Obscure movies that you remember from your youth

[Chuck Nessa]

Trailer online HERE.

[Randy Twizzle]

This gave me nightmares for months after I saw it on TV when I was 8 or 9

[Hot Ptah]

I remember that this film made an impression on me, that the good guys could be wild drunkards.

Seeing it years later, I think it is a very funny film.

[catesta]

Maybe someone can identify this movie for me. It was a black and white film set in the bad side of town in a big city. I don't remember much about it except one scene where there was a group of kids hanging out on the steps of an apartment building and some teenagers/thugs ran up and stabbed one of the kids and ran off. I think the thugs were in a gang called the Horsemen (which my 5-year old brain couldn't understand because none of them had horses). And the killers may not have been caught (not sure); in fact, the killing may not have been the central part of the movie. That scene/movie scarred me for life because it was the first time that I became aware that everything could be be taken away from you for no reason other than meaness, and that bad guys don't always get punished. I doubt that I saw this on The Wonderful World of Disney. My wounded psyche thanks you in advance.

Oh, and that scene with the underground bomb people in Beneath the Planet of the Apes gave me nightmares for months. That and the commercials for an Exorcist rip-off called Beyond the Door. Not to be confused with Beyond the Green Door.

Westside Story?

[ghost of miles]

As a kid I really dug Jodie Foster's character in this movie:

...fortunately I never went on to make any assassination attempts on her behalf.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

and

Edited September 10, 2008 by Son-of-a-Weizen

[pasta]

skullduggery with burt reynolds

the monitors with guy stockwell

gargoyles with cornel wilde

the stranger within with barbara eden

[Hardbopjazz]

The only movie that scared me as a kid. "Don't be Afraid of the Dark"

Edited September 10, 2008 by Hardbopjazz

[catesta]

skullduggery with burt reynolds

the monitors with guy stockwell

gargoyles with cornel wilde

the stranger within with barbara eden

Gargoyles

[BruceH]

By no measure is the second Planet of the Apes movie obscure or the "worst" of the bunch. IMHO, its the only sequel that is watchable.

I agree completely. (Though the next one, "Conquest," where Zira and Cornelious go back to the 20th century, is kinda fun...)

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is one of my most terrifying movie memories from childhood, though, thanks to ONE scene-- -- -

I was visiting relatives in Iowa and the movie was playing at a drive-in. I couldn't have been much more than 7 or 8. We get to the part where the mutant underground people are worshipping the the bomb...ho-hum....the leader says something like, "We now reveal our true faces to our deity..." then everyone proceeds to pull their face off (you realize all of them were wearing rubber-like artificial skin) and what we see are the (choke!) veins and arteries that would normally be beneath the skin. Yikes! I freaked out!!! My poor aunt and uncle; they had no idea. That damn scene gave me nightmares for months and has stayed with me ever since. Probably the most frightening thing I ever saw at the movies.

Edited September 10, 2008 by BruceH

[DTMX]

Maybe someone can identify this movie for me.

Nevermind, I got it: The Young Savages, 1961, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Burt Lancaster. Either my parents or the babysitter f'ed up that night; that's no movie for a 5-year old.

As a dumb little kid, I thought this was the greatest achievement in cinematic history: The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant.

Also not a movie for a kid, but still, the guy had two heads!

[PHILLYQ]

For some starnge reason I remember 'The Boy With the Green Hair' from my childhood, seeing it when I was about 5 or 6. The really odd part is that at time my family only had a black & white TV!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040185/

[Royal Oak]

It's not that obscure, but "The Wicker Man" (the original British one) disturbed me as a 15 year old. I watched it the night before I sat my English language O-level. I never saw the end coming and it played on my mind for days afterwards.

Another one which vaguely disturbed me was "Watership Down" which I saw at the cinema aged about 10.

[Bright Moments]

[Larry Kart]

As a kid I really dug Jodie Foster's character in this movie:

...fortunately I never went on to make any assassination attempts on her behalf.

Yeah, but you thought about it.

[AndrewHill]

Growing up with HBO in the seventies allowed me to see all kinds of movies growing up. One that stands out is Avalanche from 197-. I recall that there was quite alot of nudity

[BruceH]

"The Window" (1949), with Bobby Driscoll as a too imaginative, tale-telling ten-year-old who while sleeping on the fireplace one hot night sees the couple in the apartment next door kill someone, can't get anyone to believe him and then is kidnapped by the killers. Scared me out of my wits at age five, and I believe it's a pretty good movie too, with Barbara Hale and Arthur Kennedy as the boy's parents and Ruth Roman and Paul Stewart, who played the unctuous/sinister servant at Xanadu in "Citizen Kane," as the killers. Familiar from many supporting roles, Stewart had dark bushy eyebrows and silvery hair and a slight lisp, an eerie combination of traits that he must have been well aware of.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042046/maindetails

Interesting; I can sure see where this would scare a little kid. A still rather obscure little movie that's also good.

Several of the films that scared me as a kid seeing them on TV were not exactly obscure:

The Thing

Them!

Seconds (Yes! It was actually on broadcast television way back when! And I ran into it twice!)

The War of the Worlds---Most of this was more exciting than scary---kids love seeing things get destroyed, at least I did---but I found the Martians themselves genuinely creepy.

The Incredible Shrinking Man---The part with him fighting the spider: Yuck!

The opening sequence of The Prisoner; hey, the guy gets kidnapped!

[medjuck]

I'm old enough that I saw The Thing, Them, and Invaders from Mars in movie theaters when they were first released. They scared the shit of of me.

Invaders from Mars was fairly obscure despite being directed (I think) by William Cameron Menzies. It started to get revived (and remade) when people my age who were traumatized by it as children entered academia and the film business.

Edited September 11, 2008 by medjuck

[BFrank]

How come most of the movies named here are cheap sci-fi flicks?

[Van Basten II]

Saw this movie i was 7 or 8 years old, it kind of fascinated me, never heard of it afterwards, never bothered knowing the title or the name of the actors. But when Jurassic Park came out, first thing came out of my mind was hey that story is familiar.

Besides that i gotta say my favourites as a youngster were Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill

Edited September 11, 2008 by Van Basten II

[medjuck]

Well then how about a film noir: Two of a Kind (1951). I had to do research to find the title. All I remembered was that it was Edmond O'Brien and he chopped off part of his finger in a car door in order to impersonate someone. Argh!!

BTW Cheap sci-fi scripts often have amazing sub-texts. In case of Invasion from Mars there are 2 very disturbing things suggested:

1) Your parents aren't who they say they are.

2) Life is a dream/nightmare from which we can't awake.

Edited September 11, 2008 by medjuck

[Ken Dryden]

Well then how about a film noir: Two of a Kind (1951). I had to do research to find the title. All I remembered was that it was Edmond O'Brien and he chopped off part of his finger in a car door in order to impersonate someone. Argh!!

BTW Cheap sci-fi scripts often have amazing sub-texts. In case of Invasion from Mars there are 2 very disturbing things suggested:

1) Your parents aren't who they say they are.

2) Life is a dream/nightmare from which we can't awake.

Isn't it 'Invaders From Mars,' the B&W film with the spaceship drilling into the land behind the house and everyone keeps falling into the hole and having an operation to implant a device to control them?

Anyone ever see the rotten film on Hitler with Richard Basehart in the title role? What a turkey...

[PHILLYQ]

Well then how about a film noir: Two of a Kind (1951). I had to do research to find the title. All I remembered was that it was Edmond O'Brien and he chopped off part of his finger in a car door in order to impersonate someone. Argh!!

BTW Cheap sci-fi scripts often have amazing sub-texts. In case of Invasion from Mars there are 2 very disturbing things suggested:

1) Your parents aren't who they say they are.

2) Life is a dream/nightmare from which we can't awake.

Isn't it 'Invaders From Mars,' the B&W film with the spaceship drilling into the land behind the house and everyone keeps falling into the hole and having an operation to implant a device to control them?.

That's the one! I saw that many times over on TV as a kid, when they had Chiller Theater and my local station would play the same movie about 3/4 times in a row. That was another movie that scared the crap out of me as a kid.

There was the creepy-looking head in the glass bowl also.

[Dan Gould]

It seems strange to me but while I remember the shock at the exposed veins of the bomb-worshiping people, it didn't have nearly the same effect on me (at just about the same age). No nightmares, no nothing.

On the other hand, that poster of West World reminds me that I became damn near hysterical in the theater when Yul Brynner shows up after the acid/burning of his face. That image truly scared the crap out of me.

[BFrank]

Well then how about a film noir: Two of a Kind (1951). I had to do research to find the title. All I remembered was that it was Edmond O'Brien and he chopped off part of his finger in a car door in order to impersonate someone. Argh!!

BTW Cheap sci-fi scripts often have amazing sub-texts. In case of Invasion from Mars there are 2 very disturbing things suggested:

1) Your parents aren't who they say they are.

2) Life is a dream/nightmare from which we can't awake.

Isn't it 'Invaders From Mars,' the B&W film with the spaceship drilling into the land behind the house and everyone keeps falling into the hole and having an operation to implant a device to control them?.

That's the one! I saw that many times over on TV as a kid, when they had Chiller Theater and my local station would play the same movie about 3/4 times in a row. That was another movie that scared the crap out of me as a kid.

There was the creepy-looking head in the glass bowl also.

Yeah, that one scared me, too. Very creapy, somehow.