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People Share Their Most Bone-Chilling 'Let's Get The Hell Outta Here' Experiences

photo of person's hand on wall
Photo by MontyLov on Unsplash

Sometimes you just get a vibe or a tingle down your neck that you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It can be wise to trust this gut instinct, as we learned from many in the Reddit community.

Often those goosebumps or the voice in their head actually saved them from serious harm.


It all started when Redditor throwaway_district9 asked:

"what has been your most bone-chilling, hair-raising, "Let's get the hell out of here" experience?"

A Frightening Weekend

"I don't tell this story often but this seems like a good place. Back in college I used to drive up the Oregon coast on weekends, then just crash in my car when I got tired. I woke from a nap in the driver's seat and something just didn't feel quite right. It was just dusk and the light was fading pretty fast."

"I yawned and stretched and as I did so I turned my head to the side and just caught a face ducking down below my rear passenger window. I went to hit the lock button just to make sure and in my panic I accidentally unlocked the doors briefly and then locked them again."

"I stared at the window for a few minutes, knowing that someone was crouching just out of sight. Eventually, I started the car and thought I heard a scuffing sound. Whoever it was didn't reappear, but that was enough for me. As I noped out of there and pulled out back onto Highway 101, I glanced back and a bald figure in a red t-shirt with something wrapped around his face booked it into the woods on the side of the road."

"That was the end of that weekend trip. I drove the two hours back to my dorm room, white-knuckled hands locked on the steering wheel. I had to pull over a few miles down the road though to deal with the adrenaline shakes."

– jasonhackwith

What Could It Be?

"Me and a couple of my friends were walking around at night when we were around 11 or 12 and I specifically remember all of us feeling like something was off and we started joking about someone or something getting us and saying to each other we’re not afraid of anything. Then we heard a raspy growl that we all agreed had to be a mountain lion."

"All of us were in a dead sprint to my house, scared sh*tless as soon as we heard it. I didn’t live in a place where they usually are so people mostly didn’t believe us, but shortly afterwards and after some more sightings, a mountain lion was caught just 10-15 miles from my home. In hindsight it definitely wasn’t very close to us and we didn’t actually see it, but we definitely exaggerated and acted like it was right next to us."

– bringeroflightning

​Not So Abandoned

"A friend and I were exploring an abandoned factory in North Philadelphia about 8 years ago, and when we got to about the third floor...I discovered a booby trap in the stairwell."

"Basically it was a trip wire that swung an axe down from the ceiling."

"Right as that fully set in, we heard someone from up above shout "YO!""

"Time to go."

"I've never covered that much ground so fast. I think we were two or three blocks away before we realized we were riding each other's bikes."

– PlayerH8rsBallz

Furniture Troubles

"When I was 16 I had a pickup truck and my parents asked me to pick up some new furniture on the way home. As I’m driving home it starts pissing rain and I was worried the furniture would get destroyed, so I pulled over on the side of the road under an overpass to wait it out."

"As I’m waiting, another car pulls up behind me. An overweight bald man steps out and begins walking towards my car. I tell him I’m waiting for the rain to stop so I don’t ruin the furniture for my parents."

"He was acting very odd and telling me he would help me out as he was fingering his belly button. I was creeped the f*ck out."

"He says one minute he has to grab something to help and leans into his car window. All of my alarm bells are going off so I figured f*ck it and just sped off furniture be damned."

"So glad I did, who knows what would have happened"

– DrPeterVankman

Volunteer To Prey

"My wife and I were on a search mission for some missing fern pickers. We were volunteers with the local search and rescue (SAR) team. We decided to stay in the search area that night and had built a pretty nice fire. We were sitting there and it was about 0200, hoping this dude would wander into camp."

"I had heard animals around us throughout the night. No surprise, we're in the middle of the woods, I'm used to animals stalking around outside my camp."

"I knew there were two animals, one one each side of us. It was at about that point when we heard a bird chirp. It came from about the place I figured one of the animals were. Then another, from the opposite side."

"I immediately realized we were being watched and stalked by at least two cougars. We very quickly climbed into the back of my truck. It's got a camper shell and is outfitted for truck camping."

– SGTRhoads16

Drive Off

"Driving Uber one night a couple years back. I picked up four guys from a club, listening to them talk I realized that two guys (one of them ordered the ride) had met the other two at the club and were on the way to get drugs from one of their cousins."

"There was an odd vibe, some of the conversation didn't seem the most linear, and I was hyper-aware that these drunk dumba**es were heading with two strangers to a drug deal. And I was the one driving them."

"I did not want drugs in my car, and I was very aware that we might be on the way to an ambush. If we'd been heading anywhere remote or sketchy I had to figure out how to end the ride."

"The two wannabe dealers kept trying to get in touch with their cousin via cellphone, went to an apartment just off a main street, and after both had gone into the building I just said "should be leave?" to the guys and we did. I still don't know if it was just a ploy for a free ride, guys too drunk or dumb to pull off a basic drug deal, or something nefarious that didn't finish."

– verminiusrex

Trust Your Gut

"I was in an upstairs lab in med school, just a friend & I practicing surgical skills. There was a main enclosed staircase down to the lobby/classrooms & a weird outdoor stairwell that nobody ever used except in fire drills. It wasn't a fire escape, but the old main entrance to the lab classroom. When I put my hand on the door handle to the main stairs, I was FILLED with a weird sense of "Get out! Not that way!" Just absolute fear, I felt trapped & anxious. For the first time in 3 years, I said "Let's take the outdoor stairs..." My friend had literally no idea there even WAS another exit."

"The next day we found out that at the exact time we were taking the outside stairs, one of our classmates was pulling a gun on the admin & students in the lobby at the base of the main stairs. He'd been kicked out of the program for his grades & snapped."

"My friend still talks about it & tells people to always trust my instincts. I actually asked her to stop telling people, because I felt so weird about it. I'm sure I just heard something in the distance that gave me that feeling, but Gavin de Becker would be proud!"

– ittybittylurker

Lightning Strike

"One time I was out in Colorado with some buddies hiking near the top of a mountain. Some bad weather started to roll in but the top was only 15 mins away so I went ahead while they went back down. As I was getting to the top I felt static in the air and the hair in my head started to stand up. I immediately started to panic cause I thought I was about to get struck by lightning so naturally I ran down without ever getting to the top. I’m not sure if I was gunna get struck but I sure as hell wasn’t sticking around to find out."

– shlable710

Bone Trail

"Hiking in the Rocky Mountains, on a trail I knew pretty well. I was leading a group of kids, maybe twenty or so middle school aged children from the camp where I worked."

"I turned a corner and saw a jaw bone of a deer. Pretty cool, showed it to the kids. Didn't have any flesh on it, so I assumed it was pretty old."

"A hundred feet further down the trail I find another bone. Femur maybe (I specialized in insect populations, not deer anatomy.) This one looked a little fresher. Another ways down, another bone."

"I'm getting a little nervous at this point, so I explain that we should probably turn around and head back. My students all groan that they want to see more dead stuff, but I shepherd them down the train and back to camp."

"Two days later we got a call at the camp that someone had been attacked in the area by a mountain lion. Apparently a mountain lion had set itself up in the caves on the cliffside and it had gotten pissed when someone got too close."

"I'm glad we left the area, even if my students would have loved to see more dead stuff."

– SalemScout

Yeah, I would've left too!

Do you have any similar experiences? Let us know in the comments below.

The Weirdest Things People Have Learned About Themselves From DNA Testing

Reddit user OmarBessa asked: 'Redditors who have gotten genetic tests, what's the weirdest thing you learnt from your DNA?'

lab test with pipette and test tubes
Louis Reed on Unsplash

At the end of the last century DNA laboratory companies began to offer direct-to-consumer home DNA test kits.

According to The Center for Genetics and Society, as of November 2023 more than 26 million people have taken an at-home ancestry DNA test.

These tests have helped people find and reunite with long lost family members. However not all revelations were well met.

Unknown ancestry was discovered.

Infidelity and secrets and lies were also exposed by these tests which led to strife in some families.

Keep reading...Show less

Content Warning: Discussions of Addiction

We've all heard of strange, inedible things that people have made a habit of eating, like paper or glue. Unfortunately, there are instances where eating these things works more like an addiction than a dietary choice.

There are a lot of other things that people might become addicted to, too, that have nothing to do with food, but which also are not the usual culprits for addiction.

If someone that we know is addicted to something unusual and isn't hiding it the same way that someone addicted to drugs might, it can be a really strange experience to witness.

Curious about others' experiences, Redditor JARClol asked:

"What is the weirdest thing you are or saw someone addicted to?"

Packing Peanuts

"I used to know a girl who was addicted to eating those little polystyrene chips that are used for packaging."

"She always had a bag of them with her. The noise she made when she was munching on them used to set my teeth on edge."

- -Some__Random-

"Don't tell her about the biodegradable ones (which actually taste nutty)."

- Hardwarestore_Senpai

A Hairy Situation

"A roommate in college was addicted to hair. She collected hair and made hair people. She would use the community vacuum cleaner, take out the hair, wash it, and make hair people."

"She would also go to salons asking for the cut hair 'for her family’s garden' and then proceed to make hair people."

"She had hundreds of them with names and stories about them."

"I kept my hairbrush locked up after it was cleaned out the first time."

- bzsbal

Pen and Ink

"Eating markers, like the tube of it. Inside the casing. I told his mother and her reply was, 'Oh, he's doing it again,' like... Again? Toxic ink? Again? I don't mean licking it. I mean chewing. Black ink in saliva and swallowing the ink-soaked sponge."

- Jazzlike_Grab_7228

"I knew a dude in high school who ate the ink from pens. Every class, gnawing on a pen, eventually breaking it open then sucking on it like a straw. He regularly would be drooling ink. I left that school sophomore year, and I wonder whatever happened to Abe."

- throwawaydbagain

"Abe? Was his last name LINKoln?"

- GetaGoodLookCostanza

The Strawberry Milk Fan

"I used to work with a girl who would just chug liters of strawberry milk. Every time I went to the toilet after her it stank of milk. She was eventually diagnosed with Type-Two Diabetes and gave up the milk… briefly."

- lifesyndromes

"Yeah, I'm not surprised. I'm Type-Two, and strawberry milk usually has more sugar in it than chocolate milk. The smaller-sized cartons you get at lunch usually have 22 to 40 grams of sugar in them and a s**tton of sodium (no, I'm not joking), so a liter would have hundreds of grams in it."

"I got it after 23 years of poor choices and family medical history. She got it by decimating her pancreas and s**tting a machine gun."

"And you said briefly, meaning she's probably worse off. Like, I still have sugar, but I try and have less of it. I f**k up a lot because it's hard, but f**k, if she went back to drinking liters of it, I wouldn't be surprised if she's had some other issues."

- JediBoJediPrime29

Just a Taste

"My best friend used to eat fabric softener in high school. She wouldn't have huge mouthfuls or gulps; she would take just enough to coat her tongue."

"She would keep bottles of it hidden around her room so she could have a taste whenever the mood struck her. I love her to death, but she’s a strange one, lol (laughing out loud)."

- officiallyedgy

Weren't We All?

"I used to be addicted to Candy Crush back in the day. After running out of five lives, I couldn't wait for them to be available so I would forward my clock just to be able to play. My phone was set to the year 2030ish by the time I stopped playing."

- moolucifer

"Wow. You time traveled. That's a loophole though, isn't it? You never had to pay for fake things."

- Hardwarestore_Senpai

Just After a Few Beers

"Not so much addicted but I had a friend in college that would huff the fluid in his zippo lighter when he was really drunk."

"Treavor wasn’t allowed to have his lighter after a few beers."

- shavemejesus

Albuterol Tremors

​"I had a good friend in high school who had asthma who’d take hits off his inhaler, all day long. We’d be talking and he’d just casually whip it out whenever and take a hit. Ended up going to bed a couple of years after we graduated and never woke up."

- Magormgo

"I'm sorry. He probably f**ked his heart up. I hate taking my inhaler. It makes my heart race and makes me shake and feel like s**t."

- Weeniebuttcorgo

"Growing up, I used to take two Albuterol vials in my slow, old 90s nebulizer during asthma episodes. That thing was a TANK."

"I got a brand-spankin' new travel nebulizer in college and remember that first time I used two vials with it. I thought I was having a heart attack. That thing is POWERFUL and I wasn't expecting it. Two vials were far too strong and had me shaking for over an hour."

"I still have it to this day, and when I take it once a year or so for a flare-up, even one vial still makes me shake a bit."

- HorseGirl667

The Truth Behind the Problem

"I visited Nairobi for work around 2000 and the street kids all walked around with a small bottle of glue stuck to their upper lip so they were basically sniffing glue continually. It was extremely sad."

- Pretty-Balance-Sheet

"Probably something similar here in the Philippines. Homeless street kids sniff a plastic bag with a bit of contact cement in it to get rid of/to numb the hunger sensation. Not an addiction but a survival tactic… in my opinion."

- cssndrsrno

"Same in Zambian. Not stuck to their lip but carried and sniffed when needed. It was apparently to numb the body from feeling the cold in winter. Painfully sad."

- iron-clad-underwear

Never Underestimate Soda

"My first-ever girlfriend was genuinely addicted to Coca-Cola (self-admitted). She would have a glass as soon as she woke up and drink it all day."

"The one or two times I was there when her family had run out of it, she was irritable, anxious, and so grumpy until she was able to get down to the store to buy more."

"Strangely, it wasn't even the caffeine or sugar she was addicted to, because having a coffee or a different type of soda wasn't enough to ease her withdrawal symptoms."

- SheAlwaysHasMyHeart

"I had a friend who slept with a cooler of Diet Pepsi next to the bed. He had a large Slurpee cup that was always full, no matter where he was."

"We did a five-day offshore fishing trip. He ran out late on day four."

"As we pulled the boat into the dock, he literally ran and jumped onto the dock and raced to the soda machine at the far end."

- LongJumping_Local910

That's One Way to Use It

"My Spanish teacher was addicted to Vix VapoRub! Not to use it traditionally, though."

"She was eating it."

"Apparently, she knows that it's not a secret, because she ate it using a tongue depressor right in front of us, during the first week of school. I guess she figured we couldn't poke fun at her if she owned it."

"She literally demonstrated! She said her grandfather taught her and she likes the consistency/overwhelming scent."

"I can't imagine it's good for her."

- meg6ust6ala6titons

Live to Game

"Rocket League. I'm not even joking. The guy was in his 20s and playing up to eight hours a day."

"He used to be super social and became a hermit pretty much for seven years. He would pretend to be sick at work so he could play three days straight."

"He lost his whole social life. He spent New Year's every one of those years sitting in a dark room with windows covered, playing that game."

"I tried to get him to stop but never worked."

- IMNO-LEGEND

Ice Chewing

"I used to be addicted to chewing on ice, or maybe obsessed. I would bring a cup full of crushed ice with me everywhere. When I went to the beach, I would just bring a bag of ice from the gas station and sit and eat it."

"I stopped for ages and then became temporarily obsessed again during one of my pregnancies. I was checked for vitamin deficiencies both times but nothing came up."

- mistyoceania

The Use of Chapstick

"I'm addicted to chapstick. I can't go more than three hours without applying it."

"I think my lips are relying on the chapstick now because they get dry so quickly. And it feels like nails on a chalkboard when they do, I can't focus on anything else besides my lips being dry until I get some chapstick, lol (laughing out loud)."

- ComprehensivePie8809

"Here’s a pro tip someone told me: before you put chapstick on wet your lips so there’s actual moisture to lock in."

"I also find Vaseline is way cheaper and way more effective. I use it once in the morning and once before bed and I’ve gotten chapped lips like five times in the last seven years."

- sadkrampus

An Interesting Choice!

"Judge Judy. And it was me. My boyfriend introduced me to the show in my mid-thirties and I binged it on YouTube, listening to it whilst working in our warehouse/driving/cleaning/anything."

"Six years later, if I have a task that I really need to get into productive mode for, I put her on and my brain shifts gears."

"At one point, it felt weird to work without her voice in the background yelling at people. She’s like my white noise. She’s my default soundtrack."

- Fuzeillear

These accounts were honestly fascinating, and in some causes haunting, to read.

It just goes to show that, first of all, we all like different things, and second of all, you never know what is going to qualify as "too much of a good thing" for one person compared to someone else.

Female mariner
Mark König/Unsplash

Those who work in different fields all have their respective anecdotes that are sure to keep listeners engaged.

But certain jobs that keep employees away from land are sure to have the most intriguing stories to share.

Seafarers shared their unique experiences bordering on hair-raising phenomena when Redditor tylo144 asked:

"For those who have careers that keep them out at sea for long periods of time, what is the creepiest thing you’ve seen out in the water?"

Mariners shared their wildest stories from their time out at sea.

Fierce Gale

"Not so much what I saw but what I experienced. I was once underway in the Gulf of Alaska during a November gale. Waves were up to 35 feet with some rollers hitting 45. An uncommon occurrence on the diesel electric ship I was on was a cyclo-converter tripping. When this happened the ship would temporarily completely lose power and propulsion until some electricians could reset everything. This happened during that gale. I simply can’t explain how strange it is for the boat you’re on to all of a sudden go so quiet, that you can clearly hear waves slapping the ship and metal bending and flexing. Knowing you’re completely at the mercy of the sea. Knowing that if the ship lost its bearing and went beam to there was a real possibility of capsizing. It’s easy to forget when you’re at sea that the only thing keeping you alive is a bunch of steel welded together. At that moment I was fully aware and it humbled me. Thankfully we trained frequently for this and had everything fired back up relatively quickly."

"Another time I recall was when the ship took a rogue wave. They are absolutely real and I believe they account for a massive number of shipwrecks. It was late at night and I was on the bridge. We were passing through a storm and we’re taking the waves off the bow with no visibility. As the ship moves there’s normally a pretty standard pattern. You ride up a wave for a bit and then you fall down the wave for a bit. Well we started riding up a wave and got to the point where we should have been starting or ride down…but we just kept climbing and climbing. And then it happened. We started our ride down the back of this massive wave. All of us braced ourselves and tried to find something to hold on to but we all fell to the deck any way. Anything that wasn’t secured for sea fell down all around us. Manuals, tables, computers, printers, you name it. Our captain who was sleeping called up to the bridge asking if we hit something. It woke the entire crew up. Rogue waves are real, and they’re terrifying. I can’t imagine being in a smaller boat or taking one of them broadside."

– red_pimp69

Series Of Bizarre Events

"I was in the US Navy for about 10 years, and have 10s of thousands of miles at sea in an aircraft carrier. Countless nights on the flight deck in the middle of the night and middle of the ocean..."

"Creepiest: A HUGE patch of the ocean glowing. Like nuclear waste in the Simpsons glowing. I've seen bioluminescent algae of a few kinds and this was nothing like it. I've never seen anything like it before or since."

"Weirdest thing: hundreds of mile out to sea from land and there was a MASSIVE fire on the water. It was like the top of a gas refinery, but on the water with nothing under it but water. Flame going a few stories into the air."

"Funniest: 2 flying fish collide mid-air. I was smoking when we were in the Persian Gulf and saw the fish fly from a pretty far distance towards each other. I remember thinking 'there's no f'kin way they're going to hit' them SPLAT SPLASH! I was in tears laughing but no one saw it. Everyone just thought I was a weirdo, but I got to see a miracle of nature lol"

– BBQQA

Lone Yacht

"Some 20 years ago..."

"On the MV Explorer (since sunk) down near the Antarctic circle, sailing around the 'bergs and occasionally making landfall..."

"We rounded into a small bay area, and there, amongst the ice and coast was an unmarked sailing yacht. Which is odd as generally yachts have some identifying markings on them."

"To add to it, they didn't respond to any radio contact, and whilst I wasn't privy to the conversation (and it was a long time ago), some crew went across via Zodiac and were refused boarding."

"So basically a yacht, not a particularly large one, that was unmarked was hanging around in the inhospitable waters of the Antarctic and didn't want any help or contact."

"Proper weird."

– ThanklessTask

These Redditors have fearlessly plunged into darkness.

Dark Dive

"I used to be an oilfield diver in the Gulf of Mexico. I'd say about 80% of the dives I logged were at night. Mostly 500 ft and under DSV's."

"It's very eerie feeling sitting on the downline doing in water decompression in the middle of night. I'd always ask topside to turn off my headlight."

"Like a worm on a hook. Just bobbing in the darkness."

– Comrade_Fuzzybottoms

A Dark Calm

"Not even nearly as extreme as your story but it evoked a memory, I did a scuba diving open water course and then did the advanced course which included a night dive in a freshwater lake."

"I was only 5m underwater, pitch black darkness with two other guys, we were on a platform and we could either face the dam wall or the open water, and I turned to the open water while the other guys were behind me, I turned off my light (we did have little lights on our backs)"

"Just the deepest, calmest dark I’ve ever felt and seen. Not a single source of light anywhere, just immense darkness. Still remember that feeling and it was like 15 years ago"

– circleinsidecircle

Things get more interesting.

Water Glow

"The bioluminescent animals (or whatever they are) in the water is pretty amazing. Our toilet would fill up with seawater and if you took a piss in it in the middle of the night it would agitate the water and it would glow sometimes."

– Tub-a-guts

"Ominous Red Snow Angel"

"Always love the bio-luminescence flickering around the hull at night. They're almost like a cushion of little stars guiding you safely along. On those really dark, moonless nights, I'd almost beg for them to arrive."

"I sailed 70ft yacht around the world a few years back. Southern Ocean, Cape Horn, Good Hope, Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, two equatorial crossings; the full deal. Plenty of terrifying moments, boring moments, funny moments and beautiful moments."

"A creepy moment that is burned into my memory involved a near catastrophe halfway between NZ and Cape Horn. We ended up hitting really bad weather and absolutely huge seas - 50ft swells with massive troughs in between. We were running with the swells for days as they grew, skidding down them like a bloated surfboard, always worrying that the next wave would break behind us and roll us over."

"At night it's pitch black down there in bad weather - the sky and sea just form a huge black mass. The most terrifying thing is the sound of an invisible wave breaking behind you. At night, you run red light to preserve night vision, so there's basically just an eerie red glow emanating from below deck."

"At about two in the morning, I was at the helm when a monster wave broke directly over the back of us without a seconds warning. Time slowed down like it does in those moments, and the last thing I saw was my own silhouette in the wall of water, lit up like an ominous red snow angel - and then nothing but cold blackness as the boat sunk into the sea."

"Fortunately, she popped straight back up like a cork after a few eternal seconds - almost like a submarine surfacing - and we were still in one piece. Still cant forget that glowing red apparition of myself though. The memory of it has woken me up in a cold sweat more than once."

– Le_Rat_Mort

Coming Up For Air

"Somewhere in the Atlantic, nice cold as f**k night, decided to step out and look at stars. About ten minutes on and a boats mast pops up, sits there a few minutes and then back under. No alarms, nothing. Just some sub boys getting a bit of late night o2 in the middle of nowhere next to some friends."

– MyMomsSecondSon

When I worked on cruise ships, I was always captivated by the green flash on the horizon.

The optical phenomenon occurs just as the sun goes down or before sunrise, with the tip of the sun barely visible.

It emits a flash of green light that I found absolutely thrilling to witness every time.

It's not necessarily creepy, but still a wonder for sure.

No matter how long ago we saw it, there are some scenes or images from movies that still send shivers down our spine or keep us awake at night to this very day.

Pennywise appearing in the sewer in It, Janet Leigh surprised in the shower in Psycho, Freddy Kreuger's tongue popping out of the telephone in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Of course, some of the scariest, most disturbing, or most emotionally traumatizing scenes from films might have been featured in films outside of the horror genre.

Even more shockingly, some of these films were primarily marketed towards children!

Redditor alina_love was curious to hear which non-horror films the Reddit community saw as children still send shivers down their spines today, leading them to ask:

"What's a non horror movie that traumatized you as a kid?"

It Was Tim Burton, After All...

"'Pee Wee's big adventure'."

"Large Marge scared the crap out of little me."

"I was even scared of the fortune teller."- BlueStarrSilver·

With A Title Like "Temple Of Doom"...

"'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'."

"The scene where the guy gets his heart ripped out traumatized me for years."- Pbhf

That Funeral Scene Though...

"'My Girl'."

"Fear of death, fear of losing a friend, fear of bees, fear of puberty."- heidismiles

macaulay culkin kiss GIFGiphy

Jurassic Park's Got Nothing On This...

"'The Land Before Time'."

"Watching Little Foot’s mother die was awful."- HourglassSass

He'll Always Regret Not Bringing Her To The Museum...

"'Bridge to Terabithia'."- jumpstart-the-end

"Everything goes so well and it falls apart SO FAST and your left absolutely traumatized."- VortexDestroyer99

The Reason People Hold On To Their Appliances For As Long As They Do...

"The Brave Little Toaster'."- Catgurl

"The junkyard scene alone was responsible for so many nightmares."- ManChildMusician

brave little toaster animation GIF by Coolidge Corner TheatreGiphy

And Let's Not Forget The Coachman's Smile...

"Disney’s version of 'Pinocchio'."

"The scene where kids are turned into donkeys and kept on the island and then resold was f*cking weird."

"You felt bad for that bully kid after he looked sad and nobody understood what he said because he was a donkey."- earnestlikehemingway

Few Things More Sad And Scary Than Deforestation

"'Ferngully: The Last Rainforest'."

"That evil tree scared me so bad."- slutsdotnet

Anything But "Truly Scrumptious"...

"The 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' Childcatcher guy!"

"I'm still scared of him!"- Jet_Maypen

child GIFGiphy

Offing Children One By One...In A Children's Movie!

"'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' boat scene."

"Honorable mention of claustrophobia when Augustus gets stuck in the chocolate tube."

"UGH!"- looseseal-bluth

At Least We Know He Had A "Sole"...

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit."

"That poor shoe….."- dalalice5555

At Least The Song Is Catchy...

"Neverending Story."

"Not even Artax, which was awful, but the Rockbiter and his good strong hands."- marxychick1

Neverending Story 80S GIFGiphy

Dorothy Gettying Electro Shock Therapy Says it All...

"Return to Oz."- Jeff_Steelflexx

"Horrifying! What about the animated wig heads?"- weensfordayz

The Reigning King Of Childhood Trauma

"Old Yeller."- IceTech59

"I remember watching this on TV during, I think, Wonderful World of Disney (Sunday nights were Disney night on TV)."

"Cried and cried and cried."

"I've never been able to watch it again and I've never shown it to my kids!"- crowwitch

Not All Friendships Are Tenable... A Terrifying Thought

"'The Fox and the Hound'."

"Still makes me incredibly sad, lol."- mental_reincarnation

best friends friendship GIFGiphy

Sometimes, writers and filmmakers simply overestimate what might go over a child's head.

Or, for that matter, they might underestimate their emotional capacity.

Regardless, ask any of Fairuza Balk's fans which is scarier, Return to Oz or The Craft, and their answer will be immediate...

(... and it won't be The Craft...)