This movie actually scared me as a child

Seriously?

You know, as weird as it may sound, what you're saying actually makes perfect sense. For a youngster of a certain age I can see where it's possible to watch this and find yourself thinking "Well, gee, if that happened to him, why not me too?"

I had a similar experience with the Twilight Zone episode "The Man In The Bottle" when I was oh probably 4 or 5 years old. The morphing scene right near the end scared the blue hell out of me. I'm not sure exactly how it came about but I knew even then who Hitler was and what evil was. That unbridled fear immediately became associated with the Twilight Zone and by extension its creator Rod Serling. By the time I was 10 I had at least come across two other episodes that I really enjoyed.

I bought the series a few years back on Blu-ray, starting with Season 2 because I knew my two favorite episodes were produced during that season. So I'm watching and watching - everything was wonderful. Lo and b'hold comes the ending of "The Man In The Bottle" - the morphing scene I hadn't seen for years. I felt a little chill go down my back I must admit, but other than that I couldn't do anything but burst out laughing.

So yeah, I understand exactly what you're saying. 