Nice to know I wasn't the only one...
Wow...until I read some other user comments and threads, I thought I was the only one who was totally freaked out by this story. I remember watching the movie when I was 8 or so...I never saw the whole thing, I only watched it up to the part where Marie is in the church praying for David, and then there was a commercial break with a preview for the 11:00 news, where they were going to be doing a story about David that night. During the preview, they showed a picture of him all disfigured, which, when coupled with the creepy late-night news music at the time, scared the hell out of me. At that point I shut off the TV.
I don't remember ever having nightmares, but I do remember being afraid to walk up the stairs in the dark by myself, or going down to the basement by myself, because if I ever saw him on TV after that, the image of his face would be in my head for days. My little brother, who was only about 5 and had fallen asleep shortly after the movie came on the first time and didn't understand, would tease me all the time by saying "she's afraid that David Rothenberg's gonna come out of the washing machine," but then I remember one time, possibly after Charles was released from jail and the story made the news again, we were down in the basement with a friend, and I was telling him about the movie...he hadn't seen it, but he was so freaked out by what I was telling him that he no longer wanted to be in the basement at this point.
I don't know if I'd ever watch this again, only because of the affect it can have on you. To this day, I'm still squeamish.
I'm going to need liquor. Lots and lots of liquor.
~Christina, Grey's Anatomy