15 Movie Covers That Terrified Me as a Child

When I was a kid in the 1980s, I actually loved being dragged to the grocery store. While Mom and Dad were shopping, I got to go to a very special place: the video aisle.

I spent hours of my childhood there, poring over all the rental videos, and, to be frank, the only movies I ever wanted to look at were the horror movies.

Okay. This may not count as horror, but WHAT EVEN. SOURCE

As an artist, this isn’t hard to explain. Whereas your typical comedy or romance movie generally has a photograph of the chief actors on the cover, a horror movie is a boundless vista of weird art, lurid colors, and grotesque subject matter.

Horror covers are generally more interesting than the covers of almost any other genre, and this was especially the case back in the 1980s when we were all a bunch of politically incorrect cavemen.

So, without further ado, I would like to terrify you with the same shocking movie covers that captivated me as a child…

Here we have the granddaddy of all my nightmares since about age 7.
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Snake throne guy is only minorly less terrifying to me than the horrific blue pig creature in the background. SOURCE

To this day, I do not know why we must never go down to the cellar. **Also, I am *never* going down to the cellar.** SOURCE

For whatever reason, this chair has always terrified me. Not the shadow of the boy, just the empty chair. SOURCE

To be fair I also felt the same way about Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” SOURCE

Possibly the creepiest depiction of a child you will ever see. SOURCE

Don’t ask me how I blocked this image (and the one above) out of my mind long enough to have children. SOURCE

I finally saw this movie as an adult and loved it, but, to be honest, it still wasn’t as terrifying as the lifelong nightmares this cover has given me. SOURCE

Those eyes will haunt me into my next life. SOURCE

It’s hard to go into how many ways this is grotesque and repellant in one caption, but suffice to say GIANT MAN-EATING ROACHES. SOURCE

In spite of the agonized choking scream coupled with The Stuff flowing like unholy tears from this poor man’s eyes, this cover pales in comparison to Chocolate Chip Charlie. SOURCE

Forget Chucky. For me, *this* is the ultimate scary doll. SOURCE

Evidently there’s a tamer version of the *Creepers*/*Phenomena* movie cover. Lucky me, our video aisle had the one with the grinning, fleshless Jennifer Connelly face. SOURCE

I’m just going to assume whoever inflicted this pants-wettingly terrifying abomination onto the world saw this right before they died. SOURCE

And there you have it!

Trust me when I say there are plenty more. I’ve been asking my friends which movie covers scared the pants off of them when they were kids and I’d love to hear about the movies that warped YOUR fragile childhoods too!

Share your personal pathos in the comments below.