Oh, the things that terrified me in my impressionable youth… such as these bastards, the YEP YEP aliens of Sesame Street. They were visitors from another world who had come to earth to sound out words like “tel-e-phone” and “com-pu-ter” as part of their plan to take over the world by SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF SMALL CHILDREN. I’m not sure why they scared me so much, but it probably has something to do with the fact that they always invaded showed up when nobody was home, coming through the window while mindlessly droning, “Yep! Yep!”. Thanks a lot for the nightmares, Jim Henson!

For more Sesame Street fun and TERROR on YouTube, check out this enormous list of links from foldedspace.org.

BILLY DRAGO. After I saw his weaselly, creepy portrayal of hitman Frank Nitti in The Untouchables, I was freaked out for days weeks months …well, forever, I guess. Even the unforgettable revenge scene where Costner’s Eliot Ness tosses Nitti off of the roof in a blurry, blue-screen effects shot (see also: Alan Rickman’s similar ending in Die Hard, and many other classic bluescreen badguy falls) couldn’t wipe the specter of that Connery-killing crazyman from my mind.

Drago proved he’s still got his terrifying chops in the recent remake of The Hills Have Eyes - although his appearance was brief, his needle-nosed, cavernous, hollow-cheeked, spooky mug is un-missable as the bearded hill person who loves both the taste of human flesh and sprinting after his victims while shrieking (in a trenchcoat, in the desert).

CALIBOS! This demonic (semi-fictional) sonovagoddess (Thetis, patron goddess of the sea, and mother of Achilles, to be precise) was played by Neil McCarthy, with more than a little Harryhausen stop-motion magic, in the 1981 film Clash of the Titans. I loved that movie the most, but Calibos’ twitching clay tail and sourpuss face scared the bejeezus out of me. Worse than Medusa’s stony visage, f’reals. More recently, he’s shown up in a few episodes of Wonder Showzen as Rad Mark, for no apparent reason. He will take your soul.

SHARKS. Even though I lived minutes away from the shores of Lake Huron, which is way more likely to contain toxic chemicals, human feces and Zebra mussels than any sort of man-eating black-eyed fish, every time I went in that water I felt like a goner. I don’t even remember watching Jaws, but I didn’t need to see it to know the truth: Sharks are just plain scary, man.

Michael Jackson’s THRILLER. My older sister was a huge MJ fan (she had the puffy stickers and everything), and she had a bunch of his albums. I can’t even remember if I had ever seen the video or not - and I’m not sure how I would have, in our cable-less house - but just listening to that damn song would send me hiding under the nearest bed. The worst is when my sister and our MJ-loving babysitter would torture me by playing it over and over… there was no escape from the sonorous tones of Vincent Price, the pulsating Quincy Jones beat (that beat could make the DEAD RISE), the howling wolf/shrieking wind sound effects - it was all much, much too much for young Sluggo.