What Movie Gave Me Nightmares as a Child?

It’s not what you think

Since Halloween is coming up, you often see this question on any Social Media site: What movie gave you nightmares as a child?

You hear most of the people saying something like Child’s Play, It, or The Exorcist.

My answer goes something like this: “What scared me was sort of a movie but not entirely.”

The sort of movie that frightened me the most as a child isn’t classified as Horror but Musical Drama.

The Explanation:

Horror

Ever since I was born, I loved everything to do with Halloween (Except pumpkins). I was even born in October but on a different day.

When it comes to the topic of horror movies, I’m not particularly eager to watch Slashers like Child’s Play, Nightmare on Elm Street, or Friday the 13th. I never had a nightmare with those because I refuse to see anything about killing throughout the film. I do like a good plotline myself. But, on the other hand, I don’t mind a little psychological or movies with the classic horror monsters in them.

As a kid, I remember seeing Gremlins in the theatres and The Birds and Jaws on video and TV — none of those gave me nightmares. So yep, I sleep well those nights after watching movies about killer sharks and crows.

I also remember one time on television, for one week only, there were five movies that my brother and I wanted to watch in 3-D. So we did buy those old-fashioned 3-D glasses at our local 7–11. I can remember the only one was a Three Stooges skit and that all 3-D movies looked like pop-up books. And this was 20 or 30 years after the 3-D movie popularity and 30 years before Avatar.

I don’t remember the horror movies that I saw as a teen. What I do remember was a few weeks before I officially became an adult (in some parts of Canada, that would be 18), I did see Silence of the Lamb in the dollar theatre with my dad. That was one of three movies that I wanted to see that year. The other two were Oliver Stone’s The Doors and Hamlet with Mel Gibson in it.

Of course, I did see some other horror movies not mentioned here.

Music

I have loved music ever since I was born. But, unfortunately, I wasn’t born into a musical family. So I don’t understand why my father thought politics was more exciting than listening to music on the radio.

As a toddler in the 70s, the radio station that my parents listened to played modern music at that time, which was Pop and Disco. But I was also introduced to the early pioneers of Rock, like Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and more.

I also listened to 60s music, but I wasn’t introduced to the Beatles and the Beach Boys by my older brother (Who is five years older than me) until I was eight (After John Lennon’s death).

My brother also introduced me to the latest bands in the late 70s and early 80s, like Hall and Oates, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, the Cure, etc.

I remember MTV being starting in the U.S. Since I am from Canada, we didn’t get our version of MTV called MuchMusic until 1984. However, it was on specialty cable, which my parents couldn’t afford. But in 1989, all those specialty cable channels did get on regular TV. So I did get to see music videos a lot. My father would say that I watch “Too much music.” At the same time, I thought that he watched too much news. Canada didn’t have our own version of MTV until the late 90s when the one in the States was starting to get rid of Music Videos and put more Reality TV shows on. MuchMusic is now just Much and plays reruns of The Simpsons all the time. I miss the good old days of watching music videos on TV.

Today, when I get asked what genre of music I like, I would say anything except Country. But in the realm of Rock, it would be Alternative, Grunge, Punk, Goth, and New Wave.

The nightmare that I watched was in the early part of the 80s before 1984. It was when there were music shows that played a video or two.

The Nightmare

I do remember this happened on Saturday and I was nine years old at the time.

One of the Canadian Music shows that I used to watch was called The New Music. It featured interviews and rock videos. The TV station had that at noon after Saturday Morning Cartoons.

I do know that on this particular one, the show had an interview with Pink Floyd’s Roger Water and was talking about the movie The Wall, or should I say Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Then one of the videos featured in the film, Another Brick in the Wall played afterward. And I couldn’t sleep for a week because of one of the images in that one. So that’s the Rock Video/Movie that gave me nightmares as a kid.

When the song or video came on, I immediately turned off the radio or turned to another channel. As I grew into a teen and adult, I didn’t mind listening to the song Another Brick in the Wall, even though it did remind me of that one scene. But to this day, I will not watch the movie.

I almost did, though. Years ago, I took an extra credit High School English course, and we had an assignment, which I can’t remember what it was. However, one of my peers did show a bit of that movie which wasn’t disturbing. It was a small scene of Bob Geldoff in bed in a fetal position and some not so disturbing images in between.

Afterward, the professor did explain that the movie is about Roger Water’s psychological state of mind in building his wall around himself and what he thought about issues like the British Educational System (Which was the scene in the video that gave me nightmares).

Now.

A month ago, I talked about this to a friend. His opinion was that it was more of a Psychedelic Drug-Induced movie.

I still wouldn’t mind listening to the song Another Brick in the Wall, but I will never see that video or the movie. So when someone asked what movie scared me the most as a kid. It was a rock video that was part of the movie Pink Floyd’s The Wall.