Can you remember the first movie that scared you?
Variety asked your Hollywood favorites which films freaked them out at the earliest ages and scarred them for the rest of their lives.
From Lin-Manuel Miranda’s screening of “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” at seven years old to Kelly Marie Tran’s childhood viewing of the musical fantasy film “Labyrinth” starring David Bowie (which she now loves), the actors discussed the movies that first spooked them and why. Naturally, “The Exorcist” made it on the list twice, mentioned by Ann Dowd and Armie Hammer.
Hammer said he was watching television in his basement as a pre-teen when “The Exorcist” suddenly came on. Albeit horrifying, he said he couldn’t move away.
“’The Exorcist’ came on and it started, and it startled me so badly, I couldn’t even move to change the channel,” Hammer said. “And I got stuck, and I got paralyzed, which is ironic because it scarred me even worse.”
For Andrew Scott, a viewing of “Halloween” in rural Ireland, followed by a prank by one of his cousins, is the reason he no longer watches horror movies. Meanwhile, Nick Frost cited Tobe Hooper’s “Poltergeist” as the first movie that scared him because of its themes of possession.
“I was always terrified that I’d be possessed by a spirit, a Poltergeist,” Frost said. “I remember reading that book when I was a kid at school in the library; it said that most possessed hauntings … it stops when they’re 16. So on my 16th birthday I was f—ing thrilled that I’d gotten through puberty without being possessed.”