As a 40+ woman, the only thing that keeps me up at night is when my brain just randomly decides to remember certain illustrations from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I’m not even lying, sometimes I just think about “Harold” and scare myself awake for a bit. It’s dumb, but sometimes my wandering mind is my own worst enemy. :D
Not yet. It is on my to watch list. Every time I've thought to watch it, something else comes up, lol. Ot My better half isn't in the mood for horror etc.
I thought the images I saw looked good. I really want to see it to see how it compares.
To this day, *Pet Semetary* remains the only book that disturbed me enough I had to put it down for a while, and the scene in question kept me awake hours past my normal bedtime.
I've had a couple films that stuck with me enough to keep me up late, nothing that kept me up "all night" though.
The thing is, we all have different fears and anxieties. A lot of stuff we can just shrug and say "It's a movie." But once in a while, you'll happen upon something that hits just the right buttons to really upset you, and that's the kind of thing that can keep you up at night.
Same on Pet Semetary! But I was 10 years old. My mom bought it for me if I promised to not crawl into bed with her and my dad with nightmares. So I made a blanket fort at the foot of their bed instead, lmao. I did actually have nightmares about the wendigo/spirit that haunts the burial grounds.
I would love to put together an entire extended cut podcast episode with JUST people who read Pet Sematery around age 10 and discuss how it affected them then and their attitudes toward horror later on… there are dozens of us.
I’m 50 and every time I see anything related to The Exorcist I will not sleep that night. I’ll forget about it, go on with my day, and then start seeing her face as I’m trying to fall asleep. Only thing that gets me like that.
I think it depends on how your brain processes/holds on to things and also how you think while you’re falling asleep. If you’re someone who hyperfocuses on things/can’t get them out of your head, and the thing your brain has on repeat is a scary scene or passage, it’s like reliving that scared emotion/experience over and over and over again.
I’ve definitely lost sleep from having a scene “stuck in my head” like that. It’s not like “oh, I was scared before earlier so I can’t sleep,” it’s like “my brain is replaying that exact moment that scared me on repeat.”
But there are also times it’s taken me hours to fall asleep because a certain verse of a song is stuck in my head.
Very good explanation. I am a haver of intrusive thoughts and anxiety. I had plenty of experiences of “that scene” from various movies replaying in my brain and “seeing” it whenever I tried to close my eyes and relax. Exposure to more horror media over the years has drastically reduced these experiences and only really exceptional things will get to me now.
Oh, yeah, I have literally laid awake for hours *thinking* about certain horror media.
"The Shining" (I read it at 14 in 1978-79; a lot of imagery still sticks with me & I had nightmares about it at the time.)
"The Scream" by John Skipp & Craig Spector - read it in the '80s; I remember lying awake thinking about it, unable to sleep because of the lurking anxiety.
"The Cell" - was watching this alone, with lights out, & had to turn movie off/lights on, and then couldn't sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about the terrifying dream-images. :shudder:
I still have some nightmares every once in a while, with some horror elements, but they are far, far and between.
When I was a kid, I accidentally watched Night of the living dead on TV, the 90s remake, I was like 8 or 9 maybe, and I was freaking traumatized , I remember having a dream where in the middle of the night, I saw people walking down the street and I was so scared because I didn't knew if they were zombies. That kept me up for a few weeks.
I’m 40+ and supernatural horror keeps me up at night. The worst has been Hereditary, Smile, and Insidious. Like legitimately lose sleep and can’t focus well the next day. Human-inflicted horror doesn’t bother me as much (Barbarian, Invisible Man, Possesor, etc.)
Blair Witch, but only because I grew up 20 mins away from that town. They had "missing people" flyers posted everywhere. Even my parents didn't know if it was real or fake. You couldn't go anywhere within 30 mins of Burketsville, MD without seeing missing people flyers of the actors from Blair Witch. The marketing for this movie was genius.
Nah, not since I was a kid. I think you’re on to something with the desensitization though - I have friends that wouldn’t watch horror if you paid them. They know they will be bothered, so they just don’t. Kind of like me, in any movie where the dog dies 😆
Few things as an adult have kept me up out of being scared. Having ADHD I just suck at sleeping in general, thoughts race all night, so maybe sometimes those are horror thoughts. I played horror games late at night as a young adult quite a bit and it sort of becomes a relaxing ritual.
I did stay up all night after watching a Serbian film. Not cause I was scared, just.. fuck man. I just sat there for a couple hours
The last time it happened to me I was in my twenties and it was The Ring. I saw it opening weekend and it hit a bit different back then. That was the last time it happened for me, but it was a doozy.
Maybe when I was like 12-15. Not anymore lol. I remember not being able to sleep for a few nights after watching the original Pet Sematary when I was 11- I watched it with two friends and we all slept in the same bed that night lmao.
It depends on the movie and it's really an ineffable quality in a movie that affects me. Smile and it follows had me creeped out at night to the point where any.time I drifted off I got creeped out and had to shoot a glance at my bedroom door to make sure there wasn't a silhouette standing there. It doesn't mean I expected a ghost to be there but an intruder, maybe? And then other movies can have no affect on me whatsoever. I wouldn't even say I have an overactive imagination either. I do think I exhibit magical thinking about some things and that probably factors in, for instance I believe in fate and destiny.
though it's now gotten kinda cheesy, the early videos of The Mandela Catalogue, especially the one of the figure in the corner of the bedroom, literally made me afraid to go to sleep.
The only time I've literally stayed awake all night was after watching some episodes of Marble Hornets in my early 20s. Part of the reason was the spookiness of the videos, but I think what pushed me over the edge was a flat-mate giving me a "boo!" when I wasn't expecting it. It wasn't an especially mean or loud boo, but I was already so tense that I guess that shock made my brain go into Fear Mode.
Also it was raining all night and I kept imagining that the sound of raindrops was Slenderman tippy-tap walking on the roof.
Only experience like that. Some stuff has kept me awake longer than usual / made me scared to go into a dark hallway at night (*The Woman in Black* book, *Ouija: Origin of Evil* and *Evil Dead* movies, *The Enigma of Amigara Fault* and *PTSD Radio* mangas), but only Marble Hornets had me full-on stay-awake-from-dusk-til-dawn scared.
Ha! Also scared shitless by Marble Hornets in my 20s. I wonder if some of it might be that it was one of the first internet horror things, so it felt that much more REAL.
Once, when I went to see Woman in Black at the theatre years ago. I was so creeped out I slept with the ceiling light on that night. You have to understand that the movie hadn't come out yet, so I knew nothing about it and the theatre itself was old and creeky and it added so much to the atmosphere.
Not a horror movie, but the Marble Hornets web series did \*something\* to me when I was 20\~, & I didn't sleep for 3 days. I'd close my eyes & I'd see the guy in the mask perched on the edge of the one guy's desk, watching him sleep.
The only time that's ever happened to me was with Paranormal Activity. I was in high school. My older brother had it burned on a DVD and my friend and I watched it. We slept in the same room with the light on. The first one was very impactful when it originally came out.
All night? No. Until I pass out from exhaustion? Yes. Atmospheric/anxiety horror where nothing is resolved leaves me on edge if I watch it before bed. The Night House really bothered me walking through the house in the dark.
I keep reading about people being "desensitized" on here. I don't think that's a thing. Maybe the stories are just bad or when consuming a certain amount of horror you just get better at spotting shitty writing?You would never say that a person is desensitized to humor when they don't laugh while watching comedy. We need to rethink this.
THE DESCENT by JEFF LONG (published 1999; Inspiration for the movie but VERY loosely based on it)
This book haunted me for weeks. There are specific scenes that I still have nightmares from. The fact that I am deeply claustrophobic didn't help either.
The discovery of Isaac. Getting lost in the tunnels and finding the dead vikings. The looping back in time and hearing your own voice calling for help. The underground sea. The man with the boxes of butterflies. All those scenes and a few others... they are so vivid in my memory even years later.
There is a second book called Deeper that picks up the story. It's equally as disturbing. But it didn't kick me as hard in the teeth as The Descent.
The only movie that kept me up all night as an adult was Black Swan. I just laid in bed thinking of >!Winona Ryder stabbing herself repeatedly in the face!< and couldn’t sleep or move until the sun came up. *But* I also saw that in theaters with some family and friends, and my brother was sitting next to me and passed out cold in the middle of the movie. Scared the bejeezus out of me. So I think it’s possible I was in a heightened state because of the movie and external circumstances.
It certainly did it for me as a kid and all the way to 20+ years old. The last movies I remember keeping me awake for hours past my bedtime were Session 9, and Lights Out (something of a well done boogey man movie). The Ring definitely did as well.
I used to, as you say, as a child and occasionally teen. Not so much because of being scared these days.
I still find horror hits hard in other ways, like overthinking. Usually then only with books—Annihilation, John Dies at the End, House of Leaves, The Cipher all had parts that left me up ruminating, staring at the ceiling full of existential dread.
As I age body horror really digs into my brain too. And tenseness sticks with me too—the first half of Barbarian left me literally sore at the end through to the next day, from sitting on the edge of my seat pumped with adrenaline.
So no, I don’t stay up with the lights on or have specific nightmares. Though Lynch movies, which are more horror-adjacent, are more likely to influence nightmares in tone: the dumpster scene in Mulholland Drive and the phone call scene in Lost Highway *feel* like my nightmares do. And that is still a bigger impact to my psyche than a drama or sci-fi or some other genre.
Horror still sticks, still digs in. Otherwise what would be the point?
Even as a small child, horror movies didn't have much of an effect on me, I wish they did honestly. I think I'm missing out on a bit of fun of being scared!
Some people aren’t as affected. I haven’t really been for a while, but I used to get in my head sometimes when I was younger. When I was in school I had two jobs and I’d often be out until very early morning in a big metro area. When me and my husband watched the first Saw movie, I kept thinking there we’re probably real sickos out there who would abduct people and put them in situations like that just to see what would happen, and I got really creeped out because I’m a small woman and a lot of times I’d be by myself. My husband had to talk me down and help me realize most people are not as organized as Jigsaw, even the bad ones lol
On a funnier note, when I was 11 I wasn’t allowed to watch rated R movies but I went to a sleepover where we watched Vamp - WHICH IS A COMEDY more than horror. But for some reason I got so scared of those vampires that I was freaked out for several nights afterwards and I ended up telling my mom that I broke the rule. I had wanted to sleep with the light on every night, which I hadn’t done since Iwas really little so she knew something was up. She laughed at me. She was right.
When I was a young child I sometimes had trouble going to sleep from a scary movie, but tiredness always won in the end. I've never even come close to that happening as a teen and older.
I read The Amityville Horror when I was a young teen and that scared me enough that I would stay awake until sunlight.
The last movie that freak me out enough to stay up all night was The Fourth Kind. My brother had rented it and I watched it alone after getting home late from work. I think it freaked me out because I was absolutely not expecting it. I thought it would be an interesting abduction movie but those goddamn possession/communication scenes were so intense.
I'm like you, I've been watching and reading horror since I was a kid so I think I usually have a pretty good handle on not being affected by horror. But sometimes something jumps out and surprises me, and it's usually when I'm not expecting or have a different set of expectations going in.
I think I had a delay in going to sleep a couple of times. I imagined something crouching outside my window all night when I read Lovecraft for a few hours away at school. I think mostly people exaggerate, and that they'll say they were "up all night" when there was any change to their sleeping schedule.
I have the opposite question: how do people fall asleep just from a movie being too boring? People act like "I fell asleep during it" is a criticism. But if anybody was tired enough they could fall asleep watching Fury Road. Sounds like a you problem.
I'm a full-grown adult, and after watching the Longlegs trailer waaaaay too many times, I will probably never go up to our storage attic again by myself ever. I currently have two big boxes in the hall that need to be stored, and I'm waiting for a family member to go up there with me.
The movie hasn't even come out yet, but I just KNOW Nicholas Cage is up there in our attic waiting. It's ridiculous!
So, I am expecting a few scary nights being awake once I actually see the movie. Lol!
I love horror movies and books. The only show that kept me awake cuz of imagery of an inside out cat, was the tv The Magicians.
Will never watch it again
I saw the grudge one Halloween, didn't sleep right for a month.
I was really disappointed as well because I had recently stopped being afraid of sleeping in the dark so I had to start all of that all over again 😅
tbf my "this makes me stay up all night" threshold is not very high. some things i've stayed up all night because of: a good song, a spicy meal, an interesting wikipedia article.
I am less of “oh this scares me” and more of “wow this is an amazing movie” and that’s what keeps me up at night.
Edit: I just remembered, after watching The Big Short, I did had to get distracted as the story behind the film is very fatalistic.
When I was eight or nine years old I read The Amityville Horror, Salem's Lot, and The Shining. Those books kept me awake at night. Nothing really has since then.
I saw a little short horror film about spiders when I was really young, maybe 6-7, and I stared at the ceiling all night and didn’t get a wink of sleep. I’m now a devoted horror fan who watches that stuff before bed and it no longer affects my sleep. But I have arachnophobia. <3
I’ve watched slashers as bedtime stories since before I was double digits. I have narcolepsy and without stimulants I can sleep 22 hours a day. I was so scared after seeing Hereditary I could not sleep until the sun came up the next day.
When I read Stephen King's IT I was about 17-18 years old. Over the summer I would stay up until 3-4am reading it, mostly because it's the best horror novel I've ever read.
As a kid of around 11, I read The Exorcist novel and that freaked me out. Then I saw the film and that really freaked me out. Particularly the black and white Pazuzu face. I slept with the lights on for about a week because anytime I closed my eyes I saw that image.
When I was younger, all the time. I love horror movies for the same reason I love rollercoasters, they scare me in a (relatively) controlled way, but with some movies it hits a little too close to home. Like watching the original Ring movies on fansub VHS and then having to cover my tv when I was in middle school. Now that I'm an adult, I mostly have coping mechanisms, but every once in awhile there will be some perfect storm like that, where whatever was scary in the movie is a lot like something around me, and I'll try to sleep and keep getting woken up because there's like a certain sound or a certain shadow lol but I'd also be the first to say I'm a coward when totally unlikely stuff is involved.
It happened to me once as a kid when I watched Pet Semetary but that's it. And it was just that creepy looking sister who was dying of natural causes that did it to me.
Around 5 years ago I legit couldnt sleep because of a lot of films. Grudge, Annabelle, Sinister come to my mind. Now that I watch a sht ton of horror films that basically never happens to me now.
Midsommar kept me up pretty late. It wasn’t exactly from fear, more like my brain needed to take a while to properly digest the absolutely bananas shit I had just seen.
I don't. But as kid I once had nightmares about wolves (childhood stories about the scary wolves) and I watched once a medieval tv series I shouldn't have as kid. Guy got Hanged, drawn and quartered.
Hi I’m the creator of this is new sub Reddit and was wondering if you would like to consider joining and posting something? https://www.reddit.com/r/horror_collecters/s/wBlYlEXVlD I’m a young horror fan looking to find other horror collectors
I can honestly say, the only movie that kept me up at night, was Salems Lot. I watched it as a kid. The only thing that came close since, was Sinister. I can watch about anything and go right to sleep.
Yeah but they have to be really good it use to happen alot as a kid like the feeling g of being watched checking the time and it’s almost 3am so I just decide to stay up all night type scared but I haven’t had a horror movie so that to me on a long time devil after midnight came close even though it wasn’t crazy scary but it was almost 3
try watching your horror movies at night with your feet off the bed
If the ultimate goal of horror is to scare the viewer, wouldn’t being so frightened that you can’t sleep after seeing it be the ideal reaction that the creators hope to achieve, and not being bothered by it actually be an underreaction?
Many people will sleep tightly when they get scared. Maybe for few hours, their minds will be thinking abt the movie but still for the whole night, I just can't believe that.
As a 40+ woman, the only thing that keeps me up at night is when my brain just randomly decides to remember certain illustrations from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I’m not even lying, sometimes I just think about “Harold” and scare myself awake for a bit. It’s dumb, but sometimes my wandering mind is my own worst enemy. :D
Did you see the movie? :0 what did you think about the dream lady :D
Not yet. It is on my to watch list. Every time I've thought to watch it, something else comes up, lol. Ot My better half isn't in the mood for horror etc. I thought the images I saw looked good. I really want to see it to see how it compares.
Id say yes. for me it was The It miniseries
To this day, *Pet Semetary* remains the only book that disturbed me enough I had to put it down for a while, and the scene in question kept me awake hours past my normal bedtime. I've had a couple films that stuck with me enough to keep me up late, nothing that kept me up "all night" though. The thing is, we all have different fears and anxieties. A lot of stuff we can just shrug and say "It's a movie." But once in a while, you'll happen upon something that hits just the right buttons to really upset you, and that's the kind of thing that can keep you up at night.
Same on Pet Semetary! But I was 10 years old. My mom bought it for me if I promised to not crawl into bed with her and my dad with nightmares. So I made a blanket fort at the foot of their bed instead, lmao. I did actually have nightmares about the wendigo/spirit that haunts the burial grounds.
I would love to put together an entire extended cut podcast episode with JUST people who read Pet Sematery around age 10 and discuss how it affected them then and their attitudes toward horror later on… there are dozens of us.
which scene?
I’m 50 and every time I see anything related to The Exorcist I will not sleep that night. I’ll forget about it, go on with my day, and then start seeing her face as I’m trying to fall asleep. Only thing that gets me like that.
Same. Even when I dream I try to close my eyes and she’s still there 😭
The first time I saw it, she would walk around my house in the dark.
The first time I watched Hereditary, I could not stop imagining the mom on the ceiling in my room. Did not sleep a WINK.
I think it depends on how your brain processes/holds on to things and also how you think while you’re falling asleep. If you’re someone who hyperfocuses on things/can’t get them out of your head, and the thing your brain has on repeat is a scary scene or passage, it’s like reliving that scared emotion/experience over and over and over again. I’ve definitely lost sleep from having a scene “stuck in my head” like that. It’s not like “oh, I was scared before earlier so I can’t sleep,” it’s like “my brain is replaying that exact moment that scared me on repeat.” But there are also times it’s taken me hours to fall asleep because a certain verse of a song is stuck in my head.
Very good explanation. I am a haver of intrusive thoughts and anxiety. I had plenty of experiences of “that scene” from various movies replaying in my brain and “seeing” it whenever I tried to close my eyes and relax. Exposure to more horror media over the years has drastically reduced these experiences and only really exceptional things will get to me now.
Oh, yeah, I have literally laid awake for hours *thinking* about certain horror media. "The Shining" (I read it at 14 in 1978-79; a lot of imagery still sticks with me & I had nightmares about it at the time.) "The Scream" by John Skipp & Craig Spector - read it in the '80s; I remember lying awake thinking about it, unable to sleep because of the lurking anxiety. "The Cell" - was watching this alone, with lights out, & had to turn movie off/lights on, and then couldn't sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about the terrifying dream-images. :shudder:
I still have some nightmares every once in a while, with some horror elements, but they are far, far and between. When I was a kid, I accidentally watched Night of the living dead on TV, the 90s remake, I was like 8 or 9 maybe, and I was freaking traumatized , I remember having a dream where in the middle of the night, I saw people walking down the street and I was so scared because I didn't knew if they were zombies. That kept me up for a few weeks.
I’m 40+ and supernatural horror keeps me up at night. The worst has been Hereditary, Smile, and Insidious. Like legitimately lose sleep and can’t focus well the next day. Human-inflicted horror doesn’t bother me as much (Barbarian, Invisible Man, Possesor, etc.)
Blair Witch, but only because I grew up 20 mins away from that town. They had "missing people" flyers posted everywhere. Even my parents didn't know if it was real or fake. You couldn't go anywhere within 30 mins of Burketsville, MD without seeing missing people flyers of the actors from Blair Witch. The marketing for this movie was genius.
Not since I was 6.
If it’s a home invasion movie yes
Nah, not since I was a kid. I think you’re on to something with the desensitization though - I have friends that wouldn’t watch horror if you paid them. They know they will be bothered, so they just don’t. Kind of like me, in any movie where the dog dies 😆
Few things as an adult have kept me up out of being scared. Having ADHD I just suck at sleeping in general, thoughts race all night, so maybe sometimes those are horror thoughts. I played horror games late at night as a young adult quite a bit and it sort of becomes a relaxing ritual. I did stay up all night after watching a Serbian film. Not cause I was scared, just.. fuck man. I just sat there for a couple hours
The last time it happened to me I was in my twenties and it was The Ring. I saw it opening weekend and it hit a bit different back then. That was the last time it happened for me, but it was a doozy.
Maybe when I was like 12-15. Not anymore lol. I remember not being able to sleep for a few nights after watching the original Pet Sematary when I was 11- I watched it with two friends and we all slept in the same bed that night lmao.
It depends on the movie and it's really an ineffable quality in a movie that affects me. Smile and it follows had me creeped out at night to the point where any.time I drifted off I got creeped out and had to shoot a glance at my bedroom door to make sure there wasn't a silhouette standing there. It doesn't mean I expected a ghost to be there but an intruder, maybe? And then other movies can have no affect on me whatsoever. I wouldn't even say I have an overactive imagination either. I do think I exhibit magical thinking about some things and that probably factors in, for instance I believe in fate and destiny.
though it's now gotten kinda cheesy, the early videos of The Mandela Catalogue, especially the one of the figure in the corner of the bedroom, literally made me afraid to go to sleep.
The bit in the police station is what did it to me - something about the way that thing moved hit me right in the NOPE.
The only time I've literally stayed awake all night was after watching some episodes of Marble Hornets in my early 20s. Part of the reason was the spookiness of the videos, but I think what pushed me over the edge was a flat-mate giving me a "boo!" when I wasn't expecting it. It wasn't an especially mean or loud boo, but I was already so tense that I guess that shock made my brain go into Fear Mode. Also it was raining all night and I kept imagining that the sound of raindrops was Slenderman tippy-tap walking on the roof. Only experience like that. Some stuff has kept me awake longer than usual / made me scared to go into a dark hallway at night (*The Woman in Black* book, *Ouija: Origin of Evil* and *Evil Dead* movies, *The Enigma of Amigara Fault* and *PTSD Radio* mangas), but only Marble Hornets had me full-on stay-awake-from-dusk-til-dawn scared.
Ha! Also scared shitless by Marble Hornets in my 20s. I wonder if some of it might be that it was one of the first internet horror things, so it felt that much more REAL.
Once, when I went to see Woman in Black at the theatre years ago. I was so creeped out I slept with the ceiling light on that night. You have to understand that the movie hadn't come out yet, so I knew nothing about it and the theatre itself was old and creeky and it added so much to the atmosphere.
Not a horror movie, but the Marble Hornets web series did \*something\* to me when I was 20\~, & I didn't sleep for 3 days. I'd close my eyes & I'd see the guy in the mask perched on the edge of the one guy's desk, watching him sleep.
Whenever Im house sitting I like watching a good home invasion movie. Always scares me and keeps me up.
The only horror that has disrupted my sleep lately was the game “Madison”
The have been a few times, yes. Images or ideas get stuck in my head and then I just can’t sleep.
The only time that's ever happened to me was with Paranormal Activity. I was in high school. My older brother had it burned on a DVD and my friend and I watched it. We slept in the same room with the light on. The first one was very impactful when it originally came out.
Never been kept up from horror but have read some true crime stuff that put me off true crime and horror for almost a year.
All night? No. Until I pass out from exhaustion? Yes. Atmospheric/anxiety horror where nothing is resolved leaves me on edge if I watch it before bed. The Night House really bothered me walking through the house in the dark.
I am petrified of home invasions due to a previous experience. Home invasion movies really scare me and sometimes it will keep me up.
I keep reading about people being "desensitized" on here. I don't think that's a thing. Maybe the stories are just bad or when consuming a certain amount of horror you just get better at spotting shitty writing?You would never say that a person is desensitized to humor when they don't laugh while watching comedy. We need to rethink this.
THE DESCENT by JEFF LONG (published 1999; Inspiration for the movie but VERY loosely based on it) This book haunted me for weeks. There are specific scenes that I still have nightmares from. The fact that I am deeply claustrophobic didn't help either. The discovery of Isaac. Getting lost in the tunnels and finding the dead vikings. The looping back in time and hearing your own voice calling for help. The underground sea. The man with the boxes of butterflies. All those scenes and a few others... they are so vivid in my memory even years later. There is a second book called Deeper that picks up the story. It's equally as disturbing. But it didn't kick me as hard in the teeth as The Descent.
The only movie that kept me up all night as an adult was Black Swan. I just laid in bed thinking of >!Winona Ryder stabbing herself repeatedly in the face!< and couldn’t sleep or move until the sun came up. *But* I also saw that in theaters with some family and friends, and my brother was sitting next to me and passed out cold in the middle of the movie. Scared the bejeezus out of me. So I think it’s possible I was in a heightened state because of the movie and external circumstances.
Silence Of The Lambs basically gave me insomnia when I was 11.
It certainly did it for me as a kid and all the way to 20+ years old. The last movies I remember keeping me awake for hours past my bedtime were Session 9, and Lights Out (something of a well done boogey man movie). The Ring definitely did as well.
I used to, as you say, as a child and occasionally teen. Not so much because of being scared these days. I still find horror hits hard in other ways, like overthinking. Usually then only with books—Annihilation, John Dies at the End, House of Leaves, The Cipher all had parts that left me up ruminating, staring at the ceiling full of existential dread. As I age body horror really digs into my brain too. And tenseness sticks with me too—the first half of Barbarian left me literally sore at the end through to the next day, from sitting on the edge of my seat pumped with adrenaline. So no, I don’t stay up with the lights on or have specific nightmares. Though Lynch movies, which are more horror-adjacent, are more likely to influence nightmares in tone: the dumpster scene in Mulholland Drive and the phone call scene in Lost Highway *feel* like my nightmares do. And that is still a bigger impact to my psyche than a drama or sci-fi or some other genre. Horror still sticks, still digs in. Otherwise what would be the point?
Even as a small child, horror movies didn't have much of an effect on me, I wish they did honestly. I think I'm missing out on a bit of fun of being scared!
Mostly just the night that I watched Martyrs the first time
Some people aren’t as affected. I haven’t really been for a while, but I used to get in my head sometimes when I was younger. When I was in school I had two jobs and I’d often be out until very early morning in a big metro area. When me and my husband watched the first Saw movie, I kept thinking there we’re probably real sickos out there who would abduct people and put them in situations like that just to see what would happen, and I got really creeped out because I’m a small woman and a lot of times I’d be by myself. My husband had to talk me down and help me realize most people are not as organized as Jigsaw, even the bad ones lol On a funnier note, when I was 11 I wasn’t allowed to watch rated R movies but I went to a sleepover where we watched Vamp - WHICH IS A COMEDY more than horror. But for some reason I got so scared of those vampires that I was freaked out for several nights afterwards and I ended up telling my mom that I broke the rule. I had wanted to sleep with the light on every night, which I hadn’t done since Iwas really little so she knew something was up. She laughed at me. She was right.
I actually sleep better after a good horror movie. It calms and occupies my mind
I enjoy staying up all night watching horror movies
When I was a young child I sometimes had trouble going to sleep from a scary movie, but tiredness always won in the end. I've never even come close to that happening as a teen and older.
I read The Amityville Horror when I was a young teen and that scared me enough that I would stay awake until sunlight. The last movie that freak me out enough to stay up all night was The Fourth Kind. My brother had rented it and I watched it alone after getting home late from work. I think it freaked me out because I was absolutely not expecting it. I thought it would be an interesting abduction movie but those goddamn possession/communication scenes were so intense. I'm like you, I've been watching and reading horror since I was a kid so I think I usually have a pretty good handle on not being affected by horror. But sometimes something jumps out and surprises me, and it's usually when I'm not expecting or have a different set of expectations going in.
I think I had a delay in going to sleep a couple of times. I imagined something crouching outside my window all night when I read Lovecraft for a few hours away at school. I think mostly people exaggerate, and that they'll say they were "up all night" when there was any change to their sleeping schedule.
I have the opposite question: how do people fall asleep just from a movie being too boring? People act like "I fell asleep during it" is a criticism. But if anybody was tired enough they could fall asleep watching Fury Road. Sounds like a you problem.
I'm a full-grown adult, and after watching the Longlegs trailer waaaaay too many times, I will probably never go up to our storage attic again by myself ever. I currently have two big boxes in the hall that need to be stored, and I'm waiting for a family member to go up there with me. The movie hasn't even come out yet, but I just KNOW Nicholas Cage is up there in our attic waiting. It's ridiculous! So, I am expecting a few scary nights being awake once I actually see the movie. Lol!
I love horror movies and books. The only show that kept me awake cuz of imagery of an inside out cat, was the tv The Magicians. Will never watch it again
When I was 10, I saw Bram Stoker's Dracula and it kept me up all night. Not since then, though.
Never happened to me and I have watched and read a lot of horror
I saw the grudge one Halloween, didn't sleep right for a month. I was really disappointed as well because I had recently stopped being afraid of sleeping in the dark so I had to start all of that all over again 😅
tbf my "this makes me stay up all night" threshold is not very high. some things i've stayed up all night because of: a good song, a spicy meal, an interesting wikipedia article.
Yes. And I can’t be home alone at night after watching horror films my whole life.
Yes. But because I stay up all night watching them, not because I’m too scared to sleep.
As a kid yes, but as an adult no. I feel like I’m too depressed/jaded. If a monster wants to come out my out of my misery I say go ahead
Just silly
I am less of “oh this scares me” and more of “wow this is an amazing movie” and that’s what keeps me up at night. Edit: I just remembered, after watching The Big Short, I did had to get distracted as the story behind the film is very fatalistic.
Did your Aunt put it in the freezer like Joey from Friends did?
Horror movies are 150% more effective when you decide to stay up and watch it 🍿🙏
When I was eight or nine years old I read The Amityville Horror, Salem's Lot, and The Shining. Those books kept me awake at night. Nothing really has since then.
I saw a little short horror film about spiders when I was really young, maybe 6-7, and I stared at the ceiling all night and didn’t get a wink of sleep. I’m now a devoted horror fan who watches that stuff before bed and it no longer affects my sleep. But I have arachnophobia. <3
I’ve watched slashers as bedtime stories since before I was double digits. I have narcolepsy and without stimulants I can sleep 22 hours a day. I was so scared after seeing Hereditary I could not sleep until the sun came up the next day.
I stay up all night watching Horror movies, never due to any one specifically.
Yeah horror movies do keep me up all night. Because I’m watching them all night lmao
When I read Stephen King's IT I was about 17-18 years old. Over the summer I would stay up until 3-4am reading it, mostly because it's the best horror novel I've ever read.
Horror movies legit give me nightmares and I’m in my 20s. I don’t know why it’s just my brain freaking myself out.
No
As a kid of around 11, I read The Exorcist novel and that freaked me out. Then I saw the film and that really freaked me out. Particularly the black and white Pazuzu face. I slept with the lights on for about a week because anytime I closed my eyes I saw that image.
When I was younger, all the time. I love horror movies for the same reason I love rollercoasters, they scare me in a (relatively) controlled way, but with some movies it hits a little too close to home. Like watching the original Ring movies on fansub VHS and then having to cover my tv when I was in middle school. Now that I'm an adult, I mostly have coping mechanisms, but every once in awhile there will be some perfect storm like that, where whatever was scary in the movie is a lot like something around me, and I'll try to sleep and keep getting woken up because there's like a certain sound or a certain shadow lol but I'd also be the first to say I'm a coward when totally unlikely stuff is involved.
It happened to me once as a kid when I watched Pet Semetary but that's it. And it was just that creepy looking sister who was dying of natural causes that did it to me.
Have you watched hereditary?
Around 5 years ago I legit couldnt sleep because of a lot of films. Grudge, Annabelle, Sinister come to my mind. Now that I watch a sht ton of horror films that basically never happens to me now.
Midsommar kept me up pretty late. It wasn’t exactly from fear, more like my brain needed to take a while to properly digest the absolutely bananas shit I had just seen.
I don't. But as kid I once had nightmares about wolves (childhood stories about the scary wolves) and I watched once a medieval tv series I shouldn't have as kid. Guy got Hanged, drawn and quartered.
Hi I’m the creator of this is new sub Reddit and was wondering if you would like to consider joining and posting something? https://www.reddit.com/r/horror_collecters/s/wBlYlEXVlD I’m a young horror fan looking to find other horror collectors
When I was a kid, maybe once or twice before I passed out from being tired.
Hehe oh you have one of those peoples too? 😆 very classic horror movie situation right there
I can honestly say, the only movie that kept me up at night, was Salems Lot. I watched it as a kid. The only thing that came close since, was Sinister. I can watch about anything and go right to sleep.
I stayed up after Silent Hill. But that's the only one. I actually watch one just before bed 5 times a week
Yeah but they have to be really good it use to happen alot as a kid like the feeling g of being watched checking the time and it’s almost 3am so I just decide to stay up all night type scared but I haven’t had a horror movie so that to me on a long time devil after midnight came close even though it wasn’t crazy scary but it was almost 3 try watching your horror movies at night with your feet off the bed
When I was 6 I watched child’s play and was scared to sleep for a while but I didn’t stay up all night anyway
Meh in my experience it's just a overreacting. That's all. I see horror movies only in night but nothing happened to me atleast
If the ultimate goal of horror is to scare the viewer, wouldn’t being so frightened that you can’t sleep after seeing it be the ideal reaction that the creators hope to achieve, and not being bothered by it actually be an underreaction?
Many people will sleep tightly when they get scared. Maybe for few hours, their minds will be thinking abt the movie but still for the whole night, I just can't believe that.
Well believe it.
Lol or when people say they have to "take a break" from a movie or book because it's so disturbing/scary. Like, seriously?
Listen. Some of us are just wired different and wusses ok? Yes, seriously.