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Terrifying films can leave viewers with life-long fears, says an academic. Professor Joanne Cantor questioned hundreds of adults and found that women who have seen Psycho are often frightened to go into the shower, while the threat-laden soundtrack of Jaws can make men tremble.
It, the 1986 film based on a Stephen King novel, shows a clown attacking children in the bathroom, after coming in through the toilet or shower drain.
Professor Cantor, of Wisconsin University in the U.S., told BBC Focus magazine: 'It produced extended nightmares, and many children avoided the bathroom after that. For many of these children, fear of clowns extended into adulthood.'
The professor found the five most frightening films, not ranked in order, were Jaws, Psycho, It, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Poltergeist.
In Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock injected terror into the most benign of places - the shower.
The professor, a world expert on the psychology of films, said: 'Hitchcock took a normal activity that most people do daily and infused it with terror, by showing a totally unanticipated attack in blood horror accompanied by intense music.
'Many women in my studies who saw that movie are uncomfortable in the shower to this day.'
The 1984 'slasher movie', A Nightmare on Elm Street, resulted in many sleepless nights, said professor Cantor.
'This film provided the quintessential recipe for insomnia because the bloodthirsty villain, Freddy Krueger, could only attack you in your dreams,' she said. 'So your only defence against him was to stay awake - and that's what many reported doing.'
Some films frighten some age groups more than others.
Children, for instance, tend to be freaked out by storylines in which humans metamorphose into werewolves or other animals. Adults, however, are much more concerned by the threat posed by aliens, with the Sigourney Weaver blockbuster Alien leading to many a restless night's sleep.
The professor said: 'Even as adults, many people can reject the possibility of aliens as totally out of hand.
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