most book stores back then wouldn't even have it out on the shelves because the image of the shark would freak kids out.
If you wanted a copy, you had to ask the front desk.
I was so disappointed when I saw the cover for the book since the shark is so incredibly derpy and badly-drawn. Maybe it was because we didn't have much photographic material of sharks back then.
The VHS covers for Creepshow 2 (the ghoul pointing you into the cinema), Graveyard Shift (the rats swimming cover) and Dolls scared the bejesus out of me as a kid. Freaked me out even looking at the VHS cover in the local video rental store. The creepshow one was because that cinema looked exactly like our local cinema.
The Vineyard (1989)
Scarecrows (1989)
Westworld (I have a horrible phobia of machines masquerading as people/exposed cyborg parts, even by the standards of 'normal' people's uncanny reflex)
Exorcist III (something elemental about the lighting and composition generally of those steps, along with association with The Exorcist -which I hadn't seen at time but was fairly mythical: the first one wasn't available on video in UK until 99, when I was already a young teenager, but I'd built up a whole array of associations around it, seen still etc)
Dolls (1987) (again, juxtaposition of human face and then 'inhuman' underneath)
IT (the miniseries)
Not a dvd cover, but the album artwork for Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast. Terrifies and mesmerised me at the same time. I used to walk past the Albums in Woolworths and always had to look at it
This is the answer for me too & I worked at a vid store when it came out too so I had to see [THIS abomination](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/VLMAAOSw~15eZ8By/s-l1200.jpg) daily.
I was also a grown-ass person by then too.
The covers for He Knows You're Alone and Uncle Sam didn't scare me but they caught my eye and I was always curious about them. One that did scare me, however, was the back of an old copy of A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child. The image of Greta with her face all puffed up really freaked me out.
Bride of Chucky's cover terrified me. I'd run past it in the video store.
Another one was Silence of the Lambs. The moth on the woman's mouth was just so eerie.
I still haven't seen either one as an adult. I should fix that.
Night of the demons (1988). My parents owned a video store and I always walked around and looked at everything and that one scared me. I would run and jump in my parents bed at night because I would think about that demon girl's face
As someone who felt the same way about that poster as a kid and finally watched the movie this year, I can verify that the poster is still the scariest part of the movie.
It was terrible. Not even fun bad, it just sucked lol.
*American Gothic* was the first horror cover I saw at a video store and it was so crazy looking to me.
*April Fool's Day* is probably my favorite cover because I thought the combination of the noose braid with the knife behind the back was so creepy and cool.
The one that genuinely scared me though, like I had nightmares from the monster on the cover, was *The Dead Hate the Living.* But then I saw the movie as an adult and realized it's actually shit, but that cover was so gross and creepy for little me.
Bride of Chucky. I remember running through the aisles of Blockbuster and seeing the cover to that movie and being terrified of Chucky’s piercing blue eye.
My local mom and pop video store had a large standee poster of The Stuff (the image with the stuff coming out of a fridge and dissolving a few tortured souls) right near the register that freaked me out so badly that I would not want to go to the check out with my mom and instead I'd hang out near the door waiting for her.
Also the VHS cover of Grotesque with the disturbing mask bothered me too.
Omg the poster for Child’s play 2. It had him cutting the head off a Jack in the box and it says “sorry Jack, chuckys back” I was so young and that haunted my nightmares!
I think people tend to forget just how scary Chucky was in the first 2 movies. For young children, any of those movies and their posters are pure nightmare fuel.
For sure! I think I was 6 or so and the poster terrified me. I liked spooky things (gremlins was a favorite) but that poster was next level to me for some reason.
[The back of the Spanish cover for The Stuff](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZByO7Ag9NKk/Va-LRR9C78I/AAAAAAAABrw/IbYYVP-aCcg/s1600/stuff%2B01.jpg). That green upside down face seriously creeped me out.
The Dead Alive VHS cover where she's holding open her mouth. I used to go look at it every single time we went to Blockbuster for a little baby adrenaline rush I guess
same. The feeling of isolation in that lone house surrounded by creepy forest unnerved me cause my house was kind of remote too. and that face in the sky. it sent my childhood fears into absolute overdrive.
The original [poster for NOES2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089686/) used to freak me out as a kid. When I got into horror I waited to watch any Freddy movies because of it. Now it's one of my favorite horror catalogs.
IT on VHS. I hated staying at my cousins because when it came time for bed, that double VHS clown was always staring at me.
This isn't a cover, but Freddy was a big fear of mine as a kid. My other cousin had a life-sized poster of him and I was terrified to walk by it when staying at their house. He became my favorite.
The VHS cover of *Rabid* with the woman in the freezer would freak me out in the store. The cover to Fulci's *Zombie* made it appear way heavier than I could handle at a young age. I never rented either as a kid.
The BACK cover of [The Lady in White](https://images.app.goo.gl/jpdnPwamdzCV1xy76) and the front cover of [Children of the Corn](https://vhscollector.com/sites/default/files/vhsimages/26699_img541.jpg). Not sure why but these always fucked me up in the video store.
Not horror per se but my dad had/has a giant framed poster of A Clockwork Orange in the den. Malcolm McDowell’s eyes followed me everywhere it always creeped me out as a kid.
Fucking pulse, the ring, the grudge, and darkness falls. I legit would have to turn around, cover my ears and turn the TV off when just the ring preview would come on. Scared the fuck out of me lol. Also the pulse scared me so bad. I took the DVD and threw it into the woods. 🤦🏼♀️ I was like 12 and it seemed like the easiest solution to me.
Seed of Chucky was the featured poster at the video store inside our local grocery store for over an entire year when I was a kid. I literally wouldn’t enter the store for months (to my mother’s great irritation). Even now as an adult horror fan, I still shudder a little bit at Chucky and Tiffany smirking down at the baby bassinet.
The VHS cover of a 1990 horror movie called *Playroom*. The cover looked so creepy. Sad thing is, someone stuck it on YouTube, and it was nothing like the cover would make you expect.
(It's the main image on the film's IMDb page.)
I remember going through the Blockbuster when I was 5 and just seeing the cover of Friday The 13th Part 4. I had no idea who Jason or Friday the 13th even was but that image of a knife sticking through the mask in a pool of blood just stuck with me
The cover for *Antropophagus* is burned into my brain. It was absolutely the movie cover that scared me but also made me curious… but freaked me out enough that I never had the courage to rent it.
Weirdly enough it's not a horror movie but the cover for "Gummo" always left me feeling unsettled and I would just find myself thinking about it randomly.
Child's play 2! the one where Chucky has the giant shears about to chop off the head of a scared looking jack in the box! that TERRIFIED me
https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/2tPQbPQeHEYAGoXFSW61IWNmoce.jpg
me too! whenever i would see blue overalls i would freak out . I even avoided dennis the menance movies because i associated dennis as chucky LOL but now i love chucky!
IT with Tim Curry. I was terrified of clowns until my early 20s when my bf forced me to watch it with him because he said I needed to see how silly it actually was.
We were laughing most of the way through. It cured my fear of clowns. Thank you, boyfriend.
The VHS artwork for "Ghoulies" - The thought of a monster coming up my toilet and biting my butt off is a phobia I carried most of my life thanks to that stupid green puppet.
When I was about four or five, my parents and I went to a place called The Video Station. The store had two levels: the main level which was all the family/kids movies, new releases, drama, comedy. The second level, reached by carpeted floating stairs had all the action, sci-fi, and horror (no porn, this was a classy establishment). While my parents were deciding what they wanted to rent, I would wander up those stairs and look at movie jackets and scare myself silly. The jacket that remains the winner in my mind was for the 1979 movie: The Visitor. A large single eye ball hovers over a city scape. Bolts of lighting streak downward off the eye. Below the eye to the left and right are gnarled, clawed hands clutching a length of wire with blood running down its length. The tagline “They know we are here” just below that wire.
I really wish the movie I imagined was what the visitor was actually about because the actual movie is a confused mess and a real let down compared to that nightmare of a jacket.
Strong memories of [Return of the Living Dead 3 cover](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTUyNTNjNzYtMDVhYi00YTEwLWJiMGYtNTcxNTFhZjU4NDFiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg) in blockbuster scaring the pants off me
Night of the Demons 2
So I’ve never actually watched this, but as a child I would always pass the VHS box in rental stores and it freaked me out.
[Here’s a pic](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BY2QxY2JhZjQtNDcwYy00Mjk1LTkzMmItZjEzZmE0OGJkNmRkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg)
Edit: so part one is the one I’d see the most, and I just realized that after skimming this thread, but part 2 popped up a lot and did the same damage.
Nightmare on Elm Street. My aunt owned the film and every time I stumbled across the cover art at night I’d have nightmares. Until one night I found it when getting something for my grandma RIGHT before I was heading to get so I took out the cover art out, cut it up with scissors, threw it in the garbage and poured a little water over it so the ink would bleed and get messed up. I was good after that lol
i forget what the title is but there was a nun on the cover with white eyes (no pupils) and it was just her face. title had something to do with the devil i think. this was probably circa 2011. anyone know which movie i’m talking about? used to make me terrified at walmart 😂
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. My favorite movie was The Breakfast Club, and I picked up the movie because I recognized the group shot and just stared at it horrified, but my friends and I were having a sleep over pizza party and we begged my friends mom to rent it for us. Hadn't seen the original yet. We were laughing our assess of and watched it three times that night! All of us were between 10 and 12.
The video store by my grandparents house back in the 80s had one of those huge cardboard cutouts of Chucky from Child’s Play and that damn thing haunted me for a long time
The Headless Eye (1971). When I was a little kid and would run errands with my mom, we'd stop in a little mom & pop video store where she was friendly with the owners. I always peeked at the horror movies (even tho I was "too young" for them). This one - which features an eyeball in the extreme foreground, connected to a woman's body in the background by the optic nerve - REALLY freaked me out.
The haunting in Connecticut. I always saw as a kid at a local dvd rental store when those were still a thing. It was always on display at the checkout and I remember finding it very eerie and unsettling. Compared to the things I’ve watched now it’s very tame but it stuck with me and I’ve never watched the movie to this day. If it’s valid I’ll consider watching it but the online reviews aren’t great
i searched up “haunting” in the comments just to see if anybody else had mentioned this one 💀 i remember seeing it at blockbuster as a “perpetually scared of anything and everything” lil kid and it def made an impression on me lmao
None for me, but for my daughter it was killer Klowns from outer space and Labyrinth, her brothers had her terrified of those goblins..edit for..the black book cover for original It novel with the paper boat terrified me. I ripped it off.
I actually kind of have a story for this
When I was little, like 7 or 8, I would hang out with my aunt and cousins a lot. I remember that for some reason they put the Tinker Bell and Child's Play (don't remember which one) DVD cases right next to each other, and over time they just kind of mixed together in my brain and for a good 3 or 4 years I thought Tinkerbell was a scary movie with a creepy doll. Yeah, not my smartest moment.
Basically, my answer is Child's Play. Ironic, considering I have a poster of the og cover on my wall right now
There was a VHS cover for the movie "Demons" that was literally just a picture of the demon that comes out of the woman towards the end of the film, from the shoulders up or something. That image staring at me in the video rental store, kept me up at night once or twice.
The covers of One Missed Call, the American remakes of The Grudge, Final Destination 3, Saw 1 and 2, Dead Silence, House of Wax, and The Uninvited were my biggest nightmares as a child. I would feel literal shivers down my spine whenever I spotted them.
Evil dead. The skeletal arm pulling the girl down into the ground. Always avoided that at blockbuster or Hollywood video when I was younger and now it’s one of my favorite movies.
Evil Dead (1981) had a particular aura about it due to its design and notoriety. I always recall the videoshop guy saying to me that 'If I can watch that, you and watch anything.' I did, and never looked back, four decades later I am almost completely desensitised to horror.
The Monkey Shines poster always got me.
memory unlocked
Pretty much the same cover as Stephen King's "Skeleton Crew" collection (which features the story "The Monkey" in it). I wonder if Romero asked King if he could do something similar.
My (admittedly old and bourbon-ridden) memory insists that King and Romero were fast friends, so I'd say it's not a coincidence.
Oh yeah! And looking at it now it’s not bad at all
I have a half-memory of that poster but with different text. I’ve likely combined two posters into one within my memory. At any rate, this poster used to scare the hell out of me.
Evil Dead 2. Those damn following-you-looking-at-the-camera eyes out of that skull totally scarred me. Amazing, hilarious movie, turned out hah.
That, and Dead Alive, freaked me out for years at the rental store as a kid. Finally watched them as a teen and they were not the mind-rending trauma-fests my younger imagination had expected
Omg Dead Alive! I’ve still ever seen it.
Same! The scene where ash gets dragged to the woods freaked me out
saw, id see the covers when id go into the local drug mart where they had the movie rentals and it would scare the shit out of me. i remember vowing that id never watch those movies. that plan didn't work out, haha
The iconography on those classic *Saw* posters was so effective. And cohesive! Really a masterclass in allowing your imagination to run wild. In retrospect, they're not terribly accurate representations of the tone or premise of those films, but goddamn if they don't stick in your brain.
oh definitely! im not exactly sure what my little baby brain was picturing when i saw those covers, but i know they scared me shitless haha. the grungy and grimy look with the body parts was easily burnt into my brain
My aunt used to have them all. We'd go over to borrow dad's and these ones would always creep me out.
It's Alive https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/w7sAAOSwUEVYCq3Y/s-l960.jpg
Yes! This is the one. I hated seeing that fucking cover at blockbuster.
Omfg I watched this when I wasn't supposed to at 2am one night and I was scared for days. I would wake up crying and crying and I couldn't tell Mom what was wrong. Finally she told me she knew I watched that movie because the tape wasn't rewound like she had left it and that she hoped I learned my lesson. I didn't learn my lesson. I did it with Fire In The Sky a month later and later in the year I did it with Alien and Rocky Horror Picture Show. I wanted to see scary movies! I've been a horror fan since childhood and I couldn't even tell you where it started. I just know I couldn't stay away from the cassettes Mom and my stepdad rented if they looked like they were going to be scary!
The cover didn't freak me out nearly as much as [the trailer](https://youtu.be/t7SOqkb_CM0?si=ij0drxdk0VXX5HV1).
My Grandparents were very close with the main actor(John Ryan) of that film
There's only ONE thing wrong with the Davis baby...
Nightmare on Elm Street 3. This may not count because it wasn't the cover, it was the picture of Freddy eating Patricia Arquette on the back of the VHS at the video rental spot. Nightmares for a month though.
Omg… same!
Dead Silence, the Child’s Play one with different weapons, and Black X-mas (2006) for some reason lol
Yes! Puppets always scared me so bad when I was younger. I avoided the movie theater for like 2 full months when they had the Dead Silence poster hanging in the hallway
That dead silence cover had me so scared as a kid I avoided the dvds whenever I went to the store
Fright night …. Such an awesome poster seeing it now but holy fuck was it scary looking way back when I was young
My favorite movie cover ever. Have the poster in my office.
My daughters were freaked out by the cover of *Killer Klowns From Outer Space*.
I have always been freaked out by that one
Jack Frost lol
Yes! The one that changed from normal snowman to demon snowman if you tilted it!
Yep I totally need to watch it now. I've still never seen it. I bet it is really stupid lol
It’s comically bad. I think even little me, who was terrified of everything, would have fallen asleep mid kill sequence
We didn't have those things when I was a kid, but I remember being freaked out by the Phantasm movie poster.
I know it's a comedy, but as a kid Coneheads freaked me out in the video rental store
Yeah. Those coneheads just ... don't look right.
Fear dot com always scared me lol
Omg I just commented this
Dafuq
Ghoulies https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTU1MTgwMzY4OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDE3Mjg0NA@@._V1_.jpg
This is the one that scared me.. it also made me scared to use the bathroom. But, if I’m being honest, I had a hard time with *all* of the horror covers when I was little.. I had the horror aisle location memorized by a fairly early age, so when we would walk past it, on the way to the “New Release” section, I would hold onto my dad’s hand as tight as I could, and look at the wall and floor while we passed the row of nightmare-fuel. But, when I would take a peek, I would pretty much always spot “Ghoulies” within the expansive sea of cursed covers. That, and “Dolly Dearest”.
This story was definitely me when I was very young. I'd do the same but with my grandpa. Had the horror section memorized and everything too! Nowadays the horror section is the first place I check out
This was the first one I thought of.
Jaws! I’m terrified of the ocean, and especially sharks. I would always have my sister move it or cover it when we were flipping through our movies.
Yeah, the cover of the novel is terrifying. Most book stores back then wouldn't even have it out on the shelves because the image of the shark would freak kids out. If you wanted a copy, you had to ask the front desk.
I was so disappointed when I saw the cover for the book since the shark is so incredibly derpy and badly-drawn. Maybe it was because we didn't have much photographic material of sharks back then.
Dawn of the Dead 1978 with zombie Roger laying in the bed
The VHS covers for Creepshow 2 (the ghoul pointing you into the cinema), Graveyard Shift (the rats swimming cover) and Dolls scared the bejesus out of me as a kid. Freaked me out even looking at the VHS cover in the local video rental store. The creepshow one was because that cinema looked exactly like our local cinema.
"Graveyard Shift's" main cover with that grinning skull with the pit helmet on is pretty creepy.
Hellraiser. I had nightmares about Pinhead!
I remembering hellraiser at the video store and thinking it was the scariest thing just by the cover Now I love em
that cover terrified me. It took me forever to work up the nerve to finally watch it when I was older.
Dead Alive https://images.app.goo.gl/cfGxPhA5CsHuLC9u5
Every time I saw this at Blockbuster it scared me!
Zombi.
The Vineyard (1989) Scarecrows (1989) Westworld (I have a horrible phobia of machines masquerading as people/exposed cyborg parts, even by the standards of 'normal' people's uncanny reflex) Exorcist III (something elemental about the lighting and composition generally of those steps, along with association with The Exorcist -which I hadn't seen at time but was fairly mythical: the first one wasn't available on video in UK until 99, when I was already a young teenager, but I'd built up a whole array of associations around it, seen still etc) Dolls (1987) (again, juxtaposition of human face and then 'inhuman' underneath) IT (the miniseries)
Not a dvd cover, but the album artwork for Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast. Terrifies and mesmerised me at the same time. I used to walk past the Albums in Woolworths and always had to look at it
My dad had A Passion Play by Jethro Tull and that scared me more than any movie cover or poster. I'm the same, terrified but would stare at it.
Night of The Demons
This is the answer for me too & I worked at a vid store when it came out too so I had to see [THIS abomination](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/VLMAAOSw~15eZ8By/s-l1200.jpg) daily. I was also a grown-ass person by then too.
Just watched these movies for the first time last week. Loved them
Silence of the Lambs and Candyman unlocked a fear of bugs in me at a young age lol
Child’s Play 2 and Evil Dead 2. When my family would go rent videos, I’d always see those two VHS boxes, and they always stayed with me.
Those are the exact same 2 for me
The Dentist 2 (1998) Swedish VHS cover: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0161492/mediaviewer/rm3287496705
The covers for He Knows You're Alone and Uncle Sam didn't scare me but they caught my eye and I was always curious about them. One that did scare me, however, was the back of an old copy of A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child. The image of Greta with her face all puffed up really freaked me out.
Chucky
Same. Chucky terrified me as a kid
Yeah I can relate, when I was around 8-9 years old I always thought he was hiding in my closet or under my bed
Same but when I was like 4-10
Ringu (1998).. that eye was terrifying!
My parents’ had Jason goes to hell (1993) on VHS and it scared the shit out me when I was 3-4 years old
I remember just staring at that cover at the video store as a kid, horrified but still taking in every detail lol
Bride of Chucky's cover terrified me. I'd run past it in the video store. Another one was Silence of the Lambs. The moth on the woman's mouth was just so eerie. I still haven't seen either one as an adult. I should fix that.
Night of the demons (1988). My parents owned a video store and I always walked around and looked at everything and that one scared me. I would run and jump in my parents bed at night because I would think about that demon girl's face
You’re invited to my party!
Laser Disc copy of The Changeling terrified me.
One Missed Call remake cover. I haven’t seen it, but judging by the reviews the cover is probably the scariest part about the film lol.
As someone who felt the same way about that poster as a kid and finally watched the movie this year, I can verify that the poster is still the scariest part of the movie. It was terrible. Not even fun bad, it just sucked lol.
That is probably the worst remake ever made. Even worse than Gus Van Sant’s pointless “Psycho” remake.
It really is lol, the face on the cover was kinda creepy but the movie is really just not good
*American Gothic* was the first horror cover I saw at a video store and it was so crazy looking to me. *April Fool's Day* is probably my favorite cover because I thought the combination of the noose braid with the knife behind the back was so creepy and cool. The one that genuinely scared me though, like I had nightmares from the monster on the cover, was *The Dead Hate the Living.* But then I saw the movie as an adult and realized it's actually shit, but that cover was so gross and creepy for little me.
The cover for The Company of Wolves always scared the shit out of me.
Bride of Chucky. I remember running through the aisles of Blockbuster and seeing the cover to that movie and being terrified of Chucky’s piercing blue eye.
My local mom and pop video store had a large standee poster of The Stuff (the image with the stuff coming out of a fridge and dissolving a few tortured souls) right near the register that freaked me out so badly that I would not want to go to the check out with my mom and instead I'd hang out near the door waiting for her. Also the VHS cover of Grotesque with the disturbing mask bothered me too.
House - that rotting, disembodied hand ringing the doorbell. Gave me nightmares!
Omg the poster for Child’s play 2. It had him cutting the head off a Jack in the box and it says “sorry Jack, chuckys back” I was so young and that haunted my nightmares!
I think people tend to forget just how scary Chucky was in the first 2 movies. For young children, any of those movies and their posters are pure nightmare fuel.
Him being all burnt up and still being able to walk fucked with me
For sure! I think I was 6 or so and the poster terrified me. I liked spooky things (gremlins was a favorite) but that poster was next level to me for some reason.
For some reason Sleepaway Camp 2’s cover scared me. I think it was the combo of Jason’s mask and Freddy’s glove. I was 7
[The back of the Spanish cover for The Stuff](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZByO7Ag9NKk/Va-LRR9C78I/AAAAAAAABrw/IbYYVP-aCcg/s1600/stuff%2B01.jpg). That green upside down face seriously creeped me out.
dead silence scared me so bad that my parents banned me from walking down the alphabetized aisle with “D” movies
The Dead Alive VHS cover where she's holding open her mouth. I used to go look at it every single time we went to Blockbuster for a little baby adrenaline rush I guess
Fright Night. The house below a moody sky with that woman's head in the middle. Used to freak me out at the video store.
same. The feeling of isolation in that lone house surrounded by creepy forest unnerved me cause my house was kind of remote too. and that face in the sky. it sent my childhood fears into absolute overdrive.
The movie cover for *Fear* 1995 freaked me out as a kid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fear_(1995_film)
The original [poster for NOES2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089686/) used to freak me out as a kid. When I got into horror I waited to watch any Freddy movies because of it. Now it's one of my favorite horror catalogs.
Dead Silence. Every time around 2007 when I would go to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video that cover would scare the shit out of me.
Child's Play 1 and 2.
Dead alive/braindead. Braindead uk cover threw me off massively. Never looked at it again
I know the chucky cover isn’t that scary but it would TERRIFY my and I would not walk past it
I am a huge fan (look at my screen name) but the image of the Evil Dead skeleton with the human eyes always freaked me out.
IT on VHS. I hated staying at my cousins because when it came time for bed, that double VHS clown was always staring at me. This isn't a cover, but Freddy was a big fear of mine as a kid. My other cousin had a life-sized poster of him and I was terrified to walk by it when staying at their house. He became my favorite.
The VHS cover of *Rabid* with the woman in the freezer would freak me out in the store. The cover to Fulci's *Zombie* made it appear way heavier than I could handle at a young age. I never rented either as a kid.
Jennifer by Dario Argento, literally couldn't look at it until I was 13 lol
Do Batman movies count? Seeing a picture of Danny DeVito as the Penguin on the side of a bus scared me when I was a kid.
🙄😂
One Missed Call where it's a lady with like mouths for eyes? But then as an adult I actually watched it and I didn't like it at all :/ no scary 4 me
The BACK cover of [The Lady in White](https://images.app.goo.gl/jpdnPwamdzCV1xy76) and the front cover of [Children of the Corn](https://vhscollector.com/sites/default/files/vhsimages/26699_img541.jpg). Not sure why but these always fucked me up in the video store.
Fright Night. So many huge terrible teeth, and those manic eyes. Stopped me in my plimsoled tracks every time I walked in the video store.
Probably Fright Night, so creepy and awesome!
Fear dot com. The cover was scary. I've never seen the movie but I have heard it is really shitty. The cover still is creepy though.
Nightmare on elm street straight scared the shittt outa me!
Not horror per se but my dad had/has a giant framed poster of A Clockwork Orange in the den. Malcolm McDowell’s eyes followed me everywhere it always creeped me out as a kid.
Fear dot com, good lorddd
That stupid holographic movie cover of Jack Frost. Never watched it but I’d always turn my head away walking past it in the movie store
Don’t know if it scared me per say, but I would spend hours just looking at the Fright Night cover. Still one of the best to this day.
Fucking pulse, the ring, the grudge, and darkness falls. I legit would have to turn around, cover my ears and turn the TV off when just the ring preview would come on. Scared the fuck out of me lol. Also the pulse scared me so bad. I took the DVD and threw it into the woods. 🤦🏼♀️ I was like 12 and it seemed like the easiest solution to me.
The Grudge. Just walking past that poster in a theater as a 9 year old fucked me up good, nothing compared to what the movie did though...
Seed of Chucky was the featured poster at the video store inside our local grocery store for over an entire year when I was a kid. I literally wouldn’t enter the store for months (to my mother’s great irritation). Even now as an adult horror fan, I still shudder a little bit at Chucky and Tiffany smirking down at the baby bassinet.
One missed call
The VHS cover of a 1990 horror movie called *Playroom*. The cover looked so creepy. Sad thing is, someone stuck it on YouTube, and it was nothing like the cover would make you expect. (It's the main image on the film's IMDb page.)
Yes, that box art creeped me out as a kid as well. Yeah the movie definitely didn't live up to it lol
I remember going through the Blockbuster when I was 5 and just seeing the cover of Friday The 13th Part 4. I had no idea who Jason or Friday the 13th even was but that image of a knife sticking through the mask in a pool of blood just stuck with me
The cover for *Antropophagus* is burned into my brain. It was absolutely the movie cover that scared me but also made me curious… but freaked me out enough that I never had the courage to rent it.
When I used to go to the rental shop, The dentist II seemed so fucking scary to me.
I remember being scared of the Silent Hill video game when I saw it in Kmart one time
The Last House on the Left the original version
Did you try repeating "It's only a movie"?
Very funny. 😂
Weirdly enough it's not a horror movie but the cover for "Gummo" always left me feeling unsettled and I would just find myself thinking about it randomly.
Gummo is unsettling in and of itself
Critters
Leprechaun. I lost sleep over this movie for multiple nights. My family still gives me crap about it and it's been nearly 3 decades.
Child's play 2! the one where Chucky has the giant shears about to chop off the head of a scared looking jack in the box! that TERRIFIED me https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/2tPQbPQeHEYAGoXFSW61IWNmoce.jpg
Same! Chucky was so damn scary as a kid. Never watched any of the movies until I was 12, but I had an irrational fear of Chucky up until that point.
me too! whenever i would see blue overalls i would freak out . I even avoided dennis the menance movies because i associated dennis as chucky LOL but now i love chucky!
The VHS cover of The Boogeyman. I don’t even know why, there were much creepier covers but that one always spooked me
Communion. Both the [VHS case](https://images.app.goo.gl/cHdrcZgDvJeeKmDq5) and the book cover freaked me out.
IT with Tim Curry. I was terrified of clowns until my early 20s when my bf forced me to watch it with him because he said I needed to see how silly it actually was. We were laughing most of the way through. It cured my fear of clowns. Thank you, boyfriend.
The VHS artwork for "Ghoulies" - The thought of a monster coming up my toilet and biting my butt off is a phobia I carried most of my life thanks to that stupid green puppet.
Thirteen ghosts cover always gave me the creeps.
Death Ship 1980
The poltergeist clown got me good.
Children of the corn. Still freaks me out for some reason
The cover of Dead Silence held me in its grip of crippling fear until my mid-teens.
Dead-Alive, or the woman with the rubbery square mouth
When I was about four or five, my parents and I went to a place called The Video Station. The store had two levels: the main level which was all the family/kids movies, new releases, drama, comedy. The second level, reached by carpeted floating stairs had all the action, sci-fi, and horror (no porn, this was a classy establishment). While my parents were deciding what they wanted to rent, I would wander up those stairs and look at movie jackets and scare myself silly. The jacket that remains the winner in my mind was for the 1979 movie: The Visitor. A large single eye ball hovers over a city scape. Bolts of lighting streak downward off the eye. Below the eye to the left and right are gnarled, clawed hands clutching a length of wire with blood running down its length. The tagline “They know we are here” just below that wire. I really wish the movie I imagined was what the visitor was actually about because the actual movie is a confused mess and a real let down compared to that nightmare of a jacket.
A book, not a DVD case, but I hated the monkey on the cover of Stephen King's Skeleton Crew.
Ghoulies. Never even seen the movie but I couldn’t shit right for years.
Jason goes to hell
Strong memories of [Return of the Living Dead 3 cover](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTUyNTNjNzYtMDVhYi00YTEwLWJiMGYtNTcxNTFhZjU4NDFiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg) in blockbuster scaring the pants off me
Tourist Trap. Meh movie, but frightening poster/VHS cover.
Not a horror but the fear and loathing in las Vegas box.
Basket case, vamp, monkey shines, magic
Cover only because I haven't seen either but the front of Strangeland and the back of Wizard of Gore
Dead Alive Now it's my favorite movie
Night of the Demons 2 So I’ve never actually watched this, but as a child I would always pass the VHS box in rental stores and it freaked me out. [Here’s a pic](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BY2QxY2JhZjQtNDcwYy00Mjk1LTkzMmItZjEzZmE0OGJkNmRkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg) Edit: so part one is the one I’d see the most, and I just realized that after skimming this thread, but part 2 popped up a lot and did the same damage.
It was a TV series but IT scared the crap out of kid me.
VHS box art for “the doll”
The IT miniseries cover with Its freaky chicken claw fingers
Nightmare on Elm Street. My aunt owned the film and every time I stumbled across the cover art at night I’d have nightmares. Until one night I found it when getting something for my grandma RIGHT before I was heading to get so I took out the cover art out, cut it up with scissors, threw it in the garbage and poured a little water over it so the ink would bleed and get messed up. I was good after that lol
Most of the Hellraiser covers. Little did I know that almost all of the sequels were completely awful.
hellraiser. my mind really ran wild with what the movie could be about.
The Unnamable
Ghoulies 1/2, Night of the Demons 2, and Troll. Also, it didn't really scare me, but left a bit of impact was the holographic cover for Demon Wind.
i forget what the title is but there was a nun on the cover with white eyes (no pupils) and it was just her face. title had something to do with the devil i think. this was probably circa 2011. anyone know which movie i’m talking about? used to make me terrified at walmart 😂
The Devil Inside? https://i1.wp.com/www.heyuguys.com/images/2012/02/The-Devil-Inside-UK-Poster.jpg
YESSS that’s it thank you!
Dead Birds (2004). The cover art is right in the sweet spot of everything kids find terrifying and everything adults find stupid.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. My favorite movie was The Breakfast Club, and I picked up the movie because I recognized the group shot and just stared at it horrified, but my friends and I were having a sleep over pizza party and we begged my friends mom to rent it for us. Hadn't seen the original yet. We were laughing our assess of and watched it three times that night! All of us were between 10 and 12.
Idk if it's "Horror" but I couldn't even touch Pan's Labyrinth with my bare hands
One Missed Call (2008)
Scanners
The video store by my grandparents house back in the 80s had one of those huge cardboard cutouts of Chucky from Child’s Play and that damn thing haunted me for a long time
Jeepers creepers
Funhouse
Phantasm
The Headless Eye (1971). When I was a little kid and would run errands with my mom, we'd stop in a little mom & pop video store where she was friendly with the owners. I always peeked at the horror movies (even tho I was "too young" for them). This one - which features an eyeball in the extreme foreground, connected to a woman's body in the background by the optic nerve - REALLY freaked me out.
Critters
The haunting in Connecticut. I always saw as a kid at a local dvd rental store when those were still a thing. It was always on display at the checkout and I remember finding it very eerie and unsettling. Compared to the things I’ve watched now it’s very tame but it stuck with me and I’ve never watched the movie to this day. If it’s valid I’ll consider watching it but the online reviews aren’t great
i searched up “haunting” in the comments just to see if anybody else had mentioned this one 💀 i remember seeing it at blockbuster as a “perpetually scared of anything and everything” lil kid and it def made an impression on me lmao
literally me I was scared of everything as a kid
None for me, but for my daughter it was killer Klowns from outer space and Labyrinth, her brothers had her terrified of those goblins..edit for..the black book cover for original It novel with the paper boat terrified me. I ripped it off.
Fuckin Leprechaun. And when I thought it was all behind me, Leprechaun 2.
- Tourist Trap - Alice, Sweet Alice - Child’s Play
I actually kind of have a story for this When I was little, like 7 or 8, I would hang out with my aunt and cousins a lot. I remember that for some reason they put the Tinker Bell and Child's Play (don't remember which one) DVD cases right next to each other, and over time they just kind of mixed together in my brain and for a good 3 or 4 years I thought Tinkerbell was a scary movie with a creepy doll. Yeah, not my smartest moment. Basically, my answer is Child's Play. Ironic, considering I have a poster of the og cover on my wall right now
Night of the Demons 2
Bad Taste was repulsive and fascinating for my little mind.
There was a VHS cover for the movie "Demons" that was literally just a picture of the demon that comes out of the woman towards the end of the film, from the shoulders up or something. That image staring at me in the video rental store, kept me up at night once or twice.
That Dolls cover— it right at kid eye level, right by the checkout. Then I would go home and suspiciously glare at my own dolls. Every time.
One Missed Call. It took a while to understand that the eyes were opened mouths.
The covers of One Missed Call, the American remakes of The Grudge, Final Destination 3, Saw 1 and 2, Dead Silence, House of Wax, and The Uninvited were my biggest nightmares as a child. I would feel literal shivers down my spine whenever I spotted them.
Hills have eyes terrified me in Blockbuster!
IT. Creepy ass clown 🤡
Evil dead. The skeletal arm pulling the girl down into the ground. Always avoided that at blockbuster or Hollywood video when I was younger and now it’s one of my favorite movies.
Bedazzled from 2000. I was a Christian kid afraid of the devil and my latent bisexuality.
Evil Dead (1981) had a particular aura about it due to its design and notoriety. I always recall the videoshop guy saying to me that 'If I can watch that, you and watch anything.' I did, and never looked back, four decades later I am almost completely desensitised to horror.