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.
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- 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.
By the time I was 13, I’d watched loads of 18s. Aliens, Predator, Terminator and more. My parents didn’t really believe in rating. I honestly don’t think it harmed me. My teachers probably worried about me bring this stuff into school, but unless that traumatized other kids, it’s fine. Maybe it desensitized me?
For my own kids, I judge it by the kid and movie, not the rating. If it’s a movie I don’t know, I’m read about it and rating is one of the things I’ll look at. I will a read more if it is an 18. My 14y and 9y are pretty resistant, but my 12y is sensitive like my spouse.
Late one night when I was 8 or 9, I glanced at the tv and caught the horse scene from The Cell with zero context. I spent the next fifteen years convinced it was something I had dreamed. Apparently this is the most common way people encounter this movie.
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Didn’t really mess me up but I watched Fear and Loathing when I was like 12. My friend recorded some shitty Wesley Snipes movie off Sky movies and insisted on loaning me the tape. I watched it once and can’t even remember it. But Fear and Loathing was on after it and that movie blew my mind. I ended up taking a shit load of drugs as a teenager. Probably wouldn’t have made a difference but I do wonder if that movie left me more open to trying them at the time.
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!
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.
Fire in the sky. I know little green men aren’t actually here taking people but that movie still traumatised me as a kid and I still hate aliens to this day. Just seeing a “picture” of one will give me nightmares for a few days.
Stupid I know but I can’t help how my stupid mind works.
This is exactly the movie which caused me damage too. I would be trying to sleep and this movie would keep going through my head. Every small sound became a big deal. I think it was the idea of something happening to me while I slept and I wouldn’t even know until I was taken.
Years before this me and my cousins would somehow get rentals of movies like poltergeist, pet cemetery, nightmare on elm street, etc. Out of all of them it was fire in the sky which got to me.
Now the Hypocrisy song is stuck in my head
Close Encounters of The Third Kind scared me
Anything with what are usually called grey aliens or anything that looks like them scare me. Even the kaminoans from star wars make me feel quite uncomfortable lol.
Eyes have zero business being that big.
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.
Salem’s Lot. The tapping at the window. The Master… I was way, way too young to see that
Hills have eyes (remake). Honestly still disturbing as an adult
I watched that when it came out but the scene with the father and the tree is still firmly planted in my head.
Yeah I was 12 when that came out and wow that movie went far. I remember hearing about people walking out of the theatre back then
The doll in Trilogy of Terror. I don’t remember how it traumatized me, which is probably a good thing.
Aliens, I saw it before Alien. Parasitism and wanting to escape life through death are interesting concepts. Ultimately I came to my conclusions about suffering and how consciousness repeatedly emerges in the world alone. Still haven’t found anyone who “gets it” but it feels really basic, what I believe. Maybe I’m missing something but it seems kind of childish to fear death the way people do. One of my horrible family members is very decrepit now and everyone is acting like he has to be as selfish and horrible about it as he is but I know I won’t be like that. I wouldn’t be like that, with palliative care and surrounded by loved ones. He’s ungrateful. I hate him. I hope he dies soon. He will.
