[suzzer99]

As I have stated on this forum before - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (70s) by a factor or 10 over anything else. My parents were afraid to let me see Jaws or Alien because it might scare me too much. But they let me watch this in 4th grade.

I stayed up all night in terror at the completely new idea to my brain that the world could possibly be taken over by some outside force, and that my parents, family, nothing was 100% guaranteed permanent. I finally fell asleep and of course had dreams that the pod people were chasing me everywhere. I distinctly remember the point where I just gave up and decided to become a pod person. I was just too scared, and too tired of fighting/running. I can understand now how people could go through so much they finally just want to die. Ugh.

It took me weeks to get over this movie. I remember sitting on my porch a couple days later looking at my neighborhood, thinking how it didn't look or seem quite the same. And never would. Everything just seemed a little darker, harsher, more real, more defined (if that makes any sense). Looking back I would honestly have to say it was one of the most traumatic things that happened to me as a kid. Right up there with several hamster "incidents". (Great now I'm literally tearing up over something that happened 27 years ago. Nice.)

Edit: Salem's Lot also scared the crap out of me. Similar concept.