Benjanime Scared Stupid III

Greetings, one and all, today I'll be posting a third and final installment to a series that I like to call "Scared Stupid" in which I reminisce and describe certain moments in my past that sent a chill down my spine, but look back on as cheesy scenarios of my childhood.





1. Garfield: His Nine Lives - Lab Animal (1988)

This was from a rather unusual and rarely found Garfield special in which Garfield explains the stories of his nine lives. But what comes out of them are different animated portrayals. Life number seven shows the orange cat as an experiment that escapes a lab room after being injected by a substance that transforms him into a dog. After a daring escape into the wilderness, the transformation begins, and he joins in with a crowd of search dogs. Garfield explains that this event caused his fear of the vet.




2. Runaway Brain (1995)

Originally as a theatrical short for A Goofy Movie, this was a short Mickey Mouse cartoon in which Mickey needs to make quick money for a Hawaiian vacation, leading him to go to a brain transplant facility in which his brain is swapped for a huge and repulsive looking version of Pete. The middle of this short is composed of Pete taking over Mickey's body and running around town while giving chase to Minnie, while Mickey, in Pete's body, takes chase and tries to protect her. The short sounded creative for it's time, but dang, how maniacal Mickey looks!




3. Confronting Neff from Altered Beast (1989)

Neff was the recurring boss that you had to face in this game, as he would take the form of different monsters to test your skills in rescuing Zeus' daughter from his clutches. But despite the age I was at the time of playing the Sega Genesis port, I always got a tad scared with Neff's digitized line "WELCOME TO YOUR DOOM!", so I'd always sit a few inches back from my television while beating him.



Of course as time went on, I pretty much grew to ignore it even though I still pretty much stink at the game.


4. The introduction sequence to Jurassic Park for the Sega Genesis (1994)

It wasn't very common that a 16-bit video game could scare the daylights out of you as a kid, but I assure you that any child that was around eight years old or under that played this game was terrified of playing the game at night for the sole reason of the intro, in which you see a scene recreated from the film when the Tyrannosaurus Rex spots the Jurassic Park jeep.



The pitch black sky as a thunder effect happens with the T-Rex moving forward  just made me want to turn off the system altogether. But as luck had it, I could skip over it and I played the game afterward.


5. The roach scene from "They're creeping up on you" from Creepshow



As the 90's were coming to a close, I was already in my teen years, and after years of waiting I decided to watch the weird, if not campy Stephen King/George A. Romero movie, Creepshow. My parents had owned the original VHS since I was a toddler, and my older sister was into it too, so I wanted to see what made this movie so good. Being the age I was at the time, I scoffed at the cheesy dialogue and effects here and there, and the comic book panel effects to me were nothing special, as I had no idea at the time that the movie was inspired by classic horror comics from the 50s. So there were some creepy tidbits here and there, until I got to the final chapter, which involves a hygienist with a trashy mouth and a hatred for bugs.

The sheer amount of disgusting scenery with all of the cockroaches crawling around didn't just give me the willies, but I had a phase of having a phobia of any huge insects that I thought I'd find around my house. Heck, I was even left with a nightmare or two involving them on my skin. Nowadays I don't have much of a fear of them, seeing how they're not common where I live now.


Well guys that about wraps things up. I hope you enjoyed my little article trilogy of being spooked during my younger years. Sorry I didn't have more, but everything I listed pretty much sums up what I can remember of what was once scary to me, but now are only things that are worth scoffing at. 'Til then, see you next article!