Me too. Age 11. My mom wouldn’t let me read it, but I would sneak it from her room when she was at work and then make note of what page number I was on before I put it back.
>Me too. Age 11. My mom wouldn’t let me read it, but I would sneak it from her room when she was at work and then make note of what page number I was on before I put it back.
I used to sneak King novels I specifically remember hiding The Stand and getting caught, when I was 11. I kind of skipped YA which didn't really exist - Dahl to King.
It didn't do a number on me, but it made me obsessed with Stephen King. I must have been about 10 when I read it. Then I read everything. Luckily, my mom didn't care so I got to read her entire SK library.
I read it in 3rd grade and tried to give a book report on it. My teacher stopped me and set up a parent teacher meeting... My mom was just like, "I'm sorry, all I heard was, 'he's reading'. I'm not going to stop him reading"
Oh my mom said the same thing when my second grade teacher called to complain about me reading instead of paying attention in class. "So what?" To be fair, I was miles ahead of everyone else on the reading/language track and I was BORED with the class material. (math was another story.)
That was me for language. I used to bug my parents to use my school book to make me spell the words. I would read a lot, but also be very social and play with friends outside constantly.
I did have a list, so my parents signed me up with a speech pathologist in the school so they could observe my reading/writing/speech etc.
They said in grade 3 or 4 I had a university reading/writing and vocabulary. I put more effort into my pronunciation and I was good.
Now my 8 year old daughter seems to be the same. She's a little bookworm. I entered her room one morning and she had 10 short story books on her bedside table. I asked and she said she had too much energy to sleep so she read all of them.
Same. And I was hooked. 7th grade: Pet Semetary , 8th the softball hits: Salem’s Lot, Different Seasons, Night Shift, Bachman Books, then 9th grade for the real horror shows: It, The Stand, Needful Things, The Dark Tower. - still haven’t read The Shining…
I was something like 10 when I read Pet Sematery. Summertime at the beach, staying with with my dad and some relatives.
It was about at sunset when I got to the bit where the cat, IIRC, was buried, and I felt genuinely creeped out and had to put the book down. (Pun not intentional.) I did later finish it.
Fast forward a bit. I'm 11, back home. I read Misery, which is *way* more fucked up. Sematery is just straight up horror. Misery is...*moderated* in the film version compared to the book.
So I'm thinking all along "this is really not nice. I would never, ever do this to a person." The subplot I'm really following is "Dude is being forced to write a novel against his will. How does he get out?" I'm thinking some kind of Count of Monte Cristo kind of thing.
Nope.
Thereafter, my mom hid all her Stephen King books. She was probably right. But even 11-year-old me was smart enough to know this was a book of Messed Up Things You Never Do To Anyone.
It *did*, however, make me interested in how typewriters worked. Probably the most messed up thing of all (/s). But it was fun learning about the mechanical action worked, because typewriters are pretty intricate devices in the end.
I didn’t read it until my early 30s but saw the movie in the theater when it was released and the sister upstairs always scared me. “Rachellllllll…” ugh
It's kind of a Gen X joke how we worried way too much about quicksand but I always knew that wasn't a real threat. Getting possessed by the devil was something to worry about though. That's what seeing 10 minutes of The Exorcist at 11 will do for you.
My grandparents took me to see Poltergeist. Scared me shitless. At one point, I dived out of my seat and crawled on the floor until my head hit the wall. They thought it was hilarious. I made my mom move my bed so the closet couldn't suck me in.
I’m so glad someone else remembers Silkwood. Recently I used the phrase “Silkwood shower” and then had to explain the reference. But yes, we really were given a lot of angst fuel.
Although where I lived we had a lot of swamps and wetlands and streams with deeeep mud and weird places with soggy soil that sort of sucked you in and once get waist deep so.... oh it's REAL!
Saw that movie (at least in pieces) at a slumber party when I was 11. I was in my early 30s the first time I went to Georgetown. I made my boyfriend cross the street because I just could NOT walk past the stairs from The Exorcist!
For a while I was afraid of pictures in books because I was told by an adult that demons could come through the wrong books and make me do evil things against my will. So I became afraid of pictures of things like sharks and deep sea fish.
My mom hates horror movies but LOVES movies that take place in the winter. She never seems to remember that there is some overlap in the genres.
This is the reason I watched The Thing at age 7 and it *still* gives me the willies.
The Mist movie is maybe one of the few movies that was better than the short story. Yes the short story was good but damn that movie nailed it and the horror o it. The Christian crazy in the novella and movie was scarier than the creatures.
I wish there was a director talented enough to make a film version of The Long Walk, one that would do it justice. It’s such an incredible book.
Same goes for The Running Man.
# SPOILERS IF YOU'VE NEVER READ THE LONG WALK, STOP READING
>!You have to remember you didn't know where it was going when you started reading The Long Walk. It's only just a few chapters until you realize it's a death race. It would be nearly impossible to promote without giving up the goat. I guess Squidgame advertised it in the trailer, but one of the best parts was just casually reading and finding out.
>!I'm especially fond of the Long Walk because I've recommended it to two people and both had the same reaction "They kill them?!?!?!?" The later was my sister, who texted that to me. But the former was my high school classmate, who called my parents house, had to wait until I could make it through the house to the long cord phone so I could get some privacy, only to hear him yell "They kill them?!?!"
"The Long Walk has officially been confirmed as in development. Not only is The Long Walk on its way, but Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence has been attached to helm the underrated Stephen King work."
https://screenrant.com/the-long-walk-stephen-king-adaptation-updates/
Yes. Those books have stuck with me for decades. He must have been in an incredibly dark place when he wrote them. For me it was The Long Walk and The Running Man (note: the Verhoeven movie is a masterpiece but is an entirely different story). I think The Running Man would make an excellent one season TV series - there's so much depth in the world he created. Another poster wrote why The Long Walk would be impossible to make without spoiling and I agree - that first moment when you realize what the race actually is was so intense, I remember it like 30 years later. No way film audiences wouldn't find out beforehand.
I've read Roadwork and The Long Walk damn near every year since The Bachman Books was published. They're both pretty straightforward stories, but King has a particular ability to put the reader inside the mind of a protagonist.
Man this brings back memories of Friday evenings, waiting to hear my parents come up to their bedroom, wait until they fell asleep and quietly go downstairs to turn the TV on… good times.
I remember when Night of the Living Dead was on Creature Features with the naked zombie. How did that get broadcasted on local stations? I remember the original Fright Night in high school.
It didn't even need to be horror. Six year old me had nightmares for weeks after my mom let me watch The Beastmaster - Maax tossing babies in the fire, and the humanoid pterodactyl things digesting people in their wings.
That was literally my favorite movie for several years as a kid. It's fueled my love for D&D and fantasy novels for over 30 years now. I never even cared about those babies, because I knew they weren't real, but the Winged Devourers got a pass cause they were "cool" in the end. They could at least be trusted to act in their nature and repay any perceived debts.
It’s true for me also. My parents took me to see Jaws in the theater when it came out. I was 6. A few years later I saw The Shining, followed by Raiders of the Lost Ark.
I grew up to become an underwater archaeologist who specializes in, among other things, supernatural lore. So yeah, Stephen King and other movies that I saw as a young kid definitely shaped future me.
Yep, I was the same age when I saw Jaws, I literally ran out of the theatre when the head popped out. Couldn’t swim in the ocean for 2 years after that fuck up.
I still remember seeing Jaws; in the back of the station wagon at the drive-in movies, it was a triple feature and I was supposed to be asleep by then. Scared me/ scarred me horribly!
Ooh that and the movie where the cruise ship sinks upside down? I actually watched that one again as an adult and it didn't seem so scary. What was that movie?
In hindsight I read a ton of age inappropriate material. I also knew that at the time, but I sure wasn't going to bring it up with my parents who were happy their kid found a free hobby.
Flowers in the Attic was so fucked up!
My parents always said if I wanted to read something I was old enough to read it. That said, I do remember my mom thinking I was too young to read World According to Garp. I still can't understand why. Flowers in the Attic was worse.
Tried "Christine" at age 12, didn't get through it. Read "Cycle of the Werewolf" that same year. Then read all of "IT" in one weekend when I was 13 (didn't do much else except eat and sleep). "Carrie," "Cujo," "Salem's Lot," and "The Stand" when I was in high school.
Yeah I read The Stand when I was 13 I think it was...I vividly remember thinking multiple times "wow I probably should not be reading this" but it was too good to put down.
I watched a lot of horror movies as a kid, and I'm sure that had the same effect. I was still reading Stephen King though in like 8th grade though, and yeah The Shining made me afraid of animal hedges and crawling into those cement or rubber tube things in the playground.
My dad took me to see the shining when I was 10? 11? And I when I said I liked Steven King books, that was a go to birthday, Christmas gift. Idk who you are Amy, but you hit the nail on the head with this one
I read the word “spunk” at least 100 times before I reached puberty thanks to Mr King so… yeah. Prolly not super appropriate for pre-teens.
Still one of my favorite authors from that period, IT, The Stand, Eyes of the Dragon. Good shit
Love The Tommyknockers. I was 17, and read it the week it was published. Maybe not the most highly regarded of King books, but it's still one of my favorites.
Me, too. I was babysitting the kids down the road and had nothing to do during nap time. I got a ways in and then had to stop cuz it was too scary. I didn't finish it until I was in high school and even then I only read it during the day.
Firestarter when I was 10. I also saw the movie in the theaters (and made me *really* want to be experimented on by the government so I could get cool powers.)
YA books for GenX were King, Peter Straub, and VC Andrews. I don't why people our age are bitching about the books in libraries now, when we read much worse.
My mum was teaching in Orono when he started doing his student teaching and he took over her class. She said (with some disdain) that he was supplying “some science fiction stuff” to his students. I think I was in my early teens when she told me that and Sci fi was tame compared to what I was into: Grimm’s fairy tales, Aleister Crowley, Ripley’s, ghost stories. I don’t know as ME instills an affinity for the macabre but it certainly perpetuates it.
I read The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft at age 10 while visiting the grandparents. It haunted me for over 40 years, until I was able to use my google-fu to figure out what story was bothering me for so long.
My mom read me short stories from *Night Shift* when I was...eight, I think. "Battleground" made quite the impression. After that I was second in line whenever a new book came out. It was torture waiting for her to finish them so I could get started.
I read The Stand at age 11. I immediately started collecting his books and read them all (although I can’t remember the order and how old I was when I read any of the others other than The Stand)
I had an obsession with nightmare on elm St. Most horror is just plain funny even stuff like Hostile. Only movie I had to stop because I was revolted was Serbian film. I do not recommend this to anyone.... Not even for curious sake...
\[UK\]
Watership Down (1978) is a children's book then movie with a (U) rating. This was seen as perfectly acceptable to show to kids aged 5 and above, at school, multiple times a year.
We didn't need Stephen King.
Read, don't just watch the movies, but movies are ok..
My fave was Maximum Overdrive, I became a trucker, and some of my deliveries were in Wilmington N.C..( I'm Canadian) been down to Greensboro too. Proctor & Gamble. It was fun visiting those film locales.
Not Stephen King, but I read Mommie Dearest as a kid. NO WIRE HANGERS!!!!
Edit: I do love me some Stephen King, but I started on him around high school. The perfect age for King, I think.
Firestarter at 11 was my first independent read of a Stephen King book. Saw Jaws at a drive-in at 5, and the Salem’s Lot miniseries the next year. But, in my late teens my mother explained that when I was an infant/ early toddler, she decided I wouldn’t understand the words just the rhythm of speech. So she would read aloud whatever King book she was on in a sing song voice to me.
I watched Salem's lot probably when I was about 10 and I still think it's one of the scariest horror movies I've ever seen. I tried reading IT when I was 18 but couldn't get through it, partially because of how long it takes Stephen King to describe something like the night air, and partly because it was terrifying! Oddly enough I laughed the entire way through the movies! The books that really messed up our psyches were the V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic series.
Tommyknockers really disturbed me. Not because of the story itself but from some individual perspectives coming from random characters in the books.
But then again, that's what I've always liked about his novels.
Pet Semetary did a number on me when I was a pre-teen.
Me too. Age 11. My mom wouldn’t let me read it, but I would sneak it from her room when she was at work and then make note of what page number I was on before I put it back.
>Me too. Age 11. My mom wouldn’t let me read it, but I would sneak it from her room when she was at work and then make note of what page number I was on before I put it back. I used to sneak King novels I specifically remember hiding The Stand and getting caught, when I was 11. I kind of skipped YA which didn't really exist - Dahl to King.
It didn't do a number on me, but it made me obsessed with Stephen King. I must have been about 10 when I read it. Then I read everything. Luckily, my mom didn't care so I got to read her entire SK library.
Same. Started with Four Past Midnight at 13, then I read *everything*.
I read it in 3rd grade and tried to give a book report on it. My teacher stopped me and set up a parent teacher meeting... My mom was just like, "I'm sorry, all I heard was, 'he's reading'. I'm not going to stop him reading"
Oh my mom said the same thing when my second grade teacher called to complain about me reading instead of paying attention in class. "So what?" To be fair, I was miles ahead of everyone else on the reading/language track and I was BORED with the class material. (math was another story.)
That was me for language. I used to bug my parents to use my school book to make me spell the words. I would read a lot, but also be very social and play with friends outside constantly. I did have a list, so my parents signed me up with a speech pathologist in the school so they could observe my reading/writing/speech etc. They said in grade 3 or 4 I had a university reading/writing and vocabulary. I put more effort into my pronunciation and I was good. Now my 8 year old daughter seems to be the same. She's a little bookworm. I entered her room one morning and she had 10 short story books on her bedside table. I asked and she said she had too much energy to sleep so she read all of them.
Came here to say this. I was probably around 12 or so. I was rocking the Christopher Pike books and thought I was ready. Don't regret for a second!
I remember Christopher Pike's books. I used to read R. L. Stine a lot.
You mis-misspelled Cemetery. It's Sematary.
Me, too. That ending! 😱
Me too! I was 12, and thinking about that ending STILL gets me
Wow, that was my first one and it was so upsetting and disturbing!!!
Same. And I was hooked. 7th grade: Pet Semetary , 8th the softball hits: Salem’s Lot, Different Seasons, Night Shift, Bachman Books, then 9th grade for the real horror shows: It, The Stand, Needful Things, The Dark Tower. - still haven’t read The Shining…
Saving the best for last
I was something like 10 when I read Pet Sematery. Summertime at the beach, staying with with my dad and some relatives. It was about at sunset when I got to the bit where the cat, IIRC, was buried, and I felt genuinely creeped out and had to put the book down. (Pun not intentional.) I did later finish it. Fast forward a bit. I'm 11, back home. I read Misery, which is *way* more fucked up. Sematery is just straight up horror. Misery is...*moderated* in the film version compared to the book. So I'm thinking all along "this is really not nice. I would never, ever do this to a person." The subplot I'm really following is "Dude is being forced to write a novel against his will. How does he get out?" I'm thinking some kind of Count of Monte Cristo kind of thing. Nope. Thereafter, my mom hid all her Stephen King books. She was probably right. But even 11-year-old me was smart enough to know this was a book of Messed Up Things You Never Do To Anyone. It *did*, however, make me interested in how typewriters worked. Probably the most messed up thing of all (/s). But it was fun learning about the mechanical action worked, because typewriters are pretty intricate devices in the end.
I didn’t read it until my early 30s but saw the movie in the theater when it was released and the sister upstairs always scared me. “Rachellllllll…” ugh
Same.
It's kind of a Gen X joke how we worried way too much about quicksand but I always knew that wasn't a real threat. Getting possessed by the devil was something to worry about though. That's what seeing 10 minutes of The Exorcist at 11 will do for you.
Let’s not forget about the possibility of moving into a house built on a Native burial ground.
Or piranhas! They were everywhere.
Or killer bees.
I don't know the last time you watched the movie Piranha, but I rewatched it last year. It is a fucking laugh riot. Seriously. Very funny.
I still think about piranhas in water I can't see the bottom.. Lol.
Piranhas are visual hunters. You should be more worried about them in clear water.
Lol... Ok that helps a little.
Poltergeist was enough for me. I've never seen The Exorcist, nor do I care to. Horror movies make me have terrible nightmares.
My grandparents took me to see Poltergeist. Scared me shitless. At one point, I dived out of my seat and crawled on the floor until my head hit the wall. They thought it was hilarious. I made my mom move my bed so the closet couldn't suck me in.
It was the clown in Poltergeist that got me.
For me it was the Salem’s Lot 1979 miniseries. The first time in my life I felt existential terror.
I still get the willies when I watch *that* scene.
To say nothing of growing up during the "Satanic Panic."
Possession, vampires or nuclear annihilation are my go to anxiety options.
“Silkwood“, “Wargames”, and “The Day After“ were wonderful 80s no-nukes nightmare fuel. Or I guess since we’re Gen X, they’re just great angst fuel.
I’m so glad someone else remembers Silkwood. Recently I used the phrase “Silkwood shower” and then had to explain the reference. But yes, we really were given a lot of angst fuel.
“Silkwood“, “Wargames”, and “The Day After“ were wonderful 80s no-nukes nightmare fuel. Or I guess since we’re Gen X, they’re just great angst fuel.
It was a Saturday morning cartoon thing to be taken in the quicksand. Thanks, Goodness, we weren't!!?
Although where I lived we had a lot of swamps and wetlands and streams with deeeep mud and weird places with soggy soil that sort of sucked you in and once get waist deep so.... oh it's REAL!
So true. I only saw the commercial for it and was wrecked.
Saw that movie (at least in pieces) at a slumber party when I was 11. I was in my early 30s the first time I went to Georgetown. I made my boyfriend cross the street because I just could NOT walk past the stairs from The Exorcist!
The number of my classmates who saw The Exorcist was actually alarming. My mother refused to let us see it thankfully.
A guy does die by quicksand in *The Dead Zone* (book; I can’t remember if it was included in the film), according to one of Johnny’s visions.
[удалено]
For a while I was afraid of pictures in books because I was told by an adult that demons could come through the wrong books and make me do evil things against my will. So I became afraid of pictures of things like sharks and deep sea fish.
My mom hates horror movies but LOVES movies that take place in the winter. She never seems to remember that there is some overlap in the genres. This is the reason I watched The Thing at age 7 and it *still* gives me the willies.
It was The Bachman Books. I still think about Road Work and The Long Walk all the time
THIS. Also The Mist. Was that one in the Bachman books? Those stories stayed with me omgoodness
Different anthology, but also scary as hell
The Mist movie is maybe one of the few movies that was better than the short story. Yes the short story was good but damn that movie nailed it and the horror o it. The Christian crazy in the novella and movie was scarier than the creatures.
I wish there was a director talented enough to make a film version of The Long Walk, one that would do it justice. It’s such an incredible book. Same goes for The Running Man.
# SPOILERS IF YOU'VE NEVER READ THE LONG WALK, STOP READING >!You have to remember you didn't know where it was going when you started reading The Long Walk. It's only just a few chapters until you realize it's a death race. It would be nearly impossible to promote without giving up the goat. I guess Squidgame advertised it in the trailer, but one of the best parts was just casually reading and finding out. >!I'm especially fond of the Long Walk because I've recommended it to two people and both had the same reaction "They kill them?!?!?!?" The later was my sister, who texted that to me. But the former was my high school classmate, who called my parents house, had to wait until I could make it through the house to the long cord phone so I could get some privacy, only to hear him yell "They kill them?!?!"
It's easy to see who won the long walk since it was told in first person from Garrety's perspective.
Exactly. That’s one of the reasons it would be so hard.
Wow. Just looked it up. Might have to read it now.
I do too. It would be pretty hard to make, and whoever does it would have to be a genius
Aw, I admit to liking the running man movie.
Agreed, it’s a fun action movie. It’s just not really like the book, and I’d love to see a remake more in line with King’s vision.
"The Long Walk has officially been confirmed as in development. Not only is The Long Walk on its way, but Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence has been attached to helm the underrated Stephen King work." https://screenrant.com/the-long-walk-stephen-king-adaptation-updates/
The Long Walk is such a good story (novela?). I recently reread it and it held up well.
Running man is still my all time favorite King story. I’m also still creeped out by Amityville horror looking houses.
Yes. Those books have stuck with me for decades. He must have been in an incredibly dark place when he wrote them. For me it was The Long Walk and The Running Man (note: the Verhoeven movie is a masterpiece but is an entirely different story). I think The Running Man would make an excellent one season TV series - there's so much depth in the world he created. Another poster wrote why The Long Walk would be impossible to make without spoiling and I agree - that first moment when you realize what the race actually is was so intense, I remember it like 30 years later. No way film audiences wouldn't find out beforehand.
I've read Roadwork and The Long Walk damn near every year since The Bachman Books was published. They're both pretty straightforward stories, but King has a particular ability to put the reader inside the mind of a protagonist.
The Long Walk was a bit of a shock.
Yep. Stephen King and late night horror movies on HBO.
Man this brings back memories of Friday evenings, waiting to hear my parents come up to their bedroom, wait until they fell asleep and quietly go downstairs to turn the TV on… good times.
Yes! I owe a lot of who I am to Cujo and sneaking downstairs to watch Return of the Living Dead.
I remember when Night of the Living Dead was on Creature Features with the naked zombie. How did that get broadcasted on local stations? I remember the original Fright Night in high school.
It didn't even need to be horror. Six year old me had nightmares for weeks after my mom let me watch The Beastmaster - Maax tossing babies in the fire, and the humanoid pterodactyl things digesting people in their wings.
Omg those human pterodactyl things lived in my head rent free for years.
That was literally my favorite movie for several years as a kid. It's fueled my love for D&D and fantasy novels for over 30 years now. I never even cared about those babies, because I knew they weren't real, but the Winged Devourers got a pass cause they were "cool" in the end. They could at least be trusted to act in their nature and repay any perceived debts.
I had nightmares about Barlow the vampire from Salem's Lot for YEARS! The book was scary, but the movie at 10 terrified me.
Fright Night was always on HBO. Damn good movie.
It’s true for me also. My parents took me to see Jaws in the theater when it came out. I was 6. A few years later I saw The Shining, followed by Raiders of the Lost Ark. I grew up to become an underwater archaeologist who specializes in, among other things, supernatural lore. So yeah, Stephen King and other movies that I saw as a young kid definitely shaped future me.
So you know where the Lost City of Atlantis is and what, exactly, is in the Bermuda Triangle?
The Lost City of Atlantis is the Richat Structure in the Sahara, and the Bermuda Triangle is a weak point in the nexus between worlds... /s
I’m not allowed to talk about those things.
Yep, I was the same age when I saw Jaws, I literally ran out of the theatre when the head popped out. Couldn’t swim in the ocean for 2 years after that fuck up.
I still remember seeing Jaws; in the back of the station wagon at the drive-in movies, it was a triple feature and I was supposed to be asleep by then. Scared me/ scarred me horribly! Ooh that and the movie where the cruise ship sinks upside down? I actually watched that one again as an adult and it didn't seem so scary. What was that movie?
Did you ever see "In Search of" with Leonard Nimoy? This also helped fuel the GenX imagination.
In hindsight I read a ton of age inappropriate material. I also knew that at the time, but I sure wasn't going to bring it up with my parents who were happy their kid found a free hobby.
Garage sale Flowers in the Attic series 🥲
I think all female GenXers read V.C. Andrews way too early.
Flowers in the Attic was so fucked up! My parents always said if I wanted to read something I was old enough to read it. That said, I do remember my mom thinking I was too young to read World According to Garp. I still can't understand why. Flowers in the Attic was worse.
I read Erica Jong's Fear of Flying which was extremely inappropriate for a second grader.
Damn.
A bit but I put more of the blame on V.C. Andrews
What was up with her incest obsession??
I always thought she had some shite to work through.
Yeah saw this and was like HELLOOOO, Flowers in the Attic, anyone?
Yes! I read Flowers in the Attic series and John Saul, Mary Higgins Clark ...
fucking Exorcist at age 8....
That's more like it
Omg.
"The Omen" at age 6.
Jesus wept lol. When I was eight I was reading The Hobbit.
Well if you were a millennial it would have been Goatse, so....
I read The Stand at like 11, and yeah this feels about right.
Tried "Christine" at age 12, didn't get through it. Read "Cycle of the Werewolf" that same year. Then read all of "IT" in one weekend when I was 13 (didn't do much else except eat and sleep). "Carrie," "Cujo," "Salem's Lot," and "The Stand" when I was in high school.
Reading It in a weekend is impressive
I’m rereading IT right now for the first time in probably 30 years or longer.
Cycle of the Werewolf was turned into Silver Bullet.
Yeah I read The Stand when I was 13 I think it was...I vividly remember thinking multiple times "wow I probably should not be reading this" but it was too good to put down.
I read The Stand when I was in third or fourth grade, and I *do not recommend* doing that, lol.
Carrie (the book) at 12…’Salem’s Lot miniseries soon after that.
Salem's Lot came out when I was nine and is still one of my favorite movies. I even traveled to Ferndale where it was filmed.
That, and I saw Nightmare in Elm Street when I was 8. We lived on Elm Street. I am forever and irrevocably scarred.
*One.. two.. Freddy's coming for you..*
The black and white shower scene from psycho. I was like 6 when I saw that. I'm 50, and I still use clear shower curtains.
Night Shift 11 or 12
So good!
It's still my favourite, despite all the other great stories he's (somehow) written
Those early stories were really tightly written. Had killer endings.
Read 'It' in seventh grade.
I watched a lot of horror movies as a kid, and I'm sure that had the same effect. I was still reading Stephen King though in like 8th grade though, and yeah The Shining made me afraid of animal hedges and crawling into those cement or rubber tube things in the playground.
My dad took me to see the shining when I was 10? 11? And I when I said I liked Steven King books, that was a go to birthday, Christmas gift. Idk who you are Amy, but you hit the nail on the head with this one
I read the word “spunk” at least 100 times before I reached puberty thanks to Mr King so… yeah. Prolly not super appropriate for pre-teens. Still one of my favorite authors from that period, IT, The Stand, Eyes of the Dragon. Good shit
Don't forget about the child gangbang he had at the end of "It"
I was roughly 8 when I read that book. Didn’t always understand what was going on, but I’ve hated clown ever since.
Tommyknockers at 13.
Late last night and the night before, tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on my door.
Love The Tommyknockers. I was 17, and read it the week it was published. Maybe not the most highly regarded of King books, but it's still one of my favorites.
It was Christine for me.
Me, too. I was babysitting the kids down the road and had nothing to do during nap time. I got a ways in and then had to stop cuz it was too scary. I didn't finish it until I was in high school and even then I only read it during the day.
Or saw _The Exorcist_.
I remember pieces of that from when it first came out, may have even been in the theater at a very young age…wtf
Bachman Books for me.
Firestarter when I was 10. I also saw the movie in the theaters (and made me *really* want to be experimented on by the government so I could get cool powers.) YA books for GenX were King, Peter Straub, and VC Andrews. I don't why people our age are bitching about the books in libraries now, when we read much worse.
Watched Firestarter and the original Poltergeist way too young lol. And George Carlin comedy specials.
Peter Staub wrote the disturbing Julia. That gave me nightmares for years.
Or saw, “The Shining” too young when cable first came out
Yep. The twins terrified me.
…And then the hot naked chick in the bathtub that turns into a decomposing body…so many feelings, LoL
That movie fucked me up!
Born and raised in ME. The end. 🤷♀️
King made me want to go to Maine.
My mum was teaching in Orono when he started doing his student teaching and he took over her class. She said (with some disdain) that he was supplying “some science fiction stuff” to his students. I think I was in my early teens when she told me that and Sci fi was tame compared to what I was into: Grimm’s fairy tales, Aleister Crowley, Ripley’s, ghost stories. I don’t know as ME instills an affinity for the macabre but it certainly perpetuates it.
"Ayup."
For me it was clockwork orange when I was 5.
That's got to be distressing
I read The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft at age 10 while visiting the grandparents. It haunted me for over 40 years, until I was able to use my google-fu to figure out what story was bothering me for so long.
Pet Semetary.
My mom read me short stories from *Night Shift* when I was...eight, I think. "Battleground" made quite the impression. After that I was second in line whenever a new book came out. It was torture waiting for her to finish them so I could get started.
watching the Exorcist in the cinema at 8 probably didn't help either, but she's onto something here!
That and lest we forget VC ANDREWS
Loved them so much
Amazing *and* well read?
I read Carrie the year it was released; 1974. I was eight. And I’ve been reading King ever since.
Prodigy
Cujo left a scar
Yep; “It” (which I read at 14) fucked me up for years
You are one of the few that’s actually read it. The rest of us saw it on prime time tv!!
Read Misery at 12 and IT at 15
I started reading them in seventh grade!
My first was It. In seventh grade.
I mean, one of many reasons
I read The Stand at age 11. I immediately started collecting his books and read them all (although I can’t remember the order and how old I was when I read any of the others other than The Stand)
The Stand was also my first. I actually wrote my college essay comparing Stephen King to Shakespeare (I got accepted).
My parents let me watch Creepshow with them when I was 5
I had an obsession with nightmare on elm St. Most horror is just plain funny even stuff like Hostile. Only movie I had to stop because I was revolted was Serbian film. I do not recommend this to anyone.... Not even for curious sake...
The Stand for me. Thought I was so deep.
not to mention seeing *Carrie* (KTVU in SF) and *Exorcist* (I think the same!) at 10 years old...
The Stand was and is still Amazing
"My life for you. IT IS ALL FOR YOU"!!!!! Also still do the tired old joke of that is spelled M-O-O-N.
Read Carrie at 12. First day of summer I was confirmed with the shower scene and chants of "Plug it up!"
Oof, Cujo for me.
\[UK\] Watership Down (1978) is a children's book then movie with a (U) rating. This was seen as perfectly acceptable to show to kids aged 5 and above, at school, multiple times a year. We didn't need Stephen King.
You misspelled "read the entire S. King back catalogue by the age of 15." Thank you, Constant Reader.
My dad uses to limp around the house with an axe saying Here’s Johnny. Those were the good old days
Read, don't just watch the movies, but movies are ok.. My fave was Maximum Overdrive, I became a trucker, and some of my deliveries were in Wilmington N.C..( I'm Canadian) been down to Greensboro too. Proctor & Gamble. It was fun visiting those film locales.
Yea, *that part* at the end of "It." Inattentive adults in my life also let me see The Shining when I was like 6.
Not Stephen King, but I read Mommie Dearest as a kid. NO WIRE HANGERS!!!! Edit: I do love me some Stephen King, but I started on him around high school. The perfect age for King, I think.
My mother thinks *the mother* is the victim.
Oh dear.
We didn’t just read one Stephen King book.We read them all,several times.
A Stephen King book? I read them all.
If they didn't want me to read them why were they in the school library? :)
yep... 'The Stand' is responsible for my undying suspicion that we are and have been sliding into our dystopian future since 1990.
Christine was the one for me.
Firestarter at 11 was my first independent read of a Stephen King book. Saw Jaws at a drive-in at 5, and the Salem’s Lot miniseries the next year. But, in my late teens my mother explained that when I was an infant/ early toddler, she decided I wouldn’t understand the words just the rhythm of speech. So she would read aloud whatever King book she was on in a sing song voice to me.
So very accurate
The Stand, The Talisman...all of it.
I read the stand at 14.
The Stand in my mid-teens.
I watched Salem's lot probably when I was about 10 and I still think it's one of the scariest horror movies I've ever seen. I tried reading IT when I was 18 but couldn't get through it, partially because of how long it takes Stephen King to describe something like the night air, and partly because it was terrifying! Oddly enough I laughed the entire way through the movies! The books that really messed up our psyches were the V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic series.
Who needs horror books when we would see Bambi's mom slaughtered or Atreyus' horse drowning in a swamp in our children movies?
Pet Semetary. It’s always that one.
I read all the Stephen King books and all the VC Andrew books. Truthfully the VC Andrew books were more traumatic to read.
I did a book report on Christine in the 3rd grade. Sister Clarina was not impressed.
Read IT when I was like 12.
Yeah this probably is true! I was really into Stephen King when I was 12/13.
Lmao how did they know
Yes and... but I want to know which behavior (the way they are) she's attributing to this shared trauma?
Don’t forget VC Andrews. Lol
Flowers in the Attic series was dark for sure!
..and how exactly ARE we?
I read IT while listening to the Cocktail soundtrack, to this day I find Kokomo by the Beach Boys creepy.
Tommyknockers really disturbed me. Not because of the story itself but from some individual perspectives coming from random characters in the books. But then again, that's what I've always liked about his novels.
Hell, I remember girls reading Flowers in the Attic when I was in Junior High(11 or 12)
Stephen King or Flowers in the Attic