Jurassic Park for me. I had an amazing JP jumper when I was like…maybe 6. It was far too big for me but I loved dinosaurs. Naturally this meant I wanted to watch the film because…well I’m 6 and it’s got dinosaurs.
Ultimately I ended up watching it with my Mum and Dad. We got as far as the iconic T-Rex chase scene and I told them to turn it off. Didn’t go near the film for another few years.
I’ve now got my own 6 year old. There’s no scenario I could envisage where I even consider letting her watch a film as gory, tense and frightening as JP.
It’s only a mild trauma, but I couldn’t sleep after Spy Kids and Monsters, Inc and was especially scared of the Robot Kids appearing in the dark for a few years.
I think this is due to me being too young to be able to catch the plot twists in the end. So those movies to me ended with no changes and the bad guys still doing well.
- The Secret of Nimh
- Little Nemo’s Adventures in Slumberland
- All Dogs Go to Heaven
- The Brave Little Toaster
- Others like these
Some children’s movies of this era liked to weave hallucinogenically dark themes into otherwise whimsical stories. Many of them played on common childhood guilt or fear of rejection, abandonment, and loss, used merely as props or dealt with in deeply problematic ways.
I will say though they can be great for tripping and/or to lambast with a peanut gallery of friends.
Not a movie, but it really traumatized me to the point I still see it today. When I was 5 or 6 I saw some PSA during children’s programming to get people to buckle up their children in a car. Some guy was driving, with his daughter in the back. She was showing him how she had learned to play a song on the recorder (the flute). Then he had to brake and I still see the flute rammed down her throat to this day. It was effective, though, as I am known to tell my kids to not run or play with something in their mouth.
It was the kid breaking into the substation to get his frisbee that was stuck in one of the insulators that did it for me. “Jimmmmmyyyy!!!” while smoke was pouring out of his shoes.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The human sacrifice scene was wild for me as a kid. I remember thinking “How’s he going to get out of this or be rescued?” Because every cartoon showed dangerous situations but always had an out. It blew my mind that he simply didn’t survive.
The mummy scarab scene for me. Had nightmares about that happening to my family.
Also princess momonoke made me afraid to go into the woods by myself for years.
The Blob, the 80’s version. I was around 5, snuck into a room where people were watching it. The guy being dragged into the sink made me terrified of using the toilet and I developed a turbo-pissing technique to minimise time spent on the bog.
Mine is Jaws. I was around six, going to a Disney movie, saw the poster and convinced my baby sitter to watch it. Bad mistake!
Same. 30 odd years later and I still have a mild panic when I enter the sea.
The doll in Trilogy of Terror. I don’t remember how it traumatized me, which is probably a good thing.
Rising Sun, it opens with the violent rape and murder of a woman, it was rated R for a reason and we should have never been let into the theater even if it was my friends dad with us.
I think he wanted to see it and did not give a shit about what it might do to us.
I’ve now got my own 6 year old. There’s no scenario I could envisage where I even consider letting her watch a film as gory, tense and frightening as JP.
Every kid is different. My 3-year-old niece was over a few months ago.
Me: what do you want to watch? Niece: dinosaurs! Me: starts The Land Before Time Niece: no! I want to watch REAL DINOSAURS that EAT PEOPLE! Me: queues up Jurassic Park Niece: YEAH! RAWR!
Threads. We were shown it at school, about 12 or 13, told we should see it because it might happen. Didn’t sleep a full night after that until 2005.
The Legacy (1978)
Fuck knows what my dad was thinking 😅
Freddie Kruger fucked me up for years lol
Why isn’t this one higher? It was designed to fuck you up.
My mum thought I was ready for The Thing way too soon. Fast forward like 30 years and it’s right up there in my all-time favourites now.
The Thing was actually the first movie my family owned on DVD. I was so desperate to watch it and couldn’t find it on VHS, so I convinced my dad to finally buy a DVD player. He held out as long as he did because he thought DVDs would be replaced by mini-disks aaaaaannnyyyy day now.
IT. I refused to shower without another person in the room for weeks.
