Why has no one else posted after me. It is sad to be the last one to post on a thread like this. I mean it is sometimes great to have the last word in contentious opinion threads rather than threads such as this. It's like I killed that conversation dead. maybe you are all too young to remember Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as kids in the seventies (even though it was made earlier) but the child-catcher gave every kid nightmares. I just don't think the makers knew how sacry he would be too little kids, it's not as if you PG in those days. I think the only thing similar would be those kids who might have bben scared by the flying monkeys and/or the witch.
The child catcher was really really scary, they used to put that movie on every Christmas in the seventies and he still gave me shivers, third, fourth time round. So if the question is what was the first thing that scared the shit out of ya, this was it, say age 5, though The Blob (Steve McQueen)from the fifties which I must watched at 7 ended with the blob being dropped into one of the polar seas but after it says THE END, at the end, the blob reappears as a big question mark. That did freak me out - like shit it still could be about!
ETA - if nothing else you could jest with ancient people and tell them 'I bet you were scared by the child-catcher in CCBB. Lol
Dude, from one older forum member to another, I totally get where you're coming from with the child-catcher. I think it was that he appeared in a film that was happy and innocent when it was unexpected; a serious and creepy twist in the tale that probably taught us that danger is always nearby, no matter how sweet the surroundings look. I think I was 6 when I first saw it and remember being very creeped out.