Charlene Newcomb

Childhood monsters

I was playing catch-up and came across The Eagle’s Aerial Perspective post on “What Was Your Childhood Monster?: A Blogfest.”

crazy-looking insect on one of my day lilies

Golden Eagle mentioned that Gollum freaked her out. A number of commenters agreed. I have to admit Gollum – at least as portrayed in the movies – was pretty creepy. I would’ve had nightmares if I’d seen Lord of the Rings as a kid. But I have to go way back to the winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz to find the monsters that made me inspect the closet and under the bed when I was young. When WoO was on television, I’d hide behind a chair whenever those creatures were on the screen.

What about you, dear readers? What monsters are under your bed?

  1. Marie Loughin Avatar
    Marie Loughin

    Spiders. I’m right in there with Ron Weasley. I hate spiders. Creepy, hair-legged half-inch high monsters. Naturally, Shelob’s lair was one of the most sweaty-palmed passages of Lord of the Rings, for me.

    Reply
    1. Char Avatar
      Char

      Oh yes, ugh! Big spiders – can’t stand them. Shelob was very scary.

      Reply
  2. Catherine Hedge Avatar
    Catherine Hedge

    I’m there with you on the monkeys I think I was thirty-five before they stopped creeping me out on television. Now, with a big screen, they’re still really frightening!

    Reply
  3. Jaime Avatar
    Jaime

    Three words: Pennywise the Clown. I remember watching Stephen King’s IT when it first came out on TV. I was nine years old, I had an overactive imagination and a history of scaring myself senseless (when I was four, I saw Gremlins and was convinced they lived in my basement; was terrified of forklifts – my dad was in construction, so I ended up in hardware stores often; was convinced our elderly neighbors haunted their old house and that aliens were secretly abducting and brainwashing everyone I knew. *facepalm*) The movie itself didn’t really scare me – I like it, in fact. But, that night, when I got in bed and everything got quiet… I couldn’t get the clown out of my mind. I spent the next year sleeping with about twenty stuffed animals in my bed (because I thought that would help, LOL!) and taking the quickest bathroom breaks and showers ever – I should’ve timed myself, because I’m confident a world record might’ve been broken. I literally could not look down a drain without thinking that something was down there… waiting. *shivers*

    Nowadays, though, I’ve had so many nightmares about being chased by monsters/natural disasters/etc. that there’s really not much that freaks me out (I’ve actually started plotting a story for nanowrimo that involves nightmares, monsters and the like – I figure if my mind is coming up with all this material, I might as well do something with it. ;))

    Reply
    1. Char Avatar
      Char

      Well of course those stuff animals helped! You’re much braver than me. I won’t watch a Stephen King movie. eeek!

      Reply
  4. Denise Avatar
    Denise

    Dracula! I just knew he was waiting at the top of the stairs with those red eyes and big fangs. .

    Reply
    1. Char Avatar
      Char

      I refused to watch Dracula when I was a kid. Actually, I won’t watch him now either! 🙂

      Reply

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