When I was a kid (I’m guessing 5), there was a house nearby where my grandma lived which had a statue of a small dog outside their house. The eyes on this statue were made of glass, and looked incredibly real. I remember standing there staring at the thing, extremely tempted to try and touch the eyes just so I could convince myself that the thing wasn’t alive 🤣. I probably stood there for about 5 min before I finally got the courage to touch it and realized it was just glass.

I was convinced that thing was going to bite me when I touched it.

  • schreiblehrling@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    As a boy I was allowed to watch the movie „The fearless vampire killers“ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fearless_Vampire_Killers) but I didn’t understand that this was comedy. The movie scared the soul out of me, I couldn’t sleep that night and have trouble falling asleep with my neck not covered since then.

    About 20 years later I talked about that movie with a colleague and she was like „yeah, that’s funny“ and I was „no, that’s a horror movie“. She convinced me to rewatch it and I realized how funny it is and that it’s not scary at all.

    But I hate vampires now. Forever.

    • davefischer@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      When I was in 5th grade, I was worried about vampires, so I started wearing a cross. But I was an atheist and I didn’t want anyone to think I was a christian, so I also wore a star of david.

  • HawkXero@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    My uncle jokingly told me.that if I farted and hiccuped at the same time I’d die. I was like 7. I fell for it. Bad. He had to call me at like 11 at night to tell me it wasn’t true and just a joke so that I could stop crying and actually go to sleep that night. All because I got the hiccups and started to feel gassy…

  • MothraCultist@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    The cover art for the Ghoulies movies freaked me out, like I would make a big deal about checking the toilet for those little goblins & needing the main light on in the bathroom so I could be sure they were not hiding in the toilet shadows. I was fine with a lot of other spooky stuff (and love horror now) but those goofy af toilet goblins were a major concern for years.

  • thegiddystitcher@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    You know that bit in Aliens where Bishop gets attacked and all the…white stuff…comes out?

    Yeah I was allowed to watch that a bit too young and even though I know it’s silly I still can’t watch it comfortably to this day!

  • msmidlofty@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Really, a better question would be what didn’t frighten me as a kid, but my most disruptive fear was of construction equipment (excavators, backhoes, etc). When I was in kindergarten, I refused to get out of the car to go to school for nearly a week because there was construction being finished on the school grounds.

  • ZKtheMAN@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Robot voices! No clue why. Loved Portal as a kid, but had to play it muted because GLaDOS freaked me the hell out.

  • ANuStart@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Sink Holes. I was an early reader and somehow picked up a book on sink holes and for years I thought any hole in the ground would suddenly open up and swallow me and my family whole.

  • SevenSwell@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    My brother got a copy of the Jumanji board game and convinced me it was the real thing. I always sat as far away from the board game shelf as I could.

  • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I always tried to avoid letting the water heater see me. I thought it would kill me with its flames if it spotted me.