h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm currently writing about monsters in children's literature - Jabberwockys and Wild Things etc and so what I'd like to know is from books, films or your own imagination, what monsters scared you as a child?

Because I am shortsighted when I was younger I used to lie in bed and be able to *see* things in the mess of my room, faces and the such like, I often used to get up and move the offending items so the faces would dissapear

Mel

I went through a big period in my adolescence where I saw faces, animal, etc in EVERYTHING... Nice to start with but quite tiring after a while. It just is a gentle background awareness now.

*completely* off-topic, sorry!

Af

Like looking for cloud pictures!

Mel

I had nightmares for years about the giant man-eating whale from Pinocchio.

Of course, I was also afraid my canopy bed would turn into a giant clam and clamp down on me in the middle of the night....


Mikey

I was always afraid werewolves would come in my window and eat me. That was the most concrete of my fears. What frightened me most was dark places, where I could never be entirely sure what was or wasn't there.

When I was a child I sometimes stayed with my Grandmother. On those occasions I would sleep in a big old iron bed. It was soooooo old that I was convinced that several generations must have died in it. It was sooooooo big that I felt that I needed Climbing tackle to get into it. And underneath there was a box. I was convinced that there was a panther in the box.

Did I say sleep? I don't think so.

PP

When I first stayed with my aunt, aged about 5, she had put one of those Sheppard prints of a charging elephant at the end of the bed I attempted sleep in. Uhuhuhuhuhuhur.

Doesn't scare me now, not as much as her taste in art !

Yes, strange empty bedrooms and junk rooms are the scariest things when you're young, I can vouch for that. My Grandma had a spare room full of old furniture and it scared me to bits..
Actual stories and representations of monsters aren't as scary as empty rooms and a vivid imagination.

To change the thread slightly:
Anybody have any favourite (non-scary) monsters from their childhood?

do the puppets in Sesame Street count? because i always thought they were incredibly groovy, i still do! i just love Elmo!

Ironically, considering my current nickname, I was always scared of Sam the Eagle in the muppets. Perhaps that's part of the reason for my abhorrence of American curtural, political and economic imperialism.

DG

The family of aliens from Sesame Street.

there were aliens in Sesame Street?

Numerous things in Dr Who - I was definitely a behind the sofa kid...

Yes, there were aliens. And I meant that as ones that I liked, not was afraid of.

The robot (supposed to be a friendly one) in the TV series Lost In Space scared me as a child. So did Walt Disney's Pinnochio for some reason but the most terrifying character by far was the Childcather in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The similar Pied Piper was almost too scary to even think about.
From literature, Shelob the huge spider, in Tolkien's Lord of The Rings and also the barrow wight from the Barrow Downs were pretty scary for me.

Scary Monsters for me were the daleks from Doctor Who - real nightmare material and The white witch from the Narnia series. The non scary monsters I guess weren't so memorable.

King Kong peering in through my bedroom window, just like in the film.

It's interesting to note that monsters in childrens' literature tend to be adults. Take Roald Dahl, for instance. In James and the Giant Peach, the two aunts are the twisted and nasty enemies of all that is good, and the mutated insects - normally the stuff of 50s B-movie horror - are the 'good guys'.
There's also Harry Potter. Although there are monsters, there is, as far as I can recall, always a human face behind the evil. Perhaps the learning of magic could be interpreted as metaphor adolescence, learning the way of the world, and learning that not all practitioners of magic - or adults - are trustworthy...


argh, it's the topic drift monster

DG

Most things I was scared of then, I'm still scared of. Faces in the night. I'm terrified but a compulsive reader of ghost stories, which does not help. Disembodied heads are the worst... ych. The 'Bogey Man' who lived in the bogey holes above the stairs. I had an ET poster which I loved, but at night I used to think it was breathing. The top of the stairs, in the dark.
I have a solution to monsters under the bed, though. I'm in a cabin bed which is 2 feet under the ceiling, and the monsters have nowhere to hide and don't know where I am.