Fiction that creeped you out as a child not because of the plot events themselves...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

...but because of the overly ominous delivery?

Examples from my childhood:

- "In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe, lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead."
- The Biblical-looking end title card in the 50s movie When Worlds Collide.

[HopeHoops]

1. The one with Harry the Dog and his sweater.

I don't know why. I loved the book, but the bird taking off with the loose thread just freaked the hell out of me.

[Aristus]

2. I thought that quote was from the narrated ending of "Beneath The Planet Of The Apes."

Or did they simply reuse the "When Worlds Collide" phrase?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Yes, "Beneath The Planet Of The Apes." Two examples.

And in fact, the end card on WWC is much less ominous than I remember, now that I looked it up. It says just "This is the first day on the new world".

[Frank Cannon]

7. That IS from Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Methinks the OP is mistaken.

Glory be to the Bomb, and to the Holy Fallout.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

17. What we have here is a failure to communicate.

It's two different examples, but I guess my formatting was less than clear. :dunce:

[Frank Cannon]

37. Ah. I see.

I missed the first "bullet". It looked like you were attributing that quote to When Worlds Collide, and as a lifelong POTA fan, I don't cotton to that sort of thing.

But as Emily Latella used to say, "Never mind".

[murielm99]

4. Robinson Crusoe

When he found the footprint on the beach, that creeped me out. It scared Crusoe pretty badly, too.

[PassingFair]

11. That is indeed a masterpiece of drama.

The entire tone and direction of the novel changes from loneliness and
introspection to fear and acute paranoia.

He goes from wishing every minute for a companion to
total fear and defense mode. I remember being blown away
by the abrupt change in pace and outlook.

[Iggo]

5. Sounds like the intro to an Electric Wizard tune...lol.

[MissHoneychurch]

6. "The History of Little Mook" by Wilhem Hauff

I had an album with the fairy tales by Wilhelm Hauff. "The History of the Little Mook" creeped my out. When I listend to the album I always skipped that story.

[Crystal Clarity]

8. Wow. You were DEEP as a child.

For me, it was *just* an illustrated pic of The Big Bad Wolf's eyeball peering in on The Little Pig with the stick house. I used to make my mom skip that page. Ha! Kind of funny now... but not then, my friends...not then. :scared:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. I watched all kinds of sinister movies as a child in the 70s.

There was one (forgot the title too) about a ghost crew in a fallen WW2 plane in the middle of the desert. In the end, all of the ghosts are successfully taken to the afterlife, except one, condemned to stay alone with the wrecked plane for all eternity. And he did nothing to deserve that fate, it was because they couldn't locate his body to give it a funeral. More than 35 years later, and I still can't take that off my mind.

And then there was Killdozer. What did it for me there was the scene where the Christine-like-possessed titular 'dozer runs over and crushes a metal pipe with a man inside. Egads.

Come to think of it, that last one could have very well been a Star Trek episode. Would have been the creepiest one ever, by FAR.

Hell, many ST:TOS qualify. I cried for the Horta's children. And for the half-black-half-white races who murdered themselves to extinction. And for Kirk's crewmate who acquired godlike powers he couldn't handle. And for the girl who was crushed while transformed into a hardened sponge. And for Apollo. And, and, and...

All of those before I turned 10.

[Blue-Jay]

21. He was an "Indigo Child".

Seriously, his skin was that color. The doctors never figured it out, but it eventually just faded away.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

24. Says the one called BLUE-Jay.

Ha! :D

[Blue-Jay]

26. Curse you!

[Auggie]

9. TV, not literature. The intro to the original Outer Limits

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission..."

I was six. It darn near made my head explode.

[deutsey]

12. Yeah, that weirded me out, too

And I could never understand the shows for some reason, like I could Twilight Zone.

[Auggie]

20. Just watched an episode on Hulu last night

That opening still gets me -- the voice, the music, the visuals. Creepy mind-control stuff.

[Blue_Tires]

10. The Lorax

[PassingFair]

13. Melmoth the Wanderer

"Yes, I laugh at all mankind, and the imposition that they dare to practice when they talk of hearts. I laugh at human passions and human cares, vice and virtue, religion and impiety; they are all the result of petty localities, and artificial situation. One physical want, one severe and abrupt lesson from the colorless and shriveled lip of necessity, is worth all the logic of the empty wretches who have presumed to prate it, from Zeno down to Burgersdicius. It silences in a second all the feeble sophistry of conventional life, and ascetical passion."


— Charles Robert Maturin (Melmoth the Wanderer)

[deutsey]

14. The beginning of Dark Shadows

Good lord, that music still creeps me out.

The show itself horrified me as a kid, too. I used to imagine Barnabas Collins in that cape of his standing in a dark corner of my bedroom waiting for me to fall asleep. :scared:

Now I see the show for what it was: a laughably campy soap opera.

[Dr. Strange]

18. Good one.

Loved that show as a kid.

[murielm99]

22. I love Dark Shadows!

I watched some of the earliest episodes not long ago. I have more in my queue. They bring back good memories.

[deutsey]

23. I think Barnabas Collins would kick Edward Cullen's ass

I mean, that cane of his alone would smack the peach fuzz off of Edward's face in a second.



:evilgrin:

[Dr. Strange]

28. Truth!

Hell, Count Chocula could kick Pattinson's ass.

[deutsey]

29. LOL

:thumbsup:

[murielm99]

39. Edward Cullen is a teenage girl's fantasy.

Teenage girls all want to be desired by a beautiful creature, but they are taught to resist temptation. Bella has to resist Edward unless he marries her. Edward can't drink her blood. How silly. Vampires are all about gluttony and giving in to temptation. You might as well pull Edward's teeth. Who writes this crap?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

15. For whatever reason, I was freaked out by the Klingon dog in Star Trek 3.

http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/1/1f/Klingon_dog,_Star_Trek_III.jpg

Which was not intended to be scary, but it just is.

[Brickbat]

16. "And what would you do if you met a Jibboo?"

I'd fucking stay up all night, that's what!

This doesn't really fit with your OP, but I was reminded of it: I also had the National Geographic "Our World" book, which was great for a map-loving social studies geeky kid, but it had a scary pic similar to this one, illustrating Easter celebrations in Spain. All I knew was it didn't look like any Easter *I* knew:

[Tommy_Carcetti]

25. Foo Foo the Snoo from Dr. Seuss' "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut"

It's never described what he is or what his purpose is, but he doesn't look nice at all.

[Arkansas Granny]

27. The one that got to me was "The Arena" by Fredric Brown. My older

brother was a science fiction fan and I read this in a collection of short stories (as I recall) when I was about 8 years old. I'm in my 60's now and this might have been my first seriously adult book and it made quite an impression on me.

A man awakes to find himself lying on the sand in an enclosed space. The only other thing he can see is an alien being and it becomes apparent that they are to engage in a duel to the finish. You can read a summary here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_(short_story)

[TZ]

30. This is weird but for a long time Marlins (the fish) freaked me out

It had to do with me reading The Old Man and the Sea in 6th grade. Liked the story in general but something about the fish scared me, I guess because of how much the old man went through.

[MorningGlow]

31. "What Was I Scared Of?"

The Dr. Seuss story about pants with nobody inside 'em. I think it was the illustrations--very dark.

[Brickbat]

33. Yep, that's a creepy one. I love it, but my kids didn't like me to read it to them.

Poor pale green pants with nobody inside them!

[cemaphonic]

34. Heh, my 3-year-old loves that one. We read it almost every night

But I've always had a taste for the macabre, so he comes by it honestly.

It is pretty creepy though, with the blue background, and the illustrations of the town are pretty much like I've always imagined Lovecraft's Arkham to look.

[CreekDog]

32. Rush's "Tom Sawyer"

it sounded so evil.

yet was quite meaningless.


:D

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

35. You want evil? Listen to the opening of Vangelis' "Nucleogenesis 1". You'll shit bricks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVcM6pK1RMU

[TZ]

36. Grr

I think I'm going to go all Sleeping Beauty on you...:spank:

[Frank Cannon]

38. The song "Angie Baby" by Helen Reddy

The events of the song are kind of silly, but it gave me the creeps as a kid when I'd hear it playing late at night on my little transistor radio.