What scares you?

WordCount · Feb 10, 2012

What scares you? Is it the creepy monster under your bed? Or is it the vampire waiting outside your window?
What I'm basically asking is, out of the classic monsters, which are the "scariest." And I primarily mean the archetype, not the character itself.

AKyber36 · Feb 10, 2012

As a child, after seeing "Gremlins", it was the monster underneath the bed ready to bite my fingers off. Now as an adult, I still have to close the closet door and I don't like mirrors (especially full-length ones) in my room, either. I attribute it to a carryover of the boogeyman in the closet and the haunted mirror (aka Bloody Mary) when I was a child.

Canotila · Feb 10, 2012

My sister is freaked out by zombie taxidermied things. Regular zombies with bits rotting off don't bug her though.

Out of traditional monsters I find creepy homicidal dolls to be the most unsettling. They have no discernible weakness, and are small enough to catch you unaware and eviscerate you before you know what's happening. Ugh.

Ari Meermans · Feb 10, 2012

It's not a vampire or a zombie. They're not real. I don't know what "it" is, but it's been outside the window all my life. Everywhere I've ever lived. Waiting. Not every night mind you, but when it is out there I know it. I refuse to even look at a window after dark. Just in case.

ladyleeona · Feb 10, 2012

My own imagination is what scares me, mostly. But the boogyman would be the closest actual embodiment of my fears.

It's dreadful to have an overactive and slightly twisted imagination.

Vamps and werewolves--pah. I hear those all have really nice bodies and sensitive sides. Hell, sometimes they even sparkle

Laineywrites · Feb 10, 2012

I've not been able to figure out why, but driving through tunnels freaks me out. The Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel, Queens Midtown Tunnel, you name it, I hate it. When I have to drive through a tunnel I feel a strange weight on my head that makes me hunker down like a hunch back. I imagine that any second its going to get flooded with water and I'm going to drown. Please don't let me see a puddle. With a death grip on the steering wheel, I drive as fast as the I can (what speed limit?) all the while praying there's no traffic jam.

The weird thing is if someone else is driving or I'm on a subway train (which does nothing but pass through tunnels), I'm not afraid at all.

As far as monsters are concerned, I'm deathly afraid of tribbles.

Lainey

Drachen Jager · Feb 10, 2012

Any kind of monster that might erase all the back-ups of my manuscript. That terrifies me!

Seriously though, the last monster to scare me was The Thing. The whole idea of a Doppelganger that can transform into anyone and walk among us, could be your best friend, your wife, or your kid. That's scary, you leave yourself open to those people.

BRDurkin · Feb 10, 2012

What scares me most is the beast which lurks within man. Call it melodramatic if you will... but of all the archetypical "monsters" we've created in our fiction, none are capable of the savagery that mankind inflicts upon itself every day.

The most frightening antagonists in any book or movie, to me, are the regular people who choose to take out their anger, hate, and ill-intent on their fellow people.

cornetto · Feb 10, 2012

Ari Meermans said:
It's not a vampire or a zombie. They're not real. I don't know what "it" is, but it's been outside the window all my life. Everywhere I've ever lived. Waiting. Not every night mind you, but when it is out there I know it. I refuse to even look at a window after dark. Just in case.

Me, too.

One night my husband and I were watching the X-Files--the flukeman episode. I heard something outside. Hubby went in the office to look out the window and I checked the living room window. I couldn't really see anthing because it was all fogged up--on the outside of the glass. The fog started to clear off, so I leaned closer to the window and this huge eye appeared, pressed against the window. It snorted and the window fogged up again, like that scene with the T-rex in Jurassic Park. Scared the crap outta me.

Hubby was laughing in the office, so I went in there and looked out the window. The "monster" was one of our horses with his face up against the glass, seemingly absorbed in the TV show. Judging from the piles of poop around his feet, he'd been there awhile. So we went outside, real quietlike, sneaked around the corner of the house, jumped out and yelled "AHHHH!" That horse--a 1000 pound, wide-assed quarter horse gelding--squealed like a little girl and jumped straight up in the air like a cartoon, hair on end, eyes bugged out...we laughed our asses off. Then we ran like hell, lol.

contrariwise · Feb 11, 2012

Things that are immaterial are the scariest. I'm not scared of vampires or werewolves or monsters. Things I can easily see and touch aren't scary. But if I start hearing disembodied whispers or things start moving of their own accord, that's when it gets scary.

Archerbird · Feb 11, 2012

I have a fear of glowing eyes in the dark after I saw Terminator as a kid. Also, dolls. Had a nightmare about them when I was a kid.

amlptj · Feb 11, 2012

What scares me the most are... well they dont really have a name but shadow people or things.

When i was a small child i had night terrors. Alot of the time i had the same dream. I'd wake up to see a dark shadow of a man standing at the bottom of my bed perfectly still. Then i'd look up to see one at the top of my bed coming out of the wall. I dont have night terrors anymore but some night when I have trouble going to sleep the memory of those nightmares comes to me and it freaks me out to open my eyes and see something at the bottom of my bed. That's why i got at bunk bed!

Creepy shadows of things and people still kind of give me the creeps. Like that quick glimps of "something" you see out the side of your eyes. Always reminds me of that damn nightmare.

Also terrified of dolls beyond all rational reason, and bugs aswell.

contrariwise · Feb 11, 2012

Archerbird said:
I have a fear of glowing eyes in the dark after I saw Terminator as a kid. Also, dolls. Had a nightmare about them when I was a kid.

Dolls are some creepy, messed up stuff, mate. Especially when they're broken in such a fashion as to appear completely inhuman.

Shakesbear · Feb 11, 2012

I've been trying to think about what scares me the most whilst reading through the comments already posted. I can't think of anything that scares me in the sense of creatures real or imaginary. What does scare me is when an author is able to build up tension in such a way that I am scared to turn the page. Susan Hill did that with The Woman in Black, and P.C.Doherty in The Haunting.

scarletpeaches · Feb 11, 2012

No monsters ever scared me because I always knew they weren't real.

Vornad · Feb 11, 2012

As someone previously mentioned, the evil inside I find most scary. Like Dr. Jeckyll/ Mr Hyde or maybe a demonic possession.

Jadeyn M · Feb 11, 2012

I'm terrified of planes at night. I live beside a nuclear plant, and after 9/11 (I was just a kid at the time) I became afraid that a plane would crash into the plant and blow it up. My anxieties became so bad that I literally dreaded going to bed at night; it's come down to any noises at night that I can't immediately identify are somehow meant to threaten me.

Shakesbear · Feb 11, 2012

Jadeyn M I understand about the noises at night and not being able to immediately identify them. When I first moved into my present home I had no idea how much an old house (it's over four hundred years old) could creak and moan. The house had also been empty for over a month and a family of mice had moved in. They were noisy as they investigated the various boxes and packages. They moved out when Mr Cat started to investigate them!

jaksen · Feb 11, 2012

Not much. I've read so much horror, sadly so, that I find it hard to find a really scary book - or movie.

But zombies still scare me. The fact they could be anywhere-everywhere in a good zombie flick or book. The fact anyone anytime, even your fav. character could get bit or eaten or surrounded anywhere, any time...

That still scares me. I watch 'The Walking Dead' with a pillow in my lap, the same way I watched scary movies when I was a kid.

LilliCray · Feb 11, 2012

Agree with the dolls. Freaking. Creepy. Also, clowns. *shudder* I read It, and through the whole thing--at least until it was clear the thing wasn't going to show up as a freaking clown anymore--I had to read it in basically a corner so I wouldn't be afraid something was coming up behind me.

Hm, beyond that, anything that doesn't confront directly. Anything that stalks, that there are little clues you can tell that it's there, but you don't see it, at least until it kills you. Basically, the unknown, the unseeable.

When I was a kid, I used to be unable to go up a flight of stairs without becoming convinced if I didn't get upstairs fast enough, a tiger was going to come eat me. Strange. Random. On the one hand, I knew there wasn't a tiger, and on the other, I was absolutely convinced. Actually had a recurrence of this feeling a few months ago, which was really, really weird...

cameron_chapman · Feb 11, 2012

I used to be deathly afraid of vampires, but Twilight cured me of that. And shows like Vampire Diaries made them hot, so definitely not afraid of them anymore.

Zombies scare me, and I have repeated dreams about them, but they don't terrify me. I think I'd do okay in a zombie outbreak.

I think now the scariest things for me are real people. The psychopath/sociopath character who is completely capable of doing all sorts of nasty things AND could be a real person lurking outside my window (especially in my neighborhood). The whole someone lurking in the backseat of my car at night thing is terrifying.

Ari Meermans · Feb 11, 2012

cornetto said:
The "monster" was one of our horses with his face up against the glass, seemingly absorbed in the TV show. Judging from the piles of poop around his feet, he'd been there awhile. So we went outside, real quietlike, sneaked around the corner of the house, jumped out and yelled "AHHHH!" That horse--a 1000 pound, wide-assed quarter horse gelding--squealed like a little girl and jumped straight up in the air like a cartoon, hair on end, eyes bugged out...we laughed our asses off. Then we ran like hell, lol.

Shame on ya, though.

jclarkdawe · Feb 11, 2012

Squirrels.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Becky Black · Feb 11, 2012

Rabies. When I was a kid I got a bit too freaked out by the threat of rabies getting into the UK and basically thought it would lead to the breakdown of civilization.

Well there were these really scary posters about it in the library! And there was a TV drama I probably shouldn't have been allowed to watch. Reading Cujo last year only brought it all back.

So probably the scary invisible threat of the microscopic monster of disease!

blackrose602 · Feb 11, 2012

My parents have a great story. When I was a kid, they left me with my grandmother while they went to a double-feature at the drive-in: Ghost Story and one of the Psycho sequels. We lived in a very small town then, so the late-night drive home was almost deserted.

They stopped at a traffic light behind one other car. No one else in sight. The light turned green and the car never moved. Dad honked, but no response. The light turned red. Fortunately, a police car happened by about the time that the light turned green again. My dad got out and he and the officer approached the car. There was a lone occupant, a young male, not moving. The cop banged on the window and yelled, and the guy woke up! He had simply drifted off.

It's really hard to scare me. But for some reason The Ring totally did it. That movie just completely freaks me out. Of course, it didn't help that the first time I saw it, my phone rang in the middle--and there was no one on the other end.

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